It was a dark and stormy day. The budding author squinted at the keyboard in the summer gloom and realised that somehow she had reached the end of editing chapter five. Yeay!
--Thunder crack--
Yeay!
--Lightening flash--
Why am I humming the theme to The Omen? Chapter five isn’t that scary, is it?
Scary thunder sound track aside, I am not quite done with chapter five yet. Now I will read over from chapter four and see if it all keeps the tone. I will then probably pick a little at the end paragraphs to make sure everything stays tight and there are no unravelling threads, and then – finally – chapter six!
Chapter six at the moment (on only three redrafts) stands at 13 pages. Technically this should be quicker to sort out, as a lot of the work I have done in chapter five will stand me in good stead.
The reason chapter five took so long is that I had to change a crucial scene. I kept coming back to it and wondering if it was a little under-whelming, and finally I decided that yes, it was dull, and yes, it needed to change. And then I got The Fear, and sat on my hands and wibbled for two weeks, until I just plunged in and went for it – and now the scene feels punchier and more dramatic – which is exactly what I wanted it to be. Phew.
And now chapter six!
--Thunder crack--
--Lightening flash--
Frankenstein awake!
4 comments:
It's lovely to follow your progress from chp5 to Chp6. Well done, Jane!
Excellent - well done, Jayne. I remember the endless nights hunched over and squinting into the twilight of my laptop only a year ago. So pleased you're sticking at it.
Thanks Joanne! It feels like such a painfully slow progress but then I re-read and see the difference. :)
Hi Ben! Finishing this is like a compulsion now. I can't let myself do anything else in my spare time but this (well and see the fella and socialise with friends and do some yoga as otherwise I would go insane). I've booked a week off work in August purely to kickstart the editing - I want to be at least on chapter 9 by the end of that month. Why didn't I just write a short story? Why wasn't I compelled to write a poem? Sometimes I lay awake and ponder such things.
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