Home Again

Hmmm, haven't posted for a while ... I think other than stuff I've read, the last post was half way through "Rain". And I appear not to have read anything since last August. Well, here's an update.

My writing partner and I finished "Rain". It's a story about two people in a phone box waiting for the rain to stop. And ... that's it. It's not perfect, but there's stuff in it that I really like. I guess the point is, it was a pretty extreme thing to attempt (the whole thing takes place in the phone box) but I think it kind of works. Following on from that, we challenged each other to write a story that's mentioned briefly in Rain. That was fun - I think we gave each other a week to write it, and mine ended up a fairly long 20,000 words.

Then in November I did NaNo again. Yes, wrote another novel. Put like that it sounds so simple! It was called Teacher, it wasn't as good as Home, but I did try some different things in it. For some reason I decided not to do ScriptFrenzy again this year though. I guess I was busy with other things somehow.

And on the reading front, I haven't actually read another novel since last August ... at least, not until this week ... but that's another post.

What I have worked on quite a bit since this time last year is Home. I mentioned that I'd actually read it, and then I'd given it to other people to read. One of them was my dad. To put this in context, my dad is actually a real writer, so showing it to him felt like quite a step.

And the amazing thing was, he actually quite liked it. In fact, he liked it so much that he's been helping me work on it since then. I've added a few bits, taken out a lot of bits. That 63,000 words? A long-distant memory, and now I'm worried it's not going to end up novel length at all. And it's hard work, re-writing, cutting, getting it right. It hurts too - cutting stuff I really like. Until I read the old version and the new side-by-side, and realized he was absolutely right. That's what you get for working with a professional!

We spent 3 days together in February and after a lot of effort, came up with a revised version of the first six chapters. To my amazement, dad has posted these on his website. I'm particularly chuffed by what he wrote about it - the comment about the characters means a lot to me, because what he describes is quite deliberate and is one of the main (conscious) ways in which my Christian faith affects what I've written. Feel encouraged to read it here and let me know what you think.

Since then we've worked via the internet and phone (technology is wonderful!) and finished two more chapters; chapter 9 is nearly there, and I'm working on 10 and following. Very exciting! And very hard work. But oh so worth it. Much harder than writing it in the first place. But the end product is much better too. Coming soon to a bookshop near you? I highly doubt it, but you never know ...

Home

Last November, I wrote another novel, currently titled Home. It is my fourth novel. That sounds so funny. The basic idea was to write a contemporary reworking of Persuasion, only from the guy's point of view. The main character returns home after 10 years having made a successful career as an architect, only to bump into the woman who dumped him when he was 17, when she was at university and he was only at school. It draws on some of my experiences of going back "home" and finding that the place has changed, and the town I grew up in and that I remember no longer exists. The main character finds the same is true of people. He has to make a choice between living in the past or moving forwards, and to decide what that means in his situation.

I had a great time writing it. The final story is a long way from the original Persuasion; but then, that was the point. And I think it’s my best yet. At 63,000 words it’s certainly my longest. But when I say my best yet, I have to put that in context: I still wouldn’t dare insult any real writer by comparing it with the quality of stuff that actually gets published.

Every year after I’ve done NaNoWriMo, I’ve looked back on what I’ve written and thought about all the things that were really dreadful, the things that would be done so much better in a real, published novel. Then the next year as I write, I think about those things and try to do them better. I didn’t do NaNo with the intention of improving my writing, but I’m sure it’s really helped. It’s also got me reading books on writing, discussing ideas on forums, and various other things, all of which help. Not to mention reading more critically, and generally being a little more aware of what makes good writing good (i.e. better than mine).

This year also marked a first in that I actually dared to sit down and read the whole thing through after I'd written it. I've never done that before. It wasn’t too painful; there were lots of bits I really liked. One day I must look at my first NaNo and see how far I've come! I also sent the whole thing off to a couple of other people to read, another first. So far, two of them have managed to finish it (particular thanks to SomSom who read it first).

In the back of my mind there’s now this thought that if I keep writing and improving, I might one day write something worth reading or even publishing. Then I’d have to decide if that was even what I wanted – all that work revising, re-reading, trying to interest agents or publishers. I can’t see it somehow. Yes, I always wanted to do something creative for a living, even if I thought it would be music rather than writing. But actually, I really enjoy my day job – I like making software that works. Why should I aspire to giving up the day job? It’s easy to say that now, but I bet if I did write something I thought was worthwhile, I’d feel the need to get some kind of “recognition” for it. Curse my vanity.

Still - that’s not really something I need to worry about in the foreseeable future.