Evil plan: foiled!

Back to the real world with a bump after the excitement of the royal wedding. For me, the weekend was a glorious combination of: smoked salmon, cake, Cava, cocktails in teacups, royal faces mounted on chopsticks (don't ask), reading the papers, dressing up as a sailor, reading more papers and sitting in the sunshine eating a baked potato. Busy times indeed.

Last week I received my edits for TORN. They didn't make me cry or throw a tantrum or set anything on fire. So that was a good start. Just a few tweaks here and there and I should be finished by the end of the day. There was one little section that gave me pause. When I originally wrote it I thought it was a) entirely pointless but b) pretty damn charming. As far as I was concerned, the charm outweighed the pointlessness and with any luck it might just sneak through into the final book. After all, no one would really pay attention to three sentences out of 75,000 words. I was wrong. My editor (gently) suggested that I get rid of the aforementioned sentences. Busted.

My evil plan was foiled, dammit. Re-reading the section now, it's clear to me that it's not even particularly charming. Charmless AND pointless is never a good combo. So I guess what I'm saying is maybe you shouldn't try to sneak things into your manuscript just because you think they're charming or clever or an in-joke between you and... er... you. Make sure everything you write HAS A POINT.

Have you ever been found guilty of this unspeakable crime? Do tell...

A very lovely weekend indeed

In which I:
1. finished GOING BOVINE. You should read this book. Soon.
2. cooked spaghetti and meatballs.
3. tried oysters for the very first time. (Not in the least bit slimey or chewy... who'd have thunk it?! A revelation!)
4. attended a chocolate tasting AND a sparkling wine tasting.
5. ate hog roast (and came up with a stonkingly good idea for a bar/restaurant).
6. drank cocktails.
7. laughed a lot.
8. pushed a car through the snow.
9. traipsed on a gorgeous, snow-encrusted beach.
10. did no work whatsoever (also a revelation!).

Today the nose is firmly back to the grindstone. Currently inputting edits to the mansucript, which would be a speedier task if I hadn't left myself so many things to think about. But I am finding it strangely satisfying getting rid of unnecessary sentences -of which there are many.

What did you get up to? Anything fun?

Editz, I haz dun them

Well, I've got to input all the changes to the word doc, and sort out the bits where I've written 'THINK ABOUT THIS' and 'THIS PART NEEDS TO BE GOOD'. So there's a few more days of work still to be done. I'm getting there though. Should hopefully be ready to send to Agent Victoria next week. If I can get rid of all the tedious repetitions, that is. Repetition is my worst writing crime. Here's what happens: I come up with a nice turn of phrase, pat myself on the back for being so clever... and then realize that I've said exactly those words earlier in the book. *sigh*

In other news, my unbelievably lovely friend Mikey B brought me the best present ever from New York:

And it's signed! Best present ever, right? I think I'll read it over Christmas. At the mo, I'm reading GOING BOVINE, by Libba Bray. Has anyone out there read it? I am loving it. I can't remember the last time I read a book and had no clue where it was heading - it's a magical mystery tour of a book.

Here's something lovely for you to look at, in case you haven't already seen it:

Isn't it gorgeous? IMAGINARY GIRLS is due out in June 2011 from Dutton. It's written by my friend Nova Ren Suma, who is made entirely of loveliness.

That's all for today, folks. Hope you're keeping warm, wherever you are. Unless you're in Australia, in which case I hope you're keeping cool.

First edit: done and dusted

Yay! I finished! I cut about 2000 words. There are two bits I might save for another book, but I might not bother. They'll always be there though, in draft five or six or whichever one it was. That version of the novel was OK. This version is better, without a doubt. Aren't editors wonderfully clever? (And no, I'm not just saying that because I wear an editor hat from Monday to Friday. BTW my editor hat is green, with bells on.)

Still working on the title though. I might be making progress there, thanks to one of my Twitter buddies who will be even more profusely thanked if her suggestion ends up on the book. Fingers crossed!

