Go go gadget redraft!

I pinned myself to the computer for as much of the weekend as I could spare, and the result was I made it to chapter 11. Halfway! Although my mum kept interrupting me so much that I feared turning into the scary old-lady librarian from Ghostbusters. It was touch and go at one point, but I must have looked slightly wild around the eyes the last time she came into my room as I was then left alone for the rest of the evening. Gosh I am a grumpy bugger at times.

Chapter ten ended up half its original size. There was a lot of useless dialogue and explanations going on there, and deleting almost a chapter worth of words didn’t detract from the story one bit. Editing really is a rather amazing process; in fact I could hug it when it all seems to be going well. I can’t wait to get stuck in to the later chapters – especially as now I am fired up to finish. The aim now is to send away three chapters / treatment in January, and then the story to be finished by March. Thank you so much for all the encouragement with this – last week was a bit of a wake-up call to be honest. I think it can be so easy in life to imagine what can be, rather than trying for anything and perhaps failing. I think this has been my major problem, but I cannot live in dreams, so it is high-time to turn this into reality and see what happens. It is actually really exciting, as I cannot wait to say it is finished, and move on to the next story idea.

I have worked out that I can usually squeeze nine hours from the evenings after work, and at least fourteen from the weekend, which is surely enough time to redraft each chapter. So if I keep that up and finish a chapter every week, then I am on schedule to finish on Monday 8th March. And I actually think I might be able to go faster than that, to be honest. We'll see!