So, I really want to start working on Wonderland again. I know! I have a ton of other stuff to be doing. But I've been reading back on it, and despite the mauling the first chapter got from my writers' group a few months ago, I still really love it. I think it's salvagable, if I do some tidying up on the worldbuilding. I've only got, I think, four chapters so far, so that shouldn't be hard. It won't be anything on the scale of Wild, which I'll be rewriting from the ground up over Christmas.

I might have to take out the Pontiac and the firestorms, which serve no purpose except being flashy! and exciting! The magic storms can stay, since they have actual plot purpose. The whole Fey-human-changeling-harvest thing can stay, since that is the plot. Bronte might need a career change, but Nate can remain a heartless bounty hunter, because what good is a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy without a heartless bounty hunter?

Exactly.

Check me out! I'm offically on the Damnation Books website! OMG. And with only two short days to go until AFTERLIFE is released, I'm now a bag of nerves. I'm planning a lot of stuff for December - I'll be having guest bloggers here throughout the month, and I'll be doing a couple of guest appearances myself. I'll be giving away a whole lot of swag, with contributions from Yolanda Sfetsos and Ethereal Tales, amongst others, not to mention a copy of AFTERLIFE.

I'll also be working on Afterburn and doing some serious reworking on Wild because, squee, good news ahoy! So stick with me in December for fun, frolics, writing, and more!

I'm back at work after my glorious, fun-filled, productive, Baileys-soaked week off. Sigh. I got loads done last week. I finished rewriting Wild and emailed it to an interested editor (fingers crossed, but shall not think about that too much). I made a start on the synopsis so I can sub it elsewhere too. I got cracking on the edits for AFTERLIFE. I had a short story accepted for an upcoming QueeredFiction anthology (okay, that wasn't exactly me being productive as all I had to do was read the email saying it had been accepted, but it counts, dammit). I went to a few local bookshops to ask about getting AFTERLIFE in stock, and now have some people to call regarding that.

I also managed to be fairly social - visited my parents and my grandparents, and spent Thursday night getting utterly and complete drunk with Kyle and chaostheory , which was fun and necessary.

All of which just reminded me once more that I want to be a full-time writer. Soon. (Not the family-visiting and the drinking. That was awesome, but doesn't contribute to my writing scheme). So yeah, back at work today, already missing the carefree days of yore when I could stay up until 5am playing Super Mario 3 and then sleep in until 12 noon and spend the day watching reruns of Mock the Week and Come Dine With Me write all day. I have hypernostalgia for last week.

Now I am going to crawl into a corner and rock back and forth whilst my brain recovers.

A pretty big opportunity has come my way. I don't want to say much because it's all very much a long shot, but it means I need to whip Wild into shape, fast. For those who don't follow my obsessions religiously (you should, I'm fascinating), Wild is my epic tale of heroin addiction and werewolves in Liverpool. Or rather, it is now. Back in 2007 when I started writing it, it was an epic tale of heroin addiction and werewolves in America. I finished the first draft sometime in late '07/early '08, I think. It was a particulary difficult book to write because A) it's one of these gritty labours of love that breaks you in half and B) I was with The Ninja at the time, who you might remember as the clingy boyfriend who refused to believe I'd broken up with him and started hanging around my house in the middle of the night talking about the Mafia. Being with him was not conduicive to writing. At all.

So, once I'd finished the first draft (finally! After all the blood, sweat, and tears it bloody took), I emailed it, full of hope, to my now Ex-Agent. She was... lukewarm about it. Liked the writing, thought the plot was lacking. So I immediately began ripping the plot apart, throwing in some werewolf gang warfare and LSD-abuse for good measure. Then I grew incredibly disenchanted with my agent, my writing, and myself, decided I hated Wild and everything to do with it and never wanted to look at it again. So I wrote the first half of AFTERLIFE instead and pushed my junkie werewolves to one side.

And then I got my writers' group to look at it. They suggested I move the story to Liverpool and keep trying with it. So I started rewriting it again, got half way through, decided I hated it, everything to do with it and never wanted to look at it again, again. Then I finished writing AFTERLIFE, left my agent, decided my writing career was over anyway and seriously contemplated never writing anything ever again.

