Writing

Writing can be exciting – when you’re in the zone, on fire and the words just pour out of your fingers into the keyboard, as you write the cool bits you’ve had in your head for a while. When the story comes together in a way you didn’t imagine it would when you first sat down, when it writes itself.  Of course it can also be incredibly dull and frustrating – when you just can’t imagine what comes next, when the expanse of white screen just irritatingly refuses to be fille...

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In the time that I've been writing, I've had lots of friends, family, co-workers and acquaintances who know I'm writing a book ask me how I'm getting on. I'm always happy to talk about it - probably more happy than they bargain for, usually - once I get started on my favourite hobby horse, I can go on a bit!.  I really like their interest - it keeps me keen and it is appreciated, but I always feel the answers I give are a little disappointing:-

Frequently Asked Questions:-

When will you quit wo...
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The editing continues apace, with all of the additions to the story now in place and (hopefully) seamlessly worked into the narrative.  I was hoping the new parts would fit as at least one of them was already planned for book two, so I'd been laying a few clues already - overall I'm quite pleased with them.

Now I need to reduce the word count by about 4000, as putting in the new stuff has pushed the book up by that much (originally 5000, but I've cut out some of it already.)  I also know I nee...
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I’m well on with my edits now, having completed about 80% of the changes I think I need to make to satisfy the comments from the publishers, but now I’m getting to the end of the first re-draft, I’m reaching the point I always do, which is trying to overcome the crippling self-doubt (CSD) that I’ve just ruined the book.

This is quite a normal process for me (and from what I hear, from other writers,) but it’s still one of the least fun parts.  For me, the feedback/editing process h...

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Two weeks ago, I reached the point where I couldn't edit the book any more without chopping out what I believed to be important sections of the story.  It's only 2000 words longer than the first Harry Potter book at the moment, so hopefully it's in the ballpark. I re-sent it to the literary agent who'd first suggested I reduce the word count and now I have to wait.  It's likely that this wait will be measured in months rather than weeks and though I'm desperate for feedback, I'll resist the u...
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I'm now on my fifth editing pass to reduce the wordcount of the book by the maximum possible.  It's very much an exercise in the law of diminishing returns, but each pass does yield a reduction, however small.  I'm currently sat at about 81,800 words and I think realistically I'll get to maybe 79,000 words by the time I'm finished.

This time, things are improved by the very able assistance of my god-daughter Natalie, who's just completed the first year of an English Literature degree (with fl...
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Another week into the editing and I'm down to 88,000 words.  There are definitely diminishing returns in this editing lark (because I am trying not to make changes to the actual story) but i'm quite impressed with how far I've come. The book started at 118,500 words, so that's 30,000 gone.  I think I will aim for maybe 11k more and that will be challenge enough. 

I've done some research and the first Harry Potter book was 77,000 words, the first Skulduggery Pleasant was 75,000, the first Arte...
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Well, as predicted the editing has slowed down as it progressed to the second sweep.  I'm down to about 95,000 words so maybe 20,000 still to chop and am just over halfway through my second pass through the book. I'm saving bits and prieces for the next book but nothing major.  Thus far I've managed to do most of it by thinning the existing text, shortening conversations and using tighter language, but I think I might get to the high 80,000s and then be left with only the actual meat of the s...
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I can't pretend I wasn't daunted by the enormity of reducing my 118500 word novel by 45000 words or so to make it marketable in the Middle Grade publishing world, but I went about it anyway.  At the end of about ten days of furious editing, I've completed my first pass of the book and reduced it to 99,700 words, a reduction of almost 19,000. 

Most of this was achieved by simply going through sentences and trying to find a way to say the same thing in less words ("She had seen" becomes "She sa...
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