Editing a Novel (Part Two)

While this is part of my collection of posts relating to the popular choices in my recent poll, it's also, I admit, a rather overdue post that I've been promising to do for a while. A follow-up to my post Editing a Novel (Part One) and loosely related to Anatomy of a Night Out vs. Editing a Novel, this is a fairly accurate account of how I edit my work.

Warning: enormous post ahead.

It bears mentioning that my editing process has evolved a great deal since I first started writing novels. I was not quite sixteen when I first sent query letters out about a project I'd written (needless to say, my queries and sample chapters were politely rejected because that book, while not quite tripe, was not very good), but I was about thirteen or fourteen when I finished my first novel, a 70,000-word epic fantasy called The Seventh Saviour. Believe it or not, I still have spiral-bound copies of it, mostly because I'm sentimental like that. When it doesn't make me cringe, it makes me laugh at some of the crap I came up with and occasionally, very occasionally, think 'oh, that's quite a nice line there' or 'hey, good paragraph'. 

Before the age of submissions, I didn't bother to edit my work. This was because I wrote it for my own pleasure, purely, and I never had the slightest expectation of ever having this stuff published. So I'd write a book, put it aside, and rush straight on to the next one. Often, I started many a novel and never finished it. In my entire life, I must have written about twelve entire novels, ranging between 70,000 and 160,000 words, and started or written large chunks of about fifty others. And no, I'm not actually exaggerating. Those figures come from counting the documents filed neatly on my laptop, along with estimating as to all the files and spiral-bound copies I've lost through one careless mistake or another. (I still have a strong sense of regret about the loss of a nearly-finished novel I wrote at the age of fourteen. I'm sure it was lousy, but I still love its characters and story, even if it did owe an embarrassing amount to Sleepers and The Godfather.)

Anyway, that rambling introduction aside, my point is: my editing process didn't really exist as such when I was sixteen and first sending out my query letters. You might marvel at my arrogance, thinking that anything written at the age of sixteen could have been worth publishing. But although I wasn't good enough and didn't know enough, I really think age has nothing to do with how good a writer you are.

In describing my editing process, therefore, I'm going to focus almost entirely on ECHOES, which is the last project I've edited and also the first I edited extensively.

If you've read my post about my 'first drafts', you'll know that I don't really have first drafts, at least not in the strictest sense of the word. When I've written a few pages, or a chapter, I always go back to fix sentences or flesh something out or whatever takes my fancy. I've got serious OCD when it comes to writing, so if I don't feel a chapter's quite right (for now), I can't move on to the next one.

But, once I had the completed 'first draft' of ECHOES (going by the above definition whereby a lot of it had already been tweaked along the way), this is how I edited it:

   1. While out shopping for food, I stopped off in the stationery aisle and bought the following:

• a packet of fifteen coloured gel pens
• a notebook for world-building, character and plot notes as well as for tracking submissions and queries
• a yellow-papered notepad
• and, when back on campus (this was this February), I bought some printing credit too.

   
   2. I made a list of all the Big edits that needed to be made. These things include adding entire scenes, or subplots, or changing a character's character, and so forth. These were things that might have struck me while writing my 'first draft', or while thinking about the book late at night, and I just didn't have the time or energy to make the changes at the time. Two of the things on my list, for example, were 'weave Esmeralda in through the book' and 'rewrite scenes from Amarra's POV': the former involved incorporating an entire, though small, subplot into the narrative while the latter meant focusing closely on a few scenes/letters that were written from the point of view of a character who wasn't my narrator.

   3. I put aside everything except my list and the notebook and started reading through the entire manuscript on the laptop, chapter by chapter. While doing so, I edited: I rewrote entire paragraphs and sometimes chapters, I incorporated the above subplot, I worked on the above character's voice, I cut out unnecessary words that struck me, and, the biggest change of all, I changed my opening chapter about three times.

While doing this, I also simultaneously made character notes. I didn't make enough, for which I'm sorry because I'll now have to go through it again and make more. These notes include noting down your characters' hair and eye colours, their tastes, etc. You'll need this if you're writing a sequel or trilogy or series, as ECHOES is supposed to be. You don't want to search the manuscript every time you wanted to be reminded of a minor character's eye colour.