Then in 2009 some other stuff happened, like WOLF STRAP selling to QueeredFiction, and them contracting me for SILVER KISS and its sequels, and AFTERLIFE selling to Damnation Books, and suddenly I was feeling like, man! I'm not going to let Wild beat me! It may be the literary equivalent of a puddle of vomit that makes my headache just to think of it, but seriously! I'm going to damn well finish that book.

And then I didn't because some other stuff happened.

And then something else happened. Something I can't go into details about, but something with potential. Nothing I want to put too much hope in, but something that's sent me back to Wild like a ... I don't know, demented writing junkie masochist of some kind. Because I need to finish rewriting this book and making it as good as it can possibly be. This is always a problem for me - I never believe anything I do is good enough, but with Wild I want to try and do the story and characters justice. And I want to do it before next Monday.

I've got roughly 100 pages to go. Half the book is still set in America rather than Liverpool, and the first half of the plot has nothing to do with the second. One character is called Grady for 200 pages and Lennon for the next 100 or so. One character is a witch for the first twenty chapters and a werewolf for the next ten. It's a great, nasty sprawling mess. But I will tame it. Oh yes, I will tame it.

Been working on SILVER KISS all afternoon and have managed to add in one much needed new chapter. OMG, it was hard work! I'm not a huge fan of the Tortured Artiste myth, let alone the Elusive Muse myth, but it really was hard to get going today. If there is a Muse, it was not with me today.

I knew exactly what needed doing, but a lot of it was what I think of as transitional writing; ie, not much is happening, but you need it in the novel to get to the action. I need a stronger motivation at this stage of the novel for Ayla to make a particular choice. This choice sets up the climax of SILVER KISS and it has to be strong and believable. I don't think it was in the original draft, and I'm still not convinced it is now. I honestly feel like I've been trying to get blood from stone today, and I don't think I've done anywhere near as much as I could. But I need a break, because I'm starting to get pissed off with myself. So. I've added another 2k to SILVER KISS, bringing the current draft up to 70k, and I'm stopping for the day.

I'm going to play with Wild until chaostheory gets home from work, and then I'm going to have an enormous pizza. And nobody is going to stop me!

I'm still clawing my way through the second draft of SILVER KISS (optimistically hoping to finish off this weekend), and have reached a point where I'm adding in entirely new scenes. I rewrote a chapter last night, adding 2k to the novel as a whole, and am now working on blending this rewrite with the original material. And it's hard, man.

I get The Fear. I worry that the new writing jars with the old, that it's inelegant and sticks out like a sore thumb. I worry that the material I cut out in the first place was better than the new stuff. I worry that I'm making the story worse with the rewrites, not better. I worry that the end product will be a gargantuan mess that will take me years to wade through and set straight (in other words, I'm worried it will turn into Wild). And I worry so much that in the end I have to made a choice between stepping away from the laptop before I spontaneously combust with angst, or screaming "sod it!" and carrying on anyway like a British soldier at Rorke's Drift, only with werewolves instead of Zulus. So nothing like a British soldier at Rorke's Drift, in fact.

Last night I chose to step away. I had to remind myself that I've done this before. I've written fourteen novels now, and I've gone through this process with every single one (still am going through it with Wild and expect to be doing so for many years to come). I had to remind myself that I can do this, and do it well if I stop angsting long enough. Over the weekend I'll be digging in again and trying to ignore The Fear. And, failing that, fighting it off with Meatloaf and chocolate. Maybe wine. We'll see how bad it gets.

I carved another chunk out of the revisions on SILVER KISS this afternoon. My aim is to have the second draft done by the end of September, and I'm on course. I'm slowly working out the problems I was having with that difficult secondary character, as well as clearing up the many, many typos caused by the Search and Replace adventures.

Then I got bored and popped open Wild, which as loyal readers will know, is a great big bloody mess of a first draft. But I love it. I love it with the same deep and unholy love I usually reserve for Matt Berry, and I will make it good if it kills me. I've worked through the first two chapters, switched the location from America to England (Liverpool, to be exact), changed a few names, polished up some prose, and my God but I have fallen in love with this story all over again. Deep and unholy, I tell you. So in honour of that renewed love, here's a Saturday Snippet:

 

( Snikt! )

 

So, first of all I'm excited to announce that my short story Burned will be appearing in this month's Ethereal Tales. Yay! I love short story writing, so I'm always pleased when I actually get something published, and I'm especially pleased in this case because it's a Scarlett story. Scarlett and her gang of werewolves, necromancers, lost gods, and pyschics being my first writing love and all that.

