Writing and editing a novel requires some serious heavy lifting… 

First draft is finished! Hurrah! But what does “finished” mean? For me it means I have all the chapters in and every chapter pretty much has a beginning, middle and an end. You can read the story as it is now and it is “a story”. There are 90,000 words of it. And so now the serious work begins. Editing…

I haven’t been blogging much because I have been writing. I’ve done those 90,000 words in three months or so and I’m not especially gifted at mental arithmetic but I think that’s an average of a thousand words a day. Not particularly brilliant but not too bad either, considering my only writing time is still from 10pm until I pass out slumped over my laptop, drooling. During these weeks we’ve also been in the process of buying and renovating a house which has wiped me out a bit but I force myself to write every night, no matter how tired I am. Getting between four and six hours sleep every night for three months takes a toll and with the limited time and mental / physical resources at my disposal I have prioritised getting to the end of the first draft above any other writing. It’s not been that hard, to be honest, because I’m itching to tell this story.

But I haven’t cheated (myself) in order to achieve get to this point. I haven’t skipped over the difficult sections (perhaps I should have done) and I have resisted going back and editing the earlier chapters. Before I started actually writing I set out a clear structure and outlined every chapter, more or less. The first third I had very clear in mind from before I started; most scenes, in fact. The middle section I could picture pretty well and the final third was a little vague. So, unsurprisingly, I deviated from my planned structure the further I got into it. However, I always had the ending to keep me focused. The route varied but the destination stayed the same.

There are 46 chapters, which is maybe ten more than I intended. I was aiming for about 2,000 words per chapter and in fact that is pretty much the average. The range is from about 1,000 words for those chapters where I have so far skimped on the descriptions or perhaps motivations or just detail generally, up to over 3,000 on some where I may have to be more focused and cut down or actually divide those into two. Obviously, chapters don’t all need to be the same size but consistency helps with the rhythm of reading and also helps me focus on getting to the point of each chapter. The structure of the chapters tends to be your classic “Someone wants something > they try to get the something > they get or don’t get the something”.

Editing. I have so many notes that I have made along the way on things I need to add in or change. So what I will do first is check through all the big structural stuff. What can I cut out? Is this vital to the story (including the overall story – this is a series after all)? If not, sorry, lovely description, you’re cut. Aww, you’re a really funny joke but you don’t fit the tone? You’re cut. You’re a historical character making a cameo but you’re slowing down the narrative? Ah man… yeah, you’re cut, too. Don’t look at me like that, hit the showers. Then there’s a load of info-dumping at the end which I need to spread throughout instead and I need consistency in characterisation / arcs and so on.

After all that “writing craft” nonsense, I have tons of research I am dying to include. Tons of period detail and language. I have character names to choose, place names to decide on. Ah, man, it’s going to be great.

I intend to post more often here again now that I’m at this point. Having said that I’m actually, finally moving house next week so I might have to have a couple of nights off from writing altogether… Imagine that! I’m not sure I can.

Gunpowder and Alchemy Book 1 available now on Kindle

WHITE WIND RISING (GUNPOWDER AND ALCHEMY BOOK 1) is available now on Kindle.

USA and UK 

It’s one of those that has you going ‘OK, I can’t put this down right now, I need to know what happens next’… all the way through.