Every Recipe for a Novel is Unique: Mine Includes a Dash of Juggling
When does an author get to say, “I’ve started writing a new book?”
Is it when she first gets the idea?
When she sits down to sketch out the cast of characters, and figure out the plot?
Or maybe it’s when she types the first word, or the 100th, or the 1,000th. . .
Well, I’ve started writing the next book in the series. I’ve been mulling over the idea for over a year, I know who the main characters are, and I’ve figured out the important plot points. I’ve also typed the opening scene.
It’s a first draft, so it’s tentative and very, very rough, but it’s on the page now. So I think I can safely say it: I’ve started writing the next book in the series.
Does this mean I’m done with the one I’ve been working on?
Bwahahaha. . .
At the end of January, I started a four-week course titled Self-Editing and Revision. Here’s my ginormous takeaway from that course (which was excellent, by the way): I need to take a significant break from that first book.
Why? I’ve had my head in it for over two years now(!) and it’s impossible for me to look at it with anything resembling objectivity. But without that objectivity, I can’t finish the revisions and rewrites it needs. So, into the virtual drawer it goes.
My plan is to spend about six months drafting book #2. When I’ve done that, I’ll put it in the drawer and take out #1. By then I should be able to look at it with fresh eyes and do what needs to be done.
Once it’s ready, I’ll start #3 while I revise #2. Toss a ball in the air, toss another, and catch the first while tossing the third. . .
Is this taking a whole lot longer than I ever imagined? Yes. But I’m quietly hopeful that everything I’ve learned this time around will greatly shorten the timespan for the next one, and the one after that.
I’ll keep you posted. . .
What I’m Reading
The Silo Trilogy by Hugh Howey
I’ve finished the trilogy now, with the third book, Dust.
Each book can stand on its own, and together they pack a powerful punch. Dust pulls together the events of both Wool and Shift.
Initially, we have no idea when Wool takes place. It could be 50 years in the future, or 500. Shift gives us a timeline, and shows how the people in the silo got there, and when, and why. Dust puts it all together and gives them a future.
I highly recommend this trilogy.
The Clutter Corpse by Simon Brett
You already know I like Simon Brett. Now he’s given us the Decluttering series, and while I didn’t enjoy it as much as the Mrs. Pargeter or Blotto and Twinks series, it’s well worth a read.
Ellen Curtis is a middle-aged, widowed mother of two grown children who runs her own business as a declutterer. Not a cleaner, and not a removals company — she’s quite clear about that.
Her job is to go into situations where the client needs help uncluttering their life, and that decluttering can be physical, emotional, or often both. She’s part organizer, part psychologist, part recycler (because Ellen’s a strong environmentalist), and part dealer.
The Clutter Corpse is first in the series. Ellen’s been tasked with helping an elderly woman whose son is about to be released from prison to live with her. The state of her apartment is such that the powers-that-be don’t consider it a suitable environment for the new parolee, so they hire Ellen to declutter.
While looking it over to determine what needs doing, Ellen stumbles across the body of a young woman. Because she found the body, and because of some other interesting twists, Ellen becomes a suspect for a while.
So of course she has to prove her innocence.
To be honest, this book could have also used some decluttering. There’s a lot of backstory, and while it helps to understand Ellen, it does get tedious in spots. Fortunately, the second (An Untidy Death) and third (Waste of a Life) don’t have this problem.
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Notable Quotes
Pausing only to immobilize his opponent with a good whack on the head from his bat and to tie the man by his pigtail to a convenient lamp-post, Blotto rose to face his aggressors. As he strode forward into the murk, he waited for the men he approached to become aware of that indefinable superiority which is given to the British upper classes, and to shrink backwards from his presence.
Sadly, such displays of deference did not seem to have formed part of the education of this particular bunch of bad tomatoes.
- Blotto, Twinks, and the Dead Dowager Duchess by Simon Brett
Representative of the style of writing in this series, this quote highlights a number of targets of Brett’s satire, including portraying Blotto as a superior physical specimen, the inbred feelings of superiority of the British upper classes, the crazy over use of slang, and a bit of self-deprecating snark.
Here’s another quote from the same book, where the use and abuse of slang is the primary target.
Well, it’s a bit of a candle-snuffer. Why can’t he uncage the ferrets in normal English like you and me, Twinks me old banana box?’
- Blotto, Twinks, and the Dead Dowager Duchess by Simon Brett
And here’s a bonus quote for today.
… three pension-age women stood gossiping and preening on the doorstep like a couple of old hens.
- The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
It leaves me wondering how three women can be like two hens, regardless of age. . .