Why no blog posts in April?
I spent most of my writing time in April doing corrections to the first draft of ‘Lucky’ and this work is ongoing. Someone famous, probably a novelist, once said that ‘writing is rewriting’ and I would have to agree with this gem of wisdom. It seems like that is all I was doing for some weeks.
Lucky involves two stories – that of the dead father and that of the surviving daughter. It’s like Misfits meets Bond in some ways, and I have to say that because I’m putting it on the back cover of the Lulu version for a laugh. The dad’s story was written in the first person and so was Lucky’s. This was obviously a mistake which needed correcting. Doing one chapter on one chapter off between two characters both in the first person was a crap idea. Now that one story is in the first and one is in the third person gives the reader a clear signal of who they’re reading about – especially important when the daughter follows in the father’s footsteps in some parts of the story. That said, I actually think that writing in the first person helped me to develop the father figure more so than if I had written him in the third person from the off.
The corrections for every other chapter have been laborious from that point of view. Also I had to make some plot adjustments and cater to new ideas that still keep coming along. I now have a few new scenes to write to satisfy my desire to make this book as entertaining as I can before I lose interest and want to write something else instead. Coincidentally and most helpfully the recent tranch of Gardner books I have been reading have been based in some of the same locations in Europe I am using and while there is no way I am going to commit the heinous crime of plagiarism I am using him for some ‘fact checking’. For instance where is MI6’s headquarters in the 1990’s? Do the KGB tend to meet indoors or outdoors? Stuff like that. Actually there does seem to be a question mark over whether it is ‘the KGB’ like ‘the Gestapo’, or just ‘KGB’ like ‘Esso’. Gardner seems to use the Esso version whereas everyone else uses ‘the’. Odd. I will be reviewing 3 more of his books soon BTW.
I wonder sometimes if the NSA or MI5 or whoever are checking my internet usage when they’re going to kick in my door and drag me off into the night. Recent internet searches I have done include the after effects of car bombs, types of sidearm, the location of the headquarters of a right wing political party in Berlin, how to rob a bank in the 21st century, and armoured car heists. It’s all research honest. The search for the room service menu of Caesar’s Palace may throw them a little!
couchmagpie 