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Around about last Christmas I started writing fiction again - not quite for the first time in ten years, as there have been various two or three chapter attempts (oh, and the odd poem) - but the first sustained stuff since the Hull writing workshops in the early 1990s. I mentioned it to N, who I hadn't taken to be much of a reader, and he was soon demanding to read it. So I had an audience, and I set myself a 500 word a day target, figuring to finish in August. Some days I made it, some weeks I failed, some weekends I did three or four thousand words. In fact I finished, somewhat hurriedly, on the day we got knocked out of some football tournament.
I wrote it out of order, but N read it in order and only just finished part four a couple of weeks ago. I, meanwhile, had hardly touched it, what with the little matter of 80,000 words to edit or write. Now I've gone back to it, and I'm hoping to have a second draft this side of Christmas. I've re-read it over the last week, and I don't feel the urge to set fire to it, so it can't be that bad. I'm wary of the opinion of friends, but that fact it did get read again says something. Last night I shuffle the manuscript into story rather than plot order, and started scribbling on it. Not a bad start after a day of prevarication (two lectures revised, a pile of emails sent).
I'm wary of saying any more publicly yet, and of course there's another 80,000 words to write/edit by the end of the year. I'm hoping avoidance tactics will mean that I work on one to avoid the other and then vice versa. And these total bars look nifty.
I wrote it out of order, but N read it in order and only just finished part four a couple of weeks ago. I, meanwhile, had hardly touched it, what with the little matter of 80,000 words to edit or write. Now I've gone back to it, and I'm hoping to have a second draft this side of Christmas. I've re-read it over the last week, and I don't feel the urge to set fire to it, so it can't be that bad. I'm wary of the opinion of friends, but that fact it did get read again says something. Last night I shuffle the manuscript into story rather than plot order, and started scribbling on it. Not a bad start after a day of prevarication (two lectures revised, a pile of emails sent).
I'm wary of saying any more publicly yet, and of course there's another 80,000 words to write/edit by the end of the year. I'm hoping avoidance tactics will mean that I work on one to avoid the other and then vice versa. And these total bars look nifty.
The Big Project
| |
75,000 / 160,000 (46.9%) |
The Four Loons
| |
11,667 / 103,000 (11.3%) |
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