This was a brutal stage of the process for me, mostly because big changes had to be made, and it's difficult to muster the strength to make such changes when it means so much more work and slicing into your newborn. But it almost always makes the book better, so bear with it.

   4. Once I had gone through the entire manuscript this way (in the course of which I managed to cut my ridiculous word count of 139,000 - far too long for anything remotely classified as young adult fiction - to 128,000, which just goes to show how much of a first draft involves unnecessary uses of 'very', 'suddenly' and other extraneous sentences, clauses and words that you'll feel bogged down by as you read back through it), I printed it off. Let me tell you, that cost me, printing off 450 flipping pages. 

   5. Armed with my shiny new materials (and it's amazing how professional and cool those shiny new materials will make you feel) and my whopping whale-sized manuscript, I sat down, with Steve, and got to work. 

Steve was only up in Lancaster with me for a few days, so we couldn't go through the entire manuscript this way, but we managed to edit the first few chapters thus: I would sit down with different coloured pens and read carefully through a chapter. I would circle, underline or make notes next to any sentences that needed changing, words that needed cutting, mistakes, or typos. Then I would hand the chapter over to Steve, who would go through it with a pencil and make his own notes and mark out anything that struck him as unwieldy, awkward, not clear enough, or unnecessary.

After Steve left, we did this largely by email, but I also went through the manuscript by myself. I can't stress enough the importance of having someone else read your work before you consider sending it out anywhere: someone you trust, who will be honest but not cruel, and who, preferably, is an avid reader and knows what makes a good book and story. Steve is thankfully all three, and though I think he's biased, he is one of the reasons I managed to a) finish ECHOES and b) make it worthy of being rejected, yes, but also of having three very, very good agents read some of it and then ask to see more. So far. 

I owe Steve for that, and for being exceedingly patient whenever I went into a tizzy.

   6. I'm listing this as a separate step, though #5 and #6 are interwoven. Each time I finished editing a chapter on paper, I would get on the laptop and make the changes on screen. I did it this way so that each change would be fresh in my mind, rather than wait until I'd done the entire manuscript before starting over.

   7. Once I had finished #6, making the changes to the final chapter, I would have very nearly been finished had it not been for an email from an agent who had read 30 pages and then, politely, passed. He told me the plot felt too scattered. And while I have to say that you shouldn't make changes just because one person tells you they feel this way (because, after all, everyone will have different opinions and it's up to you to be sensible and humble about what you listen to and what you respectfully decide you aren't going to change), I made changes because the agent had made a good point. I had also felt that the opening tried to cram too much in and in too varied a form. So I rewrote the opening. More editing.

   8. And finally, what was more or less the last stage of my process. The final proofread. This might not be necessary for other writers, depending on how thoroughly they did their earlier edits and with how sharp an eye. But I change little things so often (a sentence there, a paragraph here, correcting a mistake) that I often don't note down every change. So, to be sure I hadn't made any mistakes while editing (because when rewriting a sentence, you can as easily throw in a typo as you might in writing that sentence in the first place), I went through the manuscript again.

This time, I resisted the urge to change much. As I mentioned before, I have terrible OCD about manuscripts, which I hope the rest of you are spared. If sentences don't align properly on the screen, if words don't look right, I feel that they're bad writing and must be changed. So I will often add unnecessary words or cut out words just to make a sentence look better.

So this is what I tried to resist and succeeded. Mostly. I caught a few more typos, tweaked a few more sentences that felt awkward, and stopped.

Phew. Done.

Final word count: just under 125,000. Still long for a YA, and indeed for a debut novel of any genre except epic fantasy or sci-fi, but it couldn't be helped.



There is such a thing as too much editing. It's what happens when you keep tweaking, and changing, and checking a manuscript, either because you're afraid of it being finished because that means having to put it out there, or because you're a compulsive perfectionist. While no manuscript being sent out into the world is ever going to be perfect, I really believe that there comes a point when it truly is the best you can make it. And that's when you should stop, take a deep breath, and send it out if that's what you want to do with it, because from this point on, I think only someone who knows how they're going to market it (i.e. an agent or editor) can make it any better or more polished. There's little more you can do alone.