Anyway, I've seen this on a few people's blogs, butkaz_mahoney  is encouraging everyone to do it, so here we are.

'I wish you were coming with me tonight.' - SILVER KISS (which is rolling along nicely, thanks!)

A fire storm was brewing. - Wonderland (which has stalled because I'm too lazy to work on the much-needed worldbuildling).

She ran through the forest, the metallic tang of blood in her nostrils - Wild (which one day I will finish rewriting because I love it, damn you).

The vampire slunk through the dead leaves and damp earth, a parody of the woman it had been in life - Death for the Born (don't really have any witty comments for this one).

 

13011 / 60000 words. 22% done!

I had a most productive Girton Write-In last night and added a hefty 3k to Silver Kiss. And my arm isn't even too sore this morning, which only adds to my smug sense of satisfaction.

I'm at that stage in the writing process where the more I write, the more I want to write. I've got to grips with most of the world-building - Pack laws and rituals, how the werewolves have integrated with the humans, all the fun stuff. Now it's time to bring on the Issues! Which Ayla has lots of! Apparently I can't write a werewolf story that doesn't have Issues. Lizzie, the heroine from Wild was addicted to heroin and accidentally killed her boyfriend (... but I've said too much ...). Christian, the werewolf in the Scarlett novels, is an irrepresible playboy with too much money and not enough morals.

So far Ayla hasn't taken any drugs, killed any of her loved ones, or slept around yet but hey, it's early days.

ETA: Squid can hear! Just further proof that they will one day be our masters. And I for one welcome our cephalopod overlords.

So I've recovered enough from watching Mega-Shark v Giant Octopus (except I dreamed about it all last night and haven't stopped thinking about it all morning) and now I've realised that I need to add a new subplot into Death for the Born. This is highly inconvenient given that it's out on submission and I'm still waiting to hear back from two agents with partials.

I guess if everyone rejects it, I can add in the new subplot and start over, but if everyone rejects it, is there any point? And I've learned from the epic mess of an ongoing rewrite that is Wild that adding in new subplots drives me mad. Grr. This is why I need to be working part-time. If I had more writing time, messy rewrites wouldn't annoy me so much because I wouldn't feel like I was cramming everything in around my damnable day job. I'd feel like I was cramming the day job in around my writing. Which would be much nicer.

Groan. I always eat too much when I spend the weekend at my parents'. I try to balance it out by going for long walks with Holly, but there's only so much damage I can undo. I got through a whole bag of Kettle Chips with Mum on Saturday night while we watched The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas. (The film isn't as good as the book, although bonus points for David Thewlis!) And then today there was cake and ice cream. Like, a lot of cake and ice cream. Good thing I didn't buy a whole load of new clothes last weekend ... Oh no, wait. I did.

On the plus side, I added 1000 words to the short I'm working on for Queered Fiction's gothic anthology. I've no idea if it's gothic enough, but it has a ghost and an all-girl boarding school and a chapel that was destroyed by fire in the 18th century, so... Another 1000 words or so should wrap up the first draft. And I spent a lot of time thinking about a shapeshifter novel that's been swimming around my head for the past week or so. I'd like to start working on it, if I wasn't already working on two other novels and if I wasn't planning to redraft Wild. What I really need is a sabbatical from work so I can put some real hours into all these projects.

Hmm, probably not about to happen. In the mean time, I have Friday 13th part 8 playing too loudly, so all is well.

ETA: Damn, apparently Victorian girls didn't go to boarding school. Why can't history just bend itself to my will?

* Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum. This post has nothing to do with explosions, car chases, nudity or espionage. Sorry.

Anyway, I've been thinking for ages I need to write this post on how books are like boyfriends but then I signed up to Facebook and Twitter and the world disappeared... But now I'm sort of overwhelmed by Facebook and Twitter and have stepped back to write the post. So:

Books are like boyfriends (or girlfriends if that's how you roll). Writing a book is like being in a relationship, each one having a different affect on you. I take my own work as examples:

Fire and Moonlight: My first love, the novel I will forever see through rose-tinted glasses despite it's many faults. The one I measure all other ideas, characters, plots, and novels against, despite it's flaws. This is the novel I loved first, and after this I just loved love. Or novels. Or something. Whatever. It's inevitable that I will return to this and we'll kiss in the rain, or I'll write it in the rain or something.

