THE SMITH GIRLS - another re-write!

It's been a while since I blogged about writing, mainly because I've been too busy actually doing it.
A month ago I finished a rewrite of my novel Helter-Skelter and re-submitted it to an agent. Waiting to hear whether I've cracked it this time is torture, and I have been too nervous to do more than faff.
Well, that's not quite true - I wrote a 200 word story for an online competition run by Writing Magazine's Talkback forum and was a runner-up, and I also wrote a humerous poem for the same competition.
I had a short story accepted by an online site http://alfiedog.com/ - my story should be published in September - and I've expanded the 200 word story into a longer one, so I've not been completely idle.
I still haven't heard about H-S (I'm hoping no news is good news) but now I am settling down to the next big challenge - a total rewrite of the sequel to Helter-Skelter.

Just reading my chapter summaries from when I wrote it two years ago has highlighted a problem - I need to shift the emphasis. In the original I was still focusing on Albie Smith, the MC in H-S, but the sequel begins twelve years later and Albie is now a family man. I had spread the story too thinly over Albie, his wife and their children, which resulted in the book lacking a central thread.

I gave up attempting a rewrite after the first chapter and had a rethink, lying awake for several nights. Then Mandy and I had a brain-storming session over a coffee which produced several ideas but nothing concrete, especially as every time I suggested dropping a character she cried, "Oh you can't do that - I like him/her!"
But now I have finally worked it out and I'm all excited about it again. Without losing sight of Albie and the rest of his family, the main focus is going to be on his two daughters.
They are in their very early teens, one dark, one fair, sometimes the best of friends, at others sworn enemies.
Hence the working title of my current project:

  The Smith Girls

FOTO - FINISH

No, you haven't strayed back into Day Six of the AtoZ Challenge - I am simply taking advantage of the Spanish spelling to make a headline.

FIRST the FOTO 
If you stand right underneath a jacaranda tree this is what you see - isn't it glorious?

FOLLOWED by the FINISH.
YAY!  I have reached the end of my re-write of HELTER-SKELTER which I began way back in March, when an agent said I could re-submit my novel to her when I had addressed some issues.
So I have tightened up the plot, cutting out scenes that, although I liked them, didn't move the story forward. I have written it more from my main character's point of view and cut back on the POVs of other people.
I've tracked down and eliminated repetitions, deleted people with absolutely no regard for how they might feel about it, and made the sex a bit raunchier.

I am a writer with no formal training in the craft, and the pages of advice from the agent were invaluable.
As was the help and support of the members of Talkback - the online writers' forum to which I belong. I have never met any of them in the flesh, but I feel I know them personally. A couple have even put aside their own work to comment on mine - a true act of friendship.

Today I had all 316 pages of HELTER-SKELTER printed at the Copy Centre in Los Cristianos - at €15.60 I considered it a bargain that saves over-burdening my own printer - and after a final read-through it will be time to get it professionally proof-read while I tackle the synopsis.

Then back to the agent.

"gulp"

One question remains - can I do all this with my fingers crossed?

A-Z CHALLENGE 2013

I’ve given in – I’m going to do it, starting tomorrow.

For those who don’t know, this is a challenge that hundreds of bloggers put themselves through each year – to blog every day bar Sundays throughout April using the letters of the alphabet as a guide. When I added my name to the list I was number 1559, so people who start at the top won't reach me!

My posts will be short, though not necessarily sweet, and my theme will be my current obsession -  the re-write of my novel Helter-Skelter – so you will have to bear with me.

And I love comments if they come with your name!

THAT BLOG done - now back to my own,

In case anyone is interested in my account of the whole process of rewritng a novel, you can read my guest blog on
Read Short Stories and Write Short Stories at Shortbread | Home of the Short Story

Meanwhile back on my own poor neglected blog, the bananas are growing and its raining! This is a two fold blessing - it will fatten up the bananas, give every plant and tree in the area a good wash and a soaking, and put me in the right mood to pack for England.

So we are delighted to see it. The cat is not!
She  normally perches at the bottom end of the swimming pool retaining wall from where she can see the path along which we will return home from an hour of debauchery in the local bar, then she will lead us up the path, doing somersaults to trip us up.
When it rains she sulks in her nest on the outside sofa and looks at us as if its all our fault.

It was raining when I took this photo last October - the last time I saw my grandsons - so I am well prepared.
I shall be away for two weeks, leaving the OH to fend for himself - don't forget me while I'm gone!

FINISHED!

I've got there at last. Two months ago I embarked on yet another rewrite of
A Volcanic Race, the first book I ever wrote, and I have finished it! This is not the final version, of course, but the novel is now in much better shape - leaner and faster-paced.
I wish I could say the same about myself as I pack for two weeks in England, where I shall be trying to keep up with my two grandsons. Yes, I know the weather's bad, but I've been missing my family.

"WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW". This is sound advice, which I have chosen to ignore in A Volcanic Race. 
      I have never been to Africa, the continent on which I based some of my imaginary country. I have read books about it, seen National Geographic documentaries by the score, and made pages of research notes, but the nearest I have been is where I live now - Tenerife, a hundred miles off the west coast of Africa. We get the same searing heat in high summer, and some of the same plants, but the largest wild animal we have in Tenerife is the feral goat. So my imagination is free to roam.
Or so you would think.

The volcanic landscape of my adopted island inspired this novel, but despite my flights of fancy I have a strong streak of common sense which anchors me to logic. I created this imaginary country and its inhabitants, yet once I have taken that “What if?” leap into my fantasy world, within that framework I must remain consistent. It can be extremely annoying when I want a character to do something and my logical demon pops up saying “No – that won’t work.”
           But what can I do? One day my story - and the other books in the series - may reach a bookshop near you, and you'd be bound to notice if I made an error in logic, wouldn't you?

RESEARCH

This is a downloaded image from my research into the first months of World War Two in France, showing that, dreadful as the whole war was, the British soldiers still found reasons to laugh.
I am on the last stretch of my major rewrite of Helter-Skelter, after which I can take a month off with a clear conscience to visit my family in UK and Canada. When I return to it at the end of October I shall print the whole thing off, read it, and edit anew.
These final chapters are the ones that entailed the most research, as they are set in France and Belgium in early 1940. There is a dearth of information about the Phoney War in the first months of 1940. In a way this is good because there are fewer details to get wrong, but it also means that I did a lot of guessing.
Now that I want to weave in another thread, I am having to refresh my memory about why I sent Albie to a particular place on that exact date (what a good thing I kept the relevant parts of my research!) and there was an unexpected bonus.
I revisited one of my former research sites and clicked on a hitherto un-noticed soldier's diary of the very place and time I wrote about. He mentioned a real incident I had already imagined two years ago, which proves I managed to get into the mind of my soldier. I can re-flesh the bones of my story knowing that the underlying structure is sound.
The moral of this is - never bin your notes!