Welcome to my perfumed garden

Of Stephen Fry writing about writing.

And now I must go and be about some of the same. I have set myself the target of 15,000 words a day (These are rewrites, I need to add! Not actual writing, for which 15,000 words a day would be an insane target!) to complete this bloody thing in a week.

I am turning teh internets off. I am sitting down at my laptop with my serious intent face on. I may be gone some time.

I've still not finished the 2nd draft, a major disappointment as I was rather hoping to have had the submission ready and have it out to agents this weekend (she laughed in a hollow fashion). It's taking way longer than I'd thought because I keep running into wee holes that need filling so it's been at most, a chapter a day. Only two to go now though but nothing will be done over the weekend as I'm heading in an easterly direction for alibongo 's Abigail's Party. An evening of kaftans and platforms, Miner's blue eyeshadow and Blue Nun, Twiglets, Cinzano and bits of cheese and pineapple stuck in a grapefruit, Marc and David and Bootsy Collins. Some Demis Roussos might creep in there too, but no olives (because they'e horrible, aren't they? Nobody likes olives, Lawrence.)

It is going to be awesome. It has to be, how could it not?

And now it's time for cocoa and bed. Sleep tight, shipmates.

Staring at the lappy in dazed confusion, one coffee already consumed, more in the offing I suspect. I'm not sleeping well I never really do when we're at Dad's, too much going on till the wee small hours, too much happening in my head. I tried Horlicks last night but all it did was make me need to get up and pee at 2.30am.

::scratches head::

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Entanglement. I'm 4 chapters from the end of my second draft and on a push to finish by the end of the weekend. Then it's on! with the third draft. In between drafts I'll be attempting to make myself work out a submission for literary agents, the bit I hate most.

Look at that, sun is shining! Oh, and potatoes need to be got from their pot too, also laundry, clean the kitchen and a work out. Oh yeah, it's all thrills, spills and dizzy excitements all the time round here.

OK. Enough with the yapping.

is going great guns. I'm averaging 3 chapters a day (re-writes! I hasten to add!), just put #38 to bed, ten more to go. No more glaring errors have become apparent in this newer bit (yet ) and I reckon, so long as no more plot holes of the size you saw trams sticking out of during the war (this has happened before!) appear, and I can keep up this killer pace I can have the second draft finished by the end of the week. Then I start on the third and final draft.

I'm already perusing the agencies, thinking about the submission and I feel quite good about this story. I'm reading it and getting that odd creeping feeling in my digestive organs that says, this isn't actually half bad. See my delusions, see them scream...

Anyway, it's shaping up to be around 146,000 words when it's done which is, I reckon, getting on for 500 paperback pages which is quite a mighty tome as tomes go.

Whatever am I going to do with myself when it's done? ;o)

But hey, whatever because it's the WEEKEND! my babies! Let us laugh at the clouds, don bobbly purple bri-nylon Y-fronts and DANCE in the rain for the life, she is short and the rain, never ending so we might as well get used to it. ::waggles Yoda finger. nods sagely:: As for the fic, my writing partner has buggered off north of the border which means I can do what I like to those poor, poor boys for a full seven days! Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

Although I'm still a few chapters from the end of my second draft, it's coming along steadily and without complications so I thought I'd take a little time over a cup of delightful Viennese coffee (Polish, Lidl, highly recc'd, yum) to research the agencies, see who might be right for this book and have a first crack at writing my submission and a synopsis of the plot.

It's not going well.

The plot is complicated and unusual  to say the very least. Every attempt to précis it so far has been a disaster.  I mean, looking at the latest attempt I see such gems as:

...has opened a crack in reality that’s been utilised by the Vicar of St Swithuns to part the living from their souls and unleashed bizarre and unusual terrors on Angel’s sleepy hometown.

and.

All Angel wants is to re-make a life with his wife from another life, now reincarnated as former DCI Matt Kershaw, who thinks Angel has murdered his sister.

Oh dear,  it sounds like the ravings of a mental. I see I must give this more thought. I think I'll go back to just re-writing the chapters for a bit. Much simpler, much less likely to up the BP I think.

Hey ho the nonny O, tis Thursday! and the weekend be nigh. I see Friday approaching off the starboard bow. Up with the moonrakers and cut a steady course to olives and freedom me hearties!

