A Novel Approach

Well, made it to London and the Cineworld O2 last night for the UK backers premier of Wish I Was Here . Firstly I just need to say, GO SEE THIS FILM !  It opens across the UK next Friday, 20th September. I, and I'm sure all the other 46,520 backers , are proud and privileged to have been a part of this whole experience. I wanted to take lots of pictures of Zach as he did the Q&A at the end of the film, but didn't. Why didn't I?  Two reasons. Reason 1 I have a crap camera on my phone and sitting at the back of a 700 seat cinema screen gave no chance of taking any decent pics. I got one of the title page with the hashtag #WishIWasHere , but that's it. Reason 2 I realised that we spend far too much time looking through the screen of a camera or view finder instead of enjoying the moment. Actually, there is a part of the film that talks about epiphanies and I think I actually had one when Zach came out at the end of the screening. Yes, I was there and I c...

I had plenty of spare time this weekend, around mowing the lawns, walking the dog and catching up with my old buddy (see below), to edit the first draft. It didn't take as long as I thought it would, which does worry me a little. This first edit was purely to pick out the major grammar errors (missing , or . a the end of dialogue mostly), check the continuity (may still have issues with references to the time of day) of events, make sure the spelling of character and place names are correct and remove a couple of chapters that aren't really needed. I had done quite a bit of "editing" as I was going, which is maybe why I didn't feel the need to rip this draft apart too much. Something to remember for next time perhaps? I could have spent more time writing the draft than editing it and left the editing to the "editing phase". What do I know, it's a whole new experience! The word could started off at 81,371 and after I'd finished this edit, it...

Well, the concept art for the cover has been selected and is now with the designer to polish and produce the final cover! Am very excited to see this in all it's glory and as soon as it has been finished I'll post it for you to see. Or maybe I'll keep it secret. Maybe I'll post it ... Editing The editing is coming along steadily. I'm re-reading the book as I go which is reminding me of things I introduced months and months ago that need to be removed, polished, burned and buried. It's giving me an insight as to what you guys will read and my red pen is getting a good work out. Additional material I've already cut a couple of chapters of exposition out that aren't really necessary for the book, but they were useful bits of information. I may build a Wiki of sorts on the website for some of this, as it might be of interest for those that actually like the novel (I hope there's at least one person) and want to know more about the lore and hi...