Anyone else out there have any book-title troubles?

Editor gets edited

Editing books is my day job, but today I am the editee/edited/editorated... or something. I'm looking at the first edit from my editor. And it's nowhere near as overwhelming as I was expecting - in fact, it's positively light. This a huge relief.

So far I've cut about a thousand words. All of the suggested cuts are good ones. And a couple are bits that I KNEW should probably cut, but I hearted them for whatever reason and left them in, hoping no one else would notice. Mostly the bits being cut are little asides, bits that make me smile, and bits where I repeat myself, bits where I repeat myself.

I'm starting to realize that soon the text will be final. And then I won't be able to play around with characters' names and such like. It will be SET IN STONE (or rather, set in paper, but that doesn't sound as good... ooh, I'd like my book to be actually set in stone). So I'd better make sure I'm as happy with the ms as I'm ever going to be. Scary biscuits, eh?


Song of the day: Green Hills Race for California, by Emerson Hart

Deck the halls

I don't dress up my cats like reindeer, yet STILL they knock over the tree. And I've come to accept that the baubles on the lowest branches are the Sacrificial Baubles: they must die so that other may live. Tis truly a noble deed.

This is probably my last pre-Christmas post. Heading home to the Motherland tomorrow. I'm definitely ready for a break...

...BUT I've just got my first edit in from Roisin, my lovely editor at Quercus. I'll be working on it in the post-Christmas/pre-New Year lull. And I'm actually looking forward to it! The edit doesn't look too daunting - mostly cutting. Yes, the cuts might hurt a bit, but they're so obviously going to make my ms into a better book that I'm more than happy to prune and trim away. Before you know it I'll have a new-look, lean, mean manuscript. That'll be nice.

Happy Christmas to one and all! Hope you get lots of writing and/or reading done over the festive season. And may Santa bring you good things like cheese, plenty of YA books and stripey socks.


Song of the day: A Spaceman came Travelling, by Chris De Burgh (possibly my favourite Christmas song to sing along with)

Snippety snip

Not so much Texas Chainsaw Massacre this time. Just a bit of delicate topiary here and there. This weekend I've been trimming TFN (The First Novel), and hopefully it will be ready for my Super Special Agent to send out into the big, bad, scary world pretty soon. A terrifying/exciting prospect.

I think I'm starting to lose perspective (if I ever even had it in the first place) on which bits to keep and which bits to get rid of. I find my finger hovering over the 'delete' button when I'm reading some of my favourite bits. Is this really necessary? Is it furthering the story in any way? Was it just complete self-indulgence on my part? So I have to be careful. It's like when I start going through my wardrobe, determined to chuck out some clothes. At first I can't find ANYTHING I can bear to part with... and then... well, some kind of madness envelops me, and I end up filling black bag after black bag with nearly every item of clothing I own. OK, slight exaggeration, but you get the picture, yes?

I think I'm nearly finished. Another 2000 words gone. Snip snip.

Ouch. That hurts.

So today's task has been to cut cut cut. Perhaps the image on the left might be taking things a tad too far (I always did have a tendency towards the dramatic)... BUT oh my goodness this is hard.

You see, The First Novel has rather a lot of words in it. That is a good thing. It makes it a novel, rather than a pamphlet. So, yay for words. But you can have too many. Words that don't serve a purpose. Words that slow things down so the reader gets bored and frustrated. These words are BAD words (like @#*$).

I've taken to the manuscript with a chainsaw (or rather, a tiny pair of nail scissors) and tried to get rid of some of those naughty words. After briefly considering just losing every seventh or eighth word or so just to make things easy, I decided to follow my agent's advice and try to cut the boring bits.

Thus far, 2500 words have been obliterated. Gone, just like that.

Farewell, dear words. I'll miss you. Even though you were a bit rubbish and boring and just... self-indulgent. Actually... GOOD RIDDANCE!