(Or so I tell myself. But I daresay my manuscript is nowhere near as good as it needs to be.)

Poll Results

Just realized I should probably post the poll results. Here they are, as best I could copy them in. My actual post for today will be up in a bit.

What would you most like me to write a post about next? more about how I write and/or edit a novel	4 (18%)
an extract from one of my books	6 (27%)
the craz-y university life	1 (4%)
a conversation with my characters	3 (13%)
books/movies	1 (4%)
a childhood anecdote involving an elephant	5 (22%)
how I name characters	2 (9%)

Votes so far: 22
Poll closed

An Elephant Anecdote (a.k.a My First Story)

To anyone who missed it yesterday, I posted the winning post in the poll: an extract from one of my novels. It's the opening to TEA WITH DEATH, DESIRE AND RAGE and I would love to know what people think of it, whether you've got any suggestions to make it better, etc.

And, as I promised in said post, because it won by such a close margin, I thought I'd post the other popular ones over the next few days. So today we have the runner-up: a childhood anecdote involving an elephant, an anecdote which, incidentally, has enormous writerly bearing as the event in question led to my writing my very first story ever.

I was four. And yes, the story is hilarious and awful looking back on it now, but we'll come to that in a bit.

The first thing I should mention is that my father owns a coffee estate a few hours from Bangalore, in a place called Coorg where, actually, most of TEA WITH DEATH, DESIRE AND RAGE is set. This place is surrounded by forest, a forest full of the loveliest things, like tigers, wild elephants, and deer. And not the fat little deer you see in England, either. Proper slender, spotted Bambi-like deer with their gorgeous brown eyes.


Anyway, we must have been staying on the estate for a bit, as we often did. On one of our little trips into the forest to see if we could spot some game, we happened across a rather large elephant. And, let's face it, when you're four, even the smaller elephants are pretty darn huge. We were in my father's white Jeep, I think, and if there's one thing wild animals don't like, it's bright white things (it's strange to them, and so, a threat). So the elephant, no doubt protecting a calf hidden somewhere in the trees, chased us.

You wouldn't think they can run fast, but holy cow, they can. Fortunately, my dad has excellent reflexes, and he jammed the accelerator the moment he saw her start to move. She stopped chasing us after about thirty seconds. Which doesn't seem long, but if you're sitting in an open Jeep and watching an elephant bear down on you, thirty seconds is a long, long time. 

Being four, my memory of this incident is slightly blurred, especially since I get confused between this time and the other few times we've been chased by elephants.

The point of this, however, is that when we went back to the house that night, I sat down and decided to write a story about it. I think it ran something along the lines of 'we were chasd by an elefit and I was sked'. It was, dear readers, the moment the writer in me awoke, electrocuted by drama and nostalgia. It was my very first story, and I think my dad still has it, kept safe and folded in his desk drawer in his estate study. It's, quite frankly, somewhat embarrassing for me to look at. 


I think I'm a better writer these days. But, hey, we have to start somewhere, don't we?




*I can't remember who took each of the photos, but they're all from various times we've been to the forest/estate. And yes, the elephant is real. No, it's not the one(s) that chased us.

Winner of the Poll: an Extract

So today, as promised, I write up the post that won the poll. It was 'an extract from one of my books', by a slim margin of one vote, followed closely by 'more about how I write and/or edit a novel' and 'a childhood anecdote involving an elephant', with the others not trailing far behind. I've decided, therefore, to write up each of the other posts that were popular over the next week. Today's, however, will be the winner.

Thank you to everyone who voted!

I thought about this extract a lot, and found myself torn for a while: should I post something from ECHOES, which is the novel currently out on submission? Or should I post something from TEA WITH DEATH, DESIRE AND RAGE, which is brand new, three chapters in, and may or may not end up being finished (depending on how the plot unwinds itself and my enthusiasm for it)?