Wild: This is the bastard boyfriend/novel who made your life miserable but you loved him/it anyway and you keep daydreaming about getting back with him/it even though he/it took drugs and probably cheated on you with other women/novels. I'm convinced I can make this book work. It just needs a year of rehab and some anger management.

Death for the Born: This is the current relationship, and whilst everything seems to be going well now and we're having fun and he/it makes me laugh, I have a sneaking suspicion it will all be over soon. Because, you know, I'll finish the redraft and have to send it out to agents. And it's like that whole "if you love something, set it free" and you sit at home and chew your fingernails and wonder what your life would be like if you'd stuck with that drug-taking bastard/novel from before.

Night and Chaos: Now, this is destined to be a short relationship because it's only a novella, and it's like that guy I dated at university where I knew we'd break up when I graduated but I didn't really care. It's fun, it's sweet, but it's not serious and it's never going to take the place of the first love. Or even the drug-taking bastard/novel.

Okay, I'm probably not making much sense. I did put a lot of Baileys in my hot chocolate tonight. But I think I have a valid point in here somewhere. You develop relationships with your WIPs. After all, they're in your life for quite some time and they take up a lot of your energy. And you're always holding out for The One that will be perfect and take you away to Paris for the weekend win you that elusive publishing contract. So here's to promiscuity of the writing kind!

Oh, and this is the first picture that came up when I Googled "nudity and espionage." So, you know ... enjoy ...

(That title has nothing to do with the post. I just thought it had been a while since I had a picture of Dr Zoiberg on here, so...)

Anyway, I knew I shouldn't have made a schedule. Because now I'm going to tear it up. I have new plans for Wild (thank you, TWC) which will require a third, pretty extensive redraft, and frankly I'm reaching burn-out with this book. I love it and I want it to sell, but I need a break from it. I'm giving myself the rest of August and all of September off, and I'm going to fiddle with Death to the Born and play with a few new ideas that have been rattling around my brain instead.

My deadline for September's Explorer horoscopes is tomorrow and I've done nothing. Nothing! Not even glanced at my tarot cards for inspiration. I'll be doing some hardcore horoscoping tonight. And now that Pip and I have finished all our Lost dvds, I have one less excuse for not getting things done.

I suspect it may never be, and I might have to accept one day that there comes a stage when you just have to say "I've rewritten enough." But that day is still far away, so lets look at the facts:

Chapters rewritten: 24
Drinks spiked with LSD given: 1
LSD-induced maggot hallucinations experienced: 1
Ears bitten off: 1

So, I am now over halfway through the Wild redraft. Lizzie is struggling desperately to convince her family she's not taking heroin anymore, and her family are struggling desperately to remove her from the house. I just thought of another subplot to stick in, so I may never actually finish writing this book, and my RSI is giving me hell, so my hand my fall off long before anything is resolved anyway. 

Chapters revised: 21 
Zombie hunts attempted: 1
Zombie hunts successfully completed: 0 
Number of times Lizzie has been kicked out of someone's house: 1 
Number of times Lizzie has kicked someone out of her house: 1 

This Friday is tooth-yanking day, after which I have a week off work to recover from all the trauma. I'm hoping to get loads more done on Wild then. Watch this space... 

I sorted out extra accommodation for RNA. Huzzahs all round! And my stay there may be further aided by the fact that I'm having my wisdom teeth taken out the week before and will probably need a week off work after that. In theory, that means I can travel to Chichester at my leisure, swollen and bruised face notwithstanding. Sometimes Fate does provide for me. Although, I have to say, I'm kind of dubious about the whole thing. This is an approximation of the referral form I was shown at the hospital:

Reason for removal of wisdom teeth: Prevent pain, infection to gums.

Possible after-effects of removal: Pain, infection to gums.

Not promising...

On the plus side, I finally figured out what to do with Harris' mistress and it's awesome! And will involve a fight at a funeral, which will be awesome! In a grave, dignified manner, of course.