Week 10- Somewhat Behind

An April Release Date...

...is now looking extremely unlikely. At this point I wouldn't put strong money on May. I am behind for all the right reasons - other exciting work - but it is still frustrating, especially since sales of The Mummy's Quest have flatlined this month. But I am still working whenever I get the chance. I had a good day last Monday - felt good and managed to write a lot, and a bad day on Saturday, when I really wasn't feeling it and had to settle for 1,000 words before giving up.

Generally I don't write a day off if I'm writing poorly - I accept that it will be poor and I'll have to fix it in the next draft, then just write as much as I can. I'd rather shift the story along. But sometimes there are days when you're doing more harm than good. I don't think my ghostwriting day job helps in these instances, because then I am just trying to hit a word-count, and if I'm not careful I can fall into the same habit when doing my own stuff and that can affect the storytelling which is a lot harder to fix in a second draft. I don't mind fixing poor language, but structure is a bugger to go back and sort.

That said, as I'm working I've noticed that a couple of things which needed to be foreshadowed have not been, so I will be dipping back in and adding scenes and cutting scenes and moving stuff around. I didn't used to do this so much with books, and when I did I hated it. Which is why it used to take me so long to write a novel. That is the good side of the ghostwriting. Before I started writing a book a month to order, I never would have tried to write a book in 6 months for myself. Now I have more confidence in my ability to write quite fluidly from a rough outline and then go back and make it right 'in the edit'. A surprising amount of The Mummy's Quest was changed during the writing or was added afterwards, and I don't think it shows. 

The truth is that, as long as you follow the lead character, as long as you have a clear idea of who they are and what their arc is, then everything else can be readjusted around them. That is one area I won't skimp on, because I've screwed it up in the past. If I don't know what journey the lead character goes on, then I don't start writing.

I've now reached the more 'horror' sections of The Werewolf Of Priory Grange. I'm still concerned it takes me too long to get there, and I may yet go back and cut stuff or perhaps add some other 'light horror' scenes earlier on. I think it's still going well, despite a bad day's work. There's more blood and death in this one than The Mummy's Quest. And more sadness too, I think. The more classic horror I watch, the more aware I become of what a role melancholy plays, and I'm determined to harness that in this book, along with humour and horror.