In the end, I decided on the latter. I'm going to be superstitious about this; while ECHOES is being considered by agents, I'll keep quiet about it, so as not to jinx it. So, here we go, a small section from TEA:

----------

I sat down to tea with Death, Desire and Rage. My teaspoon clinked softly against my cup as I stirred sugar into my camomile. I gazed each one of them in the eye, in turn. “Do you know,” I said, “I think this might be our last tea together?”

They started visibly. At least, Desire and Rage did, the former spilling her tea on her fingers, the latter dropping his spoon with a resounding clang. Dearest Death only raised his eyebrows slightly. He must have guessed this was coming. There was very little he missed. I opened my mouth to speak before they could ask questions. I already knew the questions they’d ask; Rage’s first word would be “why?”

As his lips formed the first syllable, I forestalled him. “I think it’s time,” I offered, holding the teacup very tightly between my hands. “Twenty years of drinking tea is enough.”

There was brief silence. It was Rage, predictably, who broke the silence, with an even more predictable reply.

“Does this mean you’re switching to coffee?”

I can imagine you laughing, shaking your head. Yes, he really did say that.

That was earlier this afternoon. Already, I feel a chill in the air, so unlike the monsoon, and it seems to creep towards me, enfolding me. It’s drawing very close, the end of this life.

It was twenty years ago that you went away. It was the day that, as Mary so aptly put it not so long ago, I “shut up shop and went off to sleep”. She was so angry when she said that. I had never seen her so angry. I thought she would push me right down the front steps, wheelchair and all. But she only stared at me, her mouth pressed into a thin, furious line. Then, when I simply looked back at her, steadily and no doubt with maddening calm, she made an angry sound in her throat and released my chair. She walked to the door.

“Do what you want then, Layla,” she said, somewhat tiredly, “You know where to find me if you ever decide to grow up.”

I haven’t seen her since. She hasn’t come back to the old house. I watched her go from the far window, because I didn’t want her to see me. I didn’t want her to see that it was a struggle for me not to cry. As her car, a silver Santro, vanished beyond the bend, I turned away. I wheeled myself into the next room and poured tea.

“Layla and her tea-parties!” Mary would huff when we were children, her arms crossed as she watched me pour my dolls tea in pretty china cups. I think she was a little jealous that I spent so much time with them, though she should have realized she always had the lion’s share of my attention. I adored her.

When she disappeared in her silver Santro, I went back to my tea-parties. Only, of course, I was no longer drinking with dolls.

Twenty years, my darling. It has been twenty years since I saw you last. How has the time felt to you? Has it crawled slowly, far too slowly, like the last bits of toothpaste squeezed out of the tube? Or has it passed for you in a blaze of light and thunder?

Twenty years, my darling. It has been twenty years since I saw you last. How has the time felt to you? Has it crawled slowly, far too slowly, like the last bits of toothpaste squeezed out of the tube? Or has it passed for you in a blaze of light and thunder?

After you went away, my response was not unexpected. I cried bitterly. I lay awake late into the night, angry, anguished, devastated. I stamped my feet. And I refused, steadfastly, to set one foot off the estate again. It was here we had retreated to nurse our wounds, Mary and I, and it was here you had appeared. It was here you had loved me and it was here, I determined, that I would wait for you. I believed this was the place you would find me again. If I left, I was certain you would never find me again.

You can imagine how Mary took that. After all I told you about her, you won’t be surprised to hear she was outraged; more than that, though, she was incredulous. That I, who had never shown the slightest interest in the estate or this lonely, misty sliver of the world, should want to stay? All of this, I expected from her.

But she failed me, my darling, in refusing to believe me. You warned me, I know, but I was so sure she would understand, that she would believe me clever and honest enough not to make such a tale up.

At first she accused me of lying. Of being so afraid to return to our home with our mother gone from it, that I would make anything up. I remember that moment so clearly, the sharp hurt that shot down my throat at the thought that my own sister could think so little of me. When I lost my temper, and shouted right back her in my rage, she began to think I had become unhinged. I had always had a reputation for being the younger and more tempestuous sister, easily angered and easily pacified, but this time I refused to “see reason”, as she put it. As though reason had anything to do with it, when grief and loss and love had torn our worlds to pieces.

