A Novel Approach

Yay! Finally I've finished editing the 3rd draft of my manuscript! It's down to about 75,300 words now, so have dropped a fair chunk (was 81,000) out of the book. There are some bits I would have liked to have kept in, or expanded on, but I think I need to listen to my publisher on this (being my first book and all) and keep the work count lower. I've clearly got some material that could be used as "Bonus material" on the website once the book is released, so maybe have to think about that in the future. Beta Readers I'm still looking for beta readers and have just put a post on GoodReads in their Beta Readers groups to see if anyone is interested. Would be good to have someone other than a friend read it, they would be much more likely to give me honest feedback/criticism. If you're reading this and want to read the 3rd draft, get in touch at my website . Once I've had a little feedback, it's off to the editors for their review and the...

A huge thanks to my publisher Rowanvale Books and Alex Paise for the cover design that is ready for my novel, due for release sometime in the middle of 2015 (as long as I get my edits done before XMas!). I just need to finish my second round of edits and rewrites, work out some Blurb text for the back cover and get this off to the editors! If you're interested in being a BETA reader, please use the contact form and then I'll randomly pick someone to get a copy of the manuscript for feedback soon. Ah yes, the book title. You can see now that it is: Benjamin Sorrow: One for Sorrow So the sub-title says something doesn't it?

I'm not enjoying the editing process as much as I did the writing process, but it's all new so still exciting in its own way. My wife has read my first edit and added her own comments, suggestions and feedback. It was certainly a worthwhile exercise, as it highlighted a thinking issue (of mine) that I hadn't really thought about before (pun intended?). There are things I've written about in the manuscript that I assume the reader knows about, purely because "I" know about it and hadn't written it down for them to consume yet. These aren't major things, but it's just a thing I needed to learn about my writing style. Some inconsistencies need to be addressed, apparently my tense is a little here and there. So I'm now trying to find time to go through all my wife's notes and begin the second edit proper. I've got the afternoon off work tomorrow (catching up on time owed from working at the weekend) to progress as much as I can. Once ...

Spoiler Alert - We had a great holiday! A couple of weeks ago the family and I were on holiday out Great Yarmouth way, heading for a day boating on the river. Both kids were in the back of the car, one asleep (3 months old) and the other gagging to get on to the boat (2 years old). We were travelling along the A149, a fairly unremarkable road, not overly busy. Up ahead there was a triangle junction on my left, with about five or six cars between it and me in front of me. There were a handful of cars, maybe four or five at the junction waiting to merge onto the A149. Boom, a small Toyota (or similar make) was shunted from behind by a small grey (not brown!) car that had not seen the car in front yield for traffic. The blue car was forced into the road and managed to roll to a stop, half on-half off the road in a junction that immediately followed the junction they had been pushed out of. Now, like I said, there were five or six cars in front of me that SAW the accident and carri...

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...