The Second Fantasy Novel

9/11/12

Yet again I am not working. I am doing a lot but interest for me is more in trying to write a better novel than the first one. Not difficult you might say. Bah! (As Naall would say.)

I have story lines for many more. But what of the first I hear you ask. It stopped any activity when I started my last job and not much before that as I was in Oz getting a son married off. I still have no artwork and have not yet found someone to edit it. I might yet just publish when I get a cover. Hang the grammar and all that an editor might add. If anyone likes it I’ll get it edited. Maybe the first version with all the errors will become a collectors’ item.

There is a write-a-novel-in-a-month thing going on at the moment. I won’t manage that. The mechanics of the writing is different this time. I don’t know how it ends but I know where I am going. I have done much more of the story at a higher level and have now decided to start up the writing rather than dream for years, which is what happened for the first book. This might be faster, at least to a readable story…no, just say ‘story’ no adjective.

I’ll try and keep a diary here as the process might yet be interesting. It might even help me.

23/11/12

I rushed to get something out and re-read a few days later. It is horrible. I have edited and re-written the first prologue of the first book many, many, many times. I wonder that this will suffer the same fate. However I have resolved to push on. This will make the book production a very different affair to the previous one. I have dreamt in outline many pages. I find myself impatient to re-play them many times. I need to get it ‘on paper so I’m going to write as often as I can…let’s see when the next diary entry occurs!

26/12/12

Boxing day and some dead time before people come round. A chance to re-read and revise. This is a continual mode for me. I can write something, but there is a lot wrong with it. It never flows, I repeat words close to each other, I have detail still only in my head that the reader needs. So I revise. When I read again, the situation seems little different. I am also driven for economy of words so that I do not drag on – get enough out there for the story but do not indulge. Let the reader indulge with what he/she imagines when needed. There is a balance between conflicting needs. I also do need to develop the relationships and characters. Both the readers and I need to have a hand in knowing what the characters will do from their own motivations and from their group interactions.

It is still mighty difficult to get what goes on in my mind on to paper but with less dreaming I can craft more on the page. So the mechanism is a little easier. I still have the problem that I race off and can’t remember it all.

Here are the chapters (not much on the headline date)

http://www.chrisrick.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/chapter_1.htm