Me & My Book Baby

Nowadays some parents-to-be send pictures of their foetus as Christmas cards. So here's a Valentine's greeting to you all: me & my book baby ready to go to the doctor aka as literary agent.

I met the agent last week in his office, and he said my book foetus is mostly fine. It just needs some minor medical attention. This involves making the letters from one character to another more subtle, and yes ... I still have to cut out some of my Nick Cave references ...

I'm almost there, ready for the next health check-up, the one where every chromosomic line will be scrutinized.

And I have to think of a new name for my book baby. Replacing Angel has to go. What do you think of Under My Lip or Stuff it up your lip!? I know it's a girl, but the name can be androgynous ...

Photo: Barnaby Marriott

Two announcements:

ON WEDNESDAY 16 FEB, 8 PM, I'M DOING A POETRY GIG AT FLOETICS, RED ROASTER, ST JAMES STREET,KEMP TOWN, BRIGHTON

ON TUESDAY 22 FEB, 8 PM, A SHORT STORY OF MINE ON A SEXUAL THEME WILL BE READ OUT BY AN ACTOR AT ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?, THE BASEMENT, KENSINGTON ST, BRIGHTON

How many drafts must a woman write ... before she throws herself off the pier?

I read an interview view Susan Hill in the latest issue of Mslexia. She only ever does one draft of a novel. She goes back to correct, check and edit, but she never rewrites.

I'm totally the opposite, at least when it comes to REPLACING ANGEL, the novel I've been working on since October 2007. My first draft was just a mess of words, me spewing out what I wanted to say. In the second draft I tried to make sense of what I wanted to say, in the third draft I tried to find some kind of plot ... The fourth and fifth drafts were about defining the characters and their motivations. And the sixth draft which I completed a couple of days ago was all about ...

Cutting. 104 000 words became 84 000 words. So you might think that I've spent two intense week in Novelland just deleting words ... but it's not that easy. Cutting also means restructuring, and even adding scenes to make sense of the story. I'm happy with it now, and I'm hoping that I won't have to make more than 8 drafts! There's some interest from an agent, and he was the one who pointed out that the first third of the novel was too slow, hence the cutting ...

What I'm working on right now is the title. REPLACING ANGEL has too many associations to fantasy, Buffy the Vampire etc. As it's more of a gritty realism book I need to find something more appropriate.

Intentions for 2011

I had a good start to the year. I spent a week writing in my parents basement, only leaving the house once a day for my daily walk in the forest. The only people I spoke to were my family at meal times. I created time and space to immerse myself in the revision of REPLACING ANGEL.

Once I started the words fell into place. The hardest thing is always to start; I felt very anxious over Christmas, worrying that I would never be able to write again ... But it really helped to follow the Kaizen-method that I blogged about earlier. Just using five minutes a day to brain-storm around my novel, set me up for a good start.

At the winter solstice I asked a friend to randomly pull a card (similar to angel/oracle cards) for me, and the word I got was introvertedness. It felt very appropriate at the time as I had a very extroverted autumn, going out a lot, avoiding myself and my writing. I've been complaining that I haven't had time and space to write as much as I want to, but it's all about making time.

My intentions for 2011 is to spend more quality time with myself and stay in more. Relax. Eat slowly. Drink slowly. Take care of myself. Then I'll go out and have some fun.

Publishable

Adjective

publishable (comparative more publishable, superlative most publishable)

1. Able to be published.

I've spoken to an agent who's read my English novel, REPLACING ANGEL. It's publishable. That's the first thing he told me.

Publishable, but not quite yet.

The first third of the manuscript drags. I'm aware of this. My playwright/drama teacher friend who has also recently read my MS is of the same opinion.

And the title doesn't work, is too cheesy, too obvious. I wasn't aware of this.

The worst though is that I've used far too many Nick Cave quotes ... (Did you know that he crashed his car into a speed camera at the end of my street this week?! Photo evidence above.)

Even though I have a lot of hard work ahead of me I feel excited. The agent suggested that I take some time to think about it all, and then I'll present him with a new version of the MS in a couple of months time. I'm already thinking of spending the first week of the year in my small boring hometown and focus on the re-write, away from the distractions of Brighton.

Ginger hair and toilet chairs - the joys of re-drafting a novel

I'm so excited! So excited I almost don't want to blog about it or talk about it. I'm afraid the excitement will disappear if I share it with too many people. Besides it's only my personal excitement. There's nothing like a breakthrough in writing, when it happens it feels like your whole world is falling into place ...

Between the 16th of August and the 2nd of October I hardly wrote at all. Apart from a bit of journal and letter writing and some other random bits and bobs. A break for a month and a half was just what I needed to find the motivation to start the 4th draft of Replacing Angel (my English novel in progress). Thanks to wonderful constructive feedback from writer/editor Kay Sexton I felt I finally had something to work on.

For example one of my characters who's supposed to be very sexy and attractive has ginger hair. Even if ginger might be sexy in my eyes, it's not considered sexy in general so I have to find a better way to describe this person's hair. Fiery. Shimmering. Like a sunset. Suggestions much appreciated!

I also realised that because I tried to make the novel shorter I left out events that are crucial to the story and I had to go back to the first draft and add a couple of scenes ...

There are a few language mistakes as well. In Sweden we say "toilet chair" when referring to the actual piece of furniture you sit on when you're having a piss or a shit ... I didn't know that in English toilet is both the room and the chair if you know what I mean. Oh dear, I didn't realise that I'm still writing that much about toilets ...

For the past four days I've been totally engrossed in my writing, feeling tense and stressed every time I'm away from it ... If I'm meeting someone for a drink I can't wait to get back to the sound of my fingers tapping the keys. If I'm at work I put down my thoughts on pieces of paper when nobody's looking ...

I'm bursting! I'm bubbling! I'm alive!

p.s. If you're wondering about the picture ... I couldn't get the right feeling sitting at my desk, so I had to work on the floor to feel more grounded :).