Our many and varied older relatives offered their views of the matter. Shaking their heads and glancing imploringly at the heavens, they tutted softly over my story, what little of it Mary had revealed. A few, like Ilana Aunty and old Jimmy Uncle, thought it was the ghosts. Everyone knew, they said, with more shaking of their heads and imploring glances at the heavens, that the old house was haunted. No doubt one of the poor old ancestors had possessed young, helpless Layla. Others didn’t go quite so far as to imply the old ancestors had possessed me, but instead suggested that perhaps the grief combined with the dust, age and decay of the house had gone to my head.

Mary, who is much too sensible to believe in anything of the sort, thought it was something far more prosaic: grief, yes, but not a few windowsills of dust, age, decay or ghosts. Grief by itself can do terrible things.

So it can. But it had not dislodged my sense, my darling. You and I know it, but with you long-vanished into the fog and the trees, poor Mary had no proof to cling to.

“Layla, don’t you see?” she said to me, her eyes wide with worry. “This can be fixed! We can go see someone in the city, you’ll soon stop seeing things—”

I could see how much she loved me, how worried she was about the state I had worked myself into. But I was in no mood to appreciate it.

“Go to hell, Mary,” I said, furious that, proof or no, she so adamantly refused to believe any part of my story could be true.

“What about school?” she snapped.

“I don’t need any more school,” I snapped back, “I’m clever enough.”

She exhaled a slightly hysterical laugh at that.

Long after every other relative had gone back to the city or to their own houses and estates in the area, my sister and I continued to battle over it. Mary threatened to get a few of the coffee-pickers to carry me to the car, kicking and screaming if necessary. In reply, I laughed at her, flung myself from my chair, grasped hold of the great table in the dining room, and wrapped my arms around it.

“Try,” I said.

She didn’t, in the end. Whatever she thought of me, I will give Mary this: she loved me far too much to have me humiliated like that.

What could she do? I was just seventeen, it was true, and she twenty-one, but with our mother dead, who could tell me what to do? So, when I set my wheels into the ground and refused to return to the city with her, Mary went back by herself. Back to our house, to the lingering scent of our mother’s perfume and my dusty dolls on the shelves. 

And I? I stayed.

----------

More book joy...

Having just read and loved a couple more books this week, I thought I'd mention them and say, in the strongest possible terms, these are lovely and if you're looking for something to read, pick them! Yay!

 
Flyaway by Lucy Christopher

A story about a girl and her family, a sick boy, and a swan. It made me cry. It made me care about swans, which I hadn't been remotely interested in before. And it's really, really well written and really captures the young protagonist's voice. Amazing. Read this in about two hours.

City of Masks by Mary Hoffman

A time-slip novel about a sick boy who happens to time travel to 16th century Talia, a version of Italy. It's exciting, clever, emotional and really, really well-plotted. Read this in one night, and couldn't stop.

Sapphique by Catherine Fisher

Sequel to Incarceron, which I've blogged about before. This ties up a lot of loose ends, continues a story that's part-adventure and part-political intrigue, does a lot of very clever world-building and world-destroying, and has a very surprising and emotional end. On a more personal note, the ending absolutely maddened me because what I wanted to happen didn't. Ah, well. *mourns*


If anyone's read any of these, I'd love to know what you thought. To those who haven't, do any of them sound like something you might fancy?


The poll ends tonight, so I'll be writing up the winning post tomorrow!

Murphy's Law

...well, loosely, anyway.

 
That is a photo of a poster I have on my wall. Such is its meaning to me. If anyone wants to read each line (and some of them are brilliant), I'm sure you'll be able to find it online and be able to take a look.

Everything that can go wrong will go wrong. The broken appliance will work the moment the fix-it guy comes to check it, and you'll stand open-mouthed, trying in vain to tell him that it really wouldn't work before. To get a loan, you have to first prove you don't need it.

And, story of my life: there is a direct relationship between how much I have to get done outside of writing and how much I want to write one of my books. The more I have to do, the more I want to write instead. Coincidence? A cruel trick of fate? Or a mere procrastination technique? Who knows? It's a fact, whatever its reasons.

