Tag: First Draft

CORKS ARE FLYING!

On By Annika PerryIn Writing62 Comments

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Dear Friends, are you all ready to duck? The champagne corks are ready to pop! It’s time to celebrate! I have completed the first draft of my novel!  

It was with euphoria and numb shock that I wrote the last word on my first draft this week. Euphoria as I finally achieved my lifelong dream of completing a book. Numb as the hard work abruptly came to an end. I floundered from over-work and the loss of my main focus of the last twelve months.

Without all your help, support, advice and encouragement here on wordpress I know I would never have persevered and reached this point. You all kept me going in this isolated insular world of writing – your warm, kind words providing a real boost, your advice so welcome and positive and above all your friendship offering a spiritual lift. A heartfelt THANK YOU to you all.

What now?

20160205_125224First of all, my self-imposed deadline for this week was as a result of it being my mother’s  birthday this weekend. Always my biggest fan and strongest advocate of my writing, I wanted to present her with a printed version of my first manuscript as a special present. As a way of saying thank you – for always believing in me; for being there when I doubted myself.

Printing? 

This point was raised by fellow blogger a while back and I realised she was right – the cost can become prohibitive and may not always give the best quality. 

20160205_125233Inspired I remembered an advert in my son’s school magazine and on Friday I headed down to their printing department.  For a fraction of the cost at under £ 4 (under $6) they printed the manuscript double-sided and bound it as well. 

It was great feeling to hold the manuscript in my hands at the printers. Inside myself I was bopping around whilst in real life I shyly held the printed material. 

Recently I saw an interview with a successful writer and she said how many writers, including herself, had difficultly saying what she did for work as she felt a ‘fraud’. As my book was being put together I felt the same on its first outing to strangers. The printer only glanced at it but even so, my heart thumped heavily.  

This is only the beginning. I am under no illusions and am fully aware that the hard work starts now! Revisions, editing, scrutinising, re-writing.

20160205_125351First though I will set the manuscript aside for a week or two. Out of sight, in a drawer. This universally accepted procedure is a necessity and I understand why. My book and I need a break from each other. In ten days I’m off to Sweden for a short break so this suits well and upon my return I will start work on it; refreshed, re-energised.

In the meantime, I’m studying and reading in more detail than ever all about self-publishing v. traditional publishing methods. I will make my decision in due course.  As always I welcome your help and comments. 

Please join me in a toast. 

Cheers! Skål! Prost! ¡Salud!  Yamas!  Salud! 

Finally, I would like to end  this post with a quote from Stephen King, where he talks about writing.

‘I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.’

APOSTROPHES, SPEECH MARKS AND NOW!

On By Annika PerryIn WIP, Writing49 Comments

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This is to say a quick hello to everyone; I am more than aware that I have posted less frequently than usual. You are not forgotten, rather I am working hard to finish my first draft. Along the way I ran into a couple of obstacles.

As I have written my draft across two various platforms and programs – my iPad and Scrivener on the computer – I realised a while ago that the speech marks and apostrophes were not synced. In other words I had two variations across my whole document.

Last week I bit the bullet and began rectifying the problem. Hence hours of work going through each chapter, finding and amending each and every apostrophe and speech mark – I never knew my characters were so chatty! Listening to music I have managed to make this mostly a painless task but the work accrued as in the process I started to re-read and found other errors – of course. 

Some of spacing, some basic grammar and two words flew out at me like red flags! ‘Now’ and ‘then’ must have appeared on every page as I wrote quickly, with the ideas and words flowing freely. Trying to place myself in the story I obviously decided to do so literally, ‘now’ scattered like petals, liberally falling across the draft. On re-reading instead of immediacy it was clunky and became an annoying intrusion across the narrative. Out it went – along with ‘then’. Many other changes also followed.

I’m sure this is not the way to do it! It’s not neat, seamless re-writing. It’s a constant revision, some chapters more than three times, others still on their first real draft. It’s my way of muddling towards the end. 

The additional chapters have mostly been written apart from the all important finale. Somehow I’ve managed to delay that – the premise is firmly in my head, the way it’s going played out endlessly.

Is this delay psychological? Once written will that be it? Finished for round one (or two, or three in some cases!)?  My major goal of actually writing a novel achieved?

No more procrastinating. Next week I’m buckling down, facing my fears, continuing with the apostrophes, finishing the final chapter. 

My apologies for a short absence – with my next post it might be time to pop those champagne corks and have a celebratory drink – before the real hard work begins. I’m under no illusions!

‘She wasn’t ready to return home just yet, her peace and contentment carrying her down to the harbour, to the boats. Even from here she heard the familiar orchestra of the mast riggings beating against the wooden masts; the various pitches in sound rising to a crescendo with each new gust of warm summer breeze. She stood with her bare feet perched up to the edge of the wooden boards, gazing out to sea, closing her eyes, soaking in the contentment of the perfect day.’

From ‘An Island Girl’ 

© Annika Perry