It's a while since I did one of these. Don't worry, just a quickie.

Decimated. The fic I'm writing with the adorably sexy, massively talented fluterbev is now almost 13,000 words long, a constant joy to write and read and continuing to fill me with the most evil glee.

Entanglement. The second draft well underway now. I'm calling the process an 'edit', though it seems to be constantly growing rather than diminishing. It's acquired 3 new chapters already and it's not even half way through yet. 19 of 50(?) chapters put to bed, 69,275 words.

And that's it. See, that wasn't too painful was it? Top Gear tonight! My loins are freshly girded, my happy trousers clean and ironed, early cocoa and school in the morning...



I'm so sorry, I fear I have gone mad.

No embed. Here be linky.

It's FRIDAY! It is, isn't it? I'm still working on me book at the moment, just stopped for a reviving double-latte + chocolate (yes, I did need that much caffeine). Book's coming on, I'd like to finish chapter 17 before I crack open the cheese and olives and walnut bread and cock my snook at the rain.

As you were. We shall, no doubt, speak later.

Oooh. A blackbird just suddenly started singing. Has the rain stopped then? (answer, no)

and bringeth succour to all prevaricators.

Mark and I had an exchange of views inspired by watching the highly animated Alan Haven in The Music of Lennon and McCartney
Got worms from the look of it, poor chap
Is that what happens when you get worms, go ape shit crazy on a Hammond organ?
Or piles.
Must’ve been sitting on a cold step. You’d think his mother would know better than to let him.

Gosh, the flare on that guitar is so nostalgic, you don't see black and white, 405 line weirdness like that these days, deed you don't. Marianne Faithfull looks exactly like Marina off Stingray, she even moves her head like there are strings attached. I'm on a mid-sixties thing now and feel the sudden need to watch Tomb of the Cybermen, or maybe Bedazzled - the real one, not that thing with Brendon thingy and whatserface.

No, I haven't been drinking even though it is FRIDAY! my darling dearios. May it shine like a great shiny orb for you all. Permission to blow kisses!. XXX

Can we be returned to our regular weather now please?

Thank you.

Been to Matalan. Pjs and t shirts have been achieved (and OMG! pink!) also sweat pants for the necessary work out and other sundry unexciting things. Got a nice big coffee mug for £2. I like Matalan, it takes the misery out of clothes and household shopping ::nods::

So. Currently feeding and watering myself prior to tackling the new, shiny chapter ten of the novel and a chapter of  Decimated, the fic I'm writing with the everso nicely naughty fluterbev . I must press on, I have been terribly remiss on the writing front of late.

Have some midweek love you naughty doxies. XXX

It's five O' Clock and it's Crackerjack! half past twelve and I've not put a finger to a keyboard yet.

Been busy. Been buying a new - well, new to us, refurbished, blue! - Aga from a very nice boy with a very noice aksent from Hereford and trying not to have nightmares over the £££. ::wibble::

Also been dealing with British Gas Plummer Man! Our Hero! Yes, whenever pipes are broken, or menaced by international communism, British Gas Plummer Man is ready and yes indeedy! He has fixed our hot water pressure problems and hot water is again flowing from the taps! No longer is showering more akin to standing under a slightly leaky gutter! I can has proper shower once mo!

Anyway, all that means no writing done yet but hey ho the nonny. I cock my shiny weekend snook at work for a bit and settle in for a little early cheese in the shape of this deliciously runny Camembert and a peach or two. There is more cheese for later in the attractively curvy shape of a ripe (very!) Reblochon, and wine (a Chilean Chardonnay Semillion ) and olives too, for it is FRIDAY! after all. The sun may not be shining but that means I don't have to go out and do workly things in the garden. The weekend forecast is for SUN. I have the wine, I'm up for that.

Right. Well. That's about it really. I'm hoping to bang out a couple of chapters of Moonridge fic Decimated this weekend. Otherwise, just presing on with the second draft of Entanglement which is coming on rather well. I've written a whole new chapter to ease the progress of the plot that actually had some laughs in it! I'm up to chapter 10 (of an est 50), 36,000 words completed. A long way to go yet. I'm also in the process of setting up a blog for the novel, of which more when it's ready to bear its bottom to the cold, cruel world.

Well, that's it I suppose. Carry on my darlings, I'm sure you're all doing very well.