So, with about 1000+ words of an article to finish writing (and thank you again to everyone who helped me out with suggestions for that!), five books to revise for my exams next week (kind of revised one last night, so down one from six), a dire need to get a haircut, and graduation robes to hire - in spite of all this, all I really want to do right now is sit down and write more of TEA WITH DEATH, DESIRE AND RAGE.

Don't get me wrong. I love it when I'm this excited to write, when it's all I want to do. Like Sherlock Holmes, I work in frantic bursts of energy, getting loads done, and then go into a slump for weeks. So when inspiration's afire, I love letting it call.

I just wish it would pick a better time.

Anyone else experience similar twists of irony?

Totally bitten off more than I can chew

I have an absurd amount of stuff to do this week, and I feel frighteningly scarily hugely slightly overwhelmed by it. I have to 

1. pack in all my revision for my final-year exams, both of which are next week. That means reading and re-reading about six books, watching a movie, and making detailed notes about all of them.

2. finish the first three chapters of TEA WITH DEATH, DESIRE AND RAGE if I want to stick to the target I've given myself.

3. write an article about ten movie adaptations that totally trample on the books they were adapted from. And right now, I can only think of one. One. To add insult to injury, writing this article was my idea and I said I'd get it done this week. Why? Why? And why can't I think of more than one movie adaption that veers wildly off the spirit of the book? Any ideas?

4. do my laundry. Which, in all fairness, is merrily spinning about the washing machine as we speak. So, that's pretty much done.

5. blog. Because I've promised myself I will try to write a post at least once a day. But if I seem a tad frenzied, a little panicked by the thought of two enormous exams looming ahead of me, and very, very boring, you'll know why.


I'm sending out a plea: movie adaptations that don't stay true to the spirit of the book? Suggestions? Please?


Also, the poll in the sidebar ends late Thursday evening, so if you haven't voted yet, please do!

'Write What You Know'... or Don't

We've all heard it at one time or another, and most of you non-writers out there will probably have come across it too: it's apparently one of the cardinal 'rules' of writing. Write what you know. Meaning, write about places you're familiar with, emotions you've experienced, ideas you are familiar with, etc.

I think there's some sense in this, but only to an extent. I think something else is far more important: writing what you love. Writing about what you love.

There may be a paradox here in that you assume that if someone loves something, they probably 'know' it already, so writing what you know is writing what you love. 

But I don't think that's necessarily true. For example, I love Italy. I know a few things about its history, and its architecture, and its art, and I'm absolutely dying to go there. But I wouldn't be able to write a novel set in Rome or Venice right now, simply because I don't know enough about it, love it though I do. Do you see?

Another example, of writing what you love that you also happen to know. I love the theatre. Immeasurably. Plays, musicals, being in the audience or backstage, I love it. But I also happen to know it pretty well. 

My father is an actor, and most of his stuff involved the stage. So, from the age of about two or three, much of my free time was spent camped backstage while my father (and often my mother too) strutted their stuff onstage, off and generally in-between. As I grew older, I became the mascot of many of the shows my dad was involved in, largely because I was always around. I knew all the lines. I would repeatedly evoke choruses of laughter from the cast and crew because I would tell my father off for forgetting or fudging a line. There's this one theatre in Bangalore where most of these things happened, and I know it back to front. My parents know everybody who works there. Still.

Over the summer, my mother, who teaches at my old school, roped me into helping out with a huge school musical. I was somehow put in charge of playing the music during the show on cue. I protested a lot, but I have to admit, I loved it. The week of the show, Mum, who was stage manager, informed me that with two light/tech and dress rehearsals and three shows on, we'd be spending a lot of time at the theatre (the very theatre mentioned above).

Mum: We might as well set up a tent.
Me: So, just like old times, then?
[we laugh]

That is my history with theatre. So, could I write about it? Easily. Do I? Yes. Does that count as 'writing what I know'? Yes. But it's also 'writing what I love', and that part's far more important. 

