The What Now?

I'm starting a new novel. A chapter book, to be precise. To be even more precise, a follow-up to Duck for a Day, whose characters I love altogether too much to leave alone.

When I wrote Duck for a Day, I knew it needed to be around 8000 words (ish). So of course, I wrote 15000. Then I pruned it to 12000. Then I sent it to my long-suffering editor, and she wrote back to me and said, altogether unexpectedly, "I love this, but it really needs to be around 8000 words."

Eventually, we got there.

This time, I have a plan. A plan to avoid writing way too much and barrelling off in the wrong direction and causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth for both my editor and myself.

A plan to make a plan.

I'm not a planner, generally. I like to just get writing and see where I end up. And that's not going to change. But this time I'm going to at least attempt to rein in my rampant overwriting by setting off with some sort of outline and a general word count firmly in the front of my mind. There's a handy little program called Scrivener, now in Beta for Windows (yay!) which is going to help me in this quest.

A couple of months back before everything got crazy around here with revisions for Surface Tension and insanely deadlined copyediting jobs, I began my planning for Duck #2 (*title may change). So this morning, it was with great confidence that I opened the document optimistically entitled "DuckPlan". I had a day before me. I had a plan behind me. I could write Chapter 1, couldn't I? I could get it done. 800 words? Easy.

What was it about again, Chapter 1? Let's see what the plan says. Ah yes, here it is:

chapter 1 the thing happens with the ting

Good grief. Can anyone clarify?

I suspect 'ting' is a typo. Which means that my plan for Chapter 1 consists of "The thing happens with the thing".

It's a start, right?

Yes, Misinter

I'm a recovering pedant. I try not to let my work as a copyeditor/proofreader spill over into my daily life. I know how annoying it is to have someone gleefully pointing out errors, not least because there are so many of them all around us that once you get started, there's scarcely room for anything else. And to a certain extent, as long as the communicative intent is clear enough, what are a few stray apostrophes or typos between friends?

But yesterday I broke my rule. Yesterday, I found myself compelled to send an email that began "I'm sorry to be a pedant, but this seems like the sort of thing you would want to know."

See below, and weep. I'm sure many of you received the same email. If you had images enabled in your mail reader, you are probably blissfully unaware of what was lurking beneath them. I envy you.

Through the Looking Glass

No, this post has nothing to do with Alice in Wonderland. It has to do with editing, and my exasperation with my own verbal (textual?) tics. I know we all have them - those words and phrases we use over and over, that we rely on lazily as filler or meaningless 'beats' to break up dialogue. But having done a fairly quick couple of rounds of revision on my 2011 title Surface Tension, I've realised how pervasive some of mine are, to the extent of feeling embarrassed at what I put my poor editor through.

Late last night, in a fit of frustration with myself, I composed the following blurb for Surface Tension. I think this sums it up nicely:

Once, there was a girl and a boy and a lake between them.

They looked at each other. They looked up. They looked down. They looked out across the lake and the water and the smooth, still surface. They looked to the horizon and the distance. They looked back at each other.

They expressed their mutual affection for words such as though, actually, just, you know, somehow and anyway.

“Anyway,” said the boy, “The lake is actually just smooth and still.”

“Yeah,” agreed the girl. “Though it’s somehow not, you know?”

They did some diving and discovered they were both right.

And they looked at each other.

What else was there to do?

The end.

The book is actually moderately more interesting than this. I swear it. And now, after vigorous editorial intervention, it features 50% less looking. Though the eagle-eyed reader may spot some staring, gazing and peering.

You have been warned.