Writing Update October 2024
Ove the last couple of months I’ve been catching up on my blogging. There was a bit of a backlog, and given the number of places I visit, it’s been a challenge keeping my blog up to date. This push to document what I’ve been up to has meant that little progress has been made on my outstanding novels. This has not been a bad thing, as I have a number of stories to finish up and I decided to take time to think through what to tackle first and in what order. As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m very good at drafting novels, and then moving on to the next one without tidying up what was in progress and declaring it complete. The new story always feels more exciting. I need to address this, hence my taking time to think it through.
The rewrite of The Kill Ward is proving a challenge. This is the follow up to The Kill Chain, set in a hospital. There are a couple of places that need a rewrite, and how to go about this has eluded me. I have a plan to address one of the plot devices, so that’s fine, the other part is still a bit unclear. The sensible thing to do right now is to continue the rewrite and see if any new ideas emerge to fix what needs tweaking. I’m sure I have some idea what to do, it’s just not quite appeared in my mind yet.
A new novel called Deflection Point was about to go out. There are a couple of place names I need to tweak, but other than that it is finished. The delay has been with the book cover. The design was finished up, and I was happy with it, but having thought about it more, I’m not convinced it’s entirely right. This novel is a crime thriller, with an Edinburgh old town detective. The cover fits that brief perfectly and I do love the cover. The problem is I chose to write Edinburgh in a dystopian light, set slightly in the future or in a kind of parallel universe. I did this rather than simply repeat the formula of modern crime novels set in Scotland. The book cover I have is not saying Dystopian Edinburgh and I think it should. So although the Edinburgh I write about is recognisable and believable, and again the cover reflects that, I’m not convinced the cover fits with the dystopian angle, other than mentioning it on a strapline. I could be overthinking this, but I have to make the call and right now I’m holding off.
I’m halfway through a follow-up to EVA, a science fiction novella. Checking back I’ve made no further progress on this for five months so I do need to finish this soon. It’s been four months since I finished the initial draft of another book in the Kill Series called The Kill Trick and I’m now feeling I should get on with the second draft. I’ve had time to think about this and let it settle in my mind after the effort to get the initial draft down. I enjoyed writing it, and I’m looking forward to getting it into a better shape. It’s been two months since I last worked on The Kill Ward, and no other book in the series can sensibly continue until the plot issues have been resolved. Despite all this I have found myself thinking about NaNoWriMo in November and drafting a new novel during those four weeks. I need to put that idea out of my head, and use the time to work on the above and plan for several book launches next year.
I’m hoping that this will be the last time I write about leaving novels half-finished, and I can report that I am now completing work to publication standard, rather than always jumping onto the next new thing. Of course, I never know when a new idea is going to come through, though admittedly I do feel kind of distracted and distant from the world in the days leading up to it. I’m aware of the signs and the feeling that a new plot is formulating. That’s an exciting time and it’s not one I will ever try to control. The trick will be to do an outline and not let the new book distract me from what I’m currently writing.
In other news, I’ve been studying Spanish for two years now and I have chosen a couple of pieces to play on the piano in Waverley train station next year. One by Bach and the other by Beethoven. A bit of practice still to do and I really want to memorise them rather than follow the sheet music, but that is another challenge to deal with. My reading has also increased. I was aware that after Covid I had slowed down a bit, but that’s been worked through and I’m reading more than I ever have. Still jumping across genres and catching up on modern novels while working through classics. I sometimes feel I could be doing with more than twenty-four hours in a day.
The Fiction Factory 