When you write about what you love, the passion shines through the text. It makes other people love that thing too, or at least, find the interest to be invested in it for as long as they're reading your story. I recently read Lucy Christopher's Flyaway, which revolves largely around a family, but also around a swan and swans in general. I don't mind swans, but I'm not particularly fussed about them. Yet the passion and interest in Flyaway was so clear and so lovely to read, I found myself caring very much about swans. It's such a great book.

If you've lived in London all your life, people might tell you to write about London, because you know it backwards. But you might not necessarily want to, you might not be interested in it. I think I'm expected to write about India, because that's where I'm from, and I do write about it. But only when I want to. Only when I see a story there, and not just because it's what I know.

So, should I ever write about Italy, considering I don't know it very well and have never been there? Yes, I should. Because I'm interested in it. Because I love reading about it, and seeing interpretations of it, and I love different parts of its history and art.

There's a remedy to not knowing enough about something. Research.

I think, in the end, you could write what you know, if what you know is what you love. And if what you love is what you don't know... just learn it instead.


I'd love to hear what other people think of the 'write what you know' dilemma. And while you ponder this monster of a post, I'll go back to writing TEA WITH DEATH, DESIRE AND RAGE. 700 words into Chapter Two now.

Blog Fest

A short weekend-post today.

First off, thank you to everyone who has voted in the poll so far. I'm rather amazed that 'a childhood anecdote involving an elephant' is tied in first place so far, as that really was a bit of joke. Joke's on me, I guess. Never fear, I shall follow through! To anyone who hasn't yet voted and wants to, the poll's in the sidebar, and please do add your thoughts in.

Bought beautiful shoes yesterday. Well, actually, Steve bought them for me, which I thought was very, very nice of him. Here they are.

*gazes at photo happily*

I've just joined The Alliterative Allomorph's Blog Fest, where you post a scene of 'internal conflict'. It sounds like it'll be lots of fun. The post date is 12th May, so if anyone else is interested, do have a look at her post and see if it's something you'd like to join.

Finally, for those who are interested, I've written about a thousand words of the Death-Desire-Rage project I mentioned yesterday. I absolutely love writing it so far, though obviously I couldn't tell you if it's good stuff or not; still, I think it's going well for now, and I hope to post the opening or an extract from the first chapter here soon.

Really must come up with a title for it, as referring to it is 'the Death-Desire-Rage project' is not only slightly misleading, but downright unwieldy. How about Tea with Ghosts? Or Tea with Death, Desire and Rage? The former is succinct but I guess it could give readers the wrong idea until they're a fair way into the story. So though the latter is longer, why not? I'll use that one as a filler for now. TEA WITH DEATH, DESIRE AND RAGE. Which I'll no doubt begin abbreviating to TEA out of pure laziness.

Hope everyone has had a great weekend!

Bing! New Idea!

Sometimes, it really is like a satisfying clink in your head, when the light switches brightly on and you have a tremendous, magnificent, wonderful, exciting new idea.

At least, caught in the throes of that excitement, you feel it's tremendous, magnificent, wonderful. Whether or not other people will... well, that's another story. Still, you'll never know until you try writing it, will you? Which is exactly what I'm going to do. While I force ECHOES-2 into the corner of my head, where Echo and its other characters will continue to converse, argue and frolic furiously, and my other projects continue at their own erratic pace, I hope to start this. Something completely new.

It was inspired, ironically, by that 'first line' thing I talked about a while ago, which, in turn, was inspired by something else. My determination to start a novel with the line I sat down to tea with Death, Desire and Rage led to this.

Imagine a woman in her thirties, confined to a wheelchair with one misshapen foot, confined to her home, waiting for her lover to come back to her. He went away twenty years ago, but he left her three protectors: sober Death, compassionate, lively Desire and high-spirited Rage, three guardians who seem slightly out of the ordinary.

And so she waits, while around her the world and life blazes furiously on, and she watches it, standing outside of it, waiting.

That's all I've imagined so far, along with a few other characters. Any suggestions for a loose filler title based on the above?

More soon.


Update on ECHOES: Well, I've mentioned that an agent had been looking at the first 50 pages. Well, she emailed yesterday to ask for the full thing. I'm so excited.