And the rewriting continues...

I set myself a goal to write for 20-30 minutes each day, and I've been doing pretty close to that. Mostly I've been working on adding detail to the manuscript and also writing a couple of new scenes.

I chucked the whole convict doco storyline that I started working on in January- it was awful!
The girls are still working on an English assignment,but it's a much more interesting one that involves an artist who paints beautiful but quite macabre paintings. It's much more suited to the tone and themes of the manuscript.

I'm also making some changes to the structure. The biggest change is that all traces of diary entries, notes etc from Tash are pretty much gone. Instead I'm writing in some new scenes where Tash's behaviour gives a pretty clear indication of where her head is at.

I originally wrote the diary excerpts because I wanted Tash's voice to appear unadulterated in the story, without being filtered through Malia. But it wasn't working. I thought of writing whole chapters from Tash's perspective, but this is a story about Mal & her growth in trying to fix a problem that isn't hers.

I don't want to get too Jungian, but it all does come down to archetypes. And for this story, Mal is the Rescuer. Tash's time to tell her side of the story will come...just watch out for the sequel!

Slow and steady

Things aren't exactly going to plan this year. I'm not having the time I'd really like to devote to this manuscript.

But what I can do is 30 minutes a day. It's not a lot but it's enough to keep the manuscript going. And it's going through more changes! But they're all for the better so at the moment the plan is to stick with it and make a little progress each day.

Who knows - I may be closer to finishing than I think :)

New year, new research

I've been quite slack on the rewriting front.

The good news is that I've rewritten the first chapter and really sharpened up my first page and it's working well.

The bad news (for me) is that I now realise that to make the rewrite work, I have to actually research and write the 'group assignment' that the girls have to do for their English assessment.

Sounds crazy (& like too much work) I know. But the reason is that I've worked out a really good structure for including Tash's point of view in the manuscript - and it involves including the group assignment...

Thus, I have to take myself back off to the library and research and write the equivalent of a Year 10 English assignment, which will probably take about 20 hours research to come up with the 2000 words I need it to be. What a pain!

But I know it's going to work really well, so I just have to bite the bullet and do it.

This weekend, its off to the state library for me - lucky that place has fabulous views of the river and an excellent coffee shop :)

Just when you think it's all under control...

Okay, well I never really had it under control. But getting sick and not being able to even go near a computer for almost a week really does throw a spanner in the works.

For some reason, I seem to catch every virus going around, and manage to get it ten times worse than everyone else. But thanks to taking it easy & resting I think I'm on the mend now. At least, I've managed to use the computer today and rewrite the all important first page of my manuscript.

I'll be getting feedback about my new opening page from the rest of the cohort group later this week. When rewriting the first page I really tried to follow Alison Goodman's advice on how to give it maximum impact. So I'm looking forward to the group giving me feedback on whether I've achieved this or not and how I can improve.

So that's another small milestone completed. But it means that the short story for the competition isn't finished yet. That's not looking good, but who knows, maybe I'll get inspired tomorrow to get it finished in time.

Distractions

I got a bit of a start on my chapter 1 rewrite on the weekend but I have too many distractions at the moment, including a short story I'm trying to get finished for a short story comp that closes next week.

I need more time! But where I get it from is a problem. Still, it's a problem most writers face so at least I know I'm not alone.

I really, really want to finish this short story. And I only have another week to do it. So, maybe the chapter 1 rewrite will have to wait just a little bit longer. After I finish the short story, I'll get into the new chapter 1 in a big way. Definately. No doubt about it.

Well, at the very least I have to have written a new first page to present for group critique on 6 December.

Looks like I've got clashing deadlines... such is life.

(maybe I'll take a mental health day!)

Back to basics

I have yet to embark on the big rewrite. Instead I've been working out relationships between the girls and having another look at their characters/backgrounds. This, I'm hoping, will help me add that extra detail and depth that the manuscript assessor thinks I need.

I'm also looking at the character of Tash's father. I know it's meant to be bad form to write characters that are all bad, but let's face it, in real life some people are just a**holes. Not everyone has redeeming features. But I suppose I can stretch to allowing him to be a generous boss (as long as his employees don't cross him...).

Apart from the character work I've been doing a bit of research into the 'assignment' notes that will replace Tash's diary entries. I'm still not 100% sure on how this will work, but I'm trying out a few different ideas.

Maybe I should just start writing it & see what happens.

Killer beginnings

Last Friday YA fantasy writer, Alison Goodman, ran a workshop for our master's group on writing killer beginnings. She is a great presenter and teacher and I'm really sorry I missed her earlier workshop on killer endings (but hey, I wasn't leaving New York early for anyone!).

An outstanding first page is a necessity - many publishers/editors don't read beyond the first paragraph, let alone the first page.

To help us create our own killer beginnings, Alison worked through a list of 'must haves' for any work of fiction to get off to a great start, including:

• genre markers
• empathy
• setting
• tone
• dilemma

Alison also said it's vital for the author to show authority, that is, show that you have control over your manuscript. Perfect grammar and spelling is a part of this - you don't want to be making amateurish mistakes on your opening page. No matter how brilliant it is, an error like that is going to plant a seed of doubt in the editor's mind.

Alison's other main piece of advice was to make each word and sentence work harder. With my distaste for slabs of description, this is a particularly important rule for me to follow. And Alison was able to show me how just small changes can have a big impact on your work and make sentences as effective as possible.

So now I have no excuses for not writing a brilliant beginning to my manuscript!