Nick Bryan

Writing About Writing

Is it me or is there a COMPLETED SECOND draft in here? (WriteBlog #24)

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Unfortunately, the pun in the title doesn’t really work, as that kind of draft is spelt draught. But enough self-sabotage.

This week, on Wednesday to be precise, I completed the second draft of the novel I’ve been blogging about for ages. So yeah, hit my self-imposed deadline of the end of April by about six hours, go team. Now, this doesn’t mean it’s time to show it to publishing professionals, or indeed other humans at all, but it is a major chunk of work finished, and I’m going to number it as second draft anyway, simply because it gives me a feeling of progress.

So what exactly do I mean by second draft? And what’s next if not showing it to others? Time now for a little pause-and-take-stock in the editing process.

“It’s like running a comb through the forest.”

The second draft, as I’m defining it, involves going through the entire first draft text and trying to turn it into a coherent item, which you could conceivably go through from beginning to end and understand. I’m not saying every detail will be correct or the writing will be beautiful – in fact, that definitely isn’t true – but I have a thing that resembles a story.

More excitingly, it more or less resembles the story I wanted to tell when I started this whole process.In practise, this involved re-ordering or re-writing a lot of scenes, jamming new segments into them, not to mention the heartbreaking deletion of bits which no longer work. My deleted offcuts folder for this project is a terrifying 43,924 words – a lot of work to accept that you may never use.

(Well, there’s one whole deleted chapter which may find a home in some future related project, as I still like it, but the story has shifted and left the poor thing homeless. But aside from that, yup, it’s all being launched into the void to die.)

But at least it sounds like I’ve done something. Plenty of new writing, interesting thoughts about old work, gratifying sense of creation. The best editing experience I’ve yet had. I won’t be showing the first or second drafts to anyone, but one definitely advances the other.So, what’s next?

“It’s like fighting off an ant invasion using a sledgehammer.”

Well, the detailed editing, which I call the third draft because, again, it’s nice to feel like you’re achieving something. The bit where I go through the text in a finer fashion, potentially more than once, trying to get all the sentences to look and sound nice, spot the details which contradict each other, ruthlessly eliminate words like actually and finally which I use every five minutes and are never fucking worth it.

In short, yes, this is the fiddly part many non-writers assume I’m doing when I first start editing. If only.It also includes the always-entertaining section where I read the whole thing out loud to myself, alone in my house, hoping to spot awkward sentence construction and over-used words. The current manuscript is only 94,000 words so hopefully that won’t take too many thousands of hours.

I still live in hope this won’t be a huge chore. The last editing section was surprisingly pleasant, as it was still writing basically, but this really is word-by-word text examination. I’m going to try and push through it relatively quickly to avoid that being too much of a problem – in my dreams, I’m finished by the end of May. In reality, the end of June might be more realistic.

And then. Well, then we really are ready for other people to read the thing. And I’m sure I’ll talk about that when the time comes.

Tune in next week to find out how much/little of a boring task this third drafting really is. And then come back the week after that to see me change my mind.

Fighting The Skeleton Army – Fleshing out NaNoWriMo writing (WriteBlog #23)

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This week, I came within 1.5 chapters of finishing the second draft of the novel! But this isn’t quite the victory lap blog post yet, I’ll get to that next week. This week, after editing 5.5 chapters worth of NaNoWriMo work (I wrote the last seven chapters during NaNo 2013), I finally worked out the real difference between this and better, more carefully written first draft material.

No, it wasn’t the terrible spelling and barely comprehensible sentences, those would’ve happened anyway.

“An interest work, yes, but I can’t help but feel it may have been written by a burning cat.”

As documented in past WriteBlogs (and even a video that one time), I was concerned that the stuff I wrote in NaNoWriMo would be wretched godawful swill, a confusion of mess that looked like a cat had leapt onto my keyboard, then been set on fire.

But I worked myself into such a mess of pessimism that it was never going to be as bad as I expected. Yes, I stumbled upon a few bits which just didn’t make sense – after a few re-readings, I was forced to jettison entire sentences because no amount of re-reading could let me in on what my past self had been thinking.

Still, that was rare. Mostly, the plot was there, even if it still needed tweaking, and there were moments of great dialogue where I found myself thinking: “You know what, Past Nick, even though you were clearly hammered when you wrote that other bit, this is masterful.”

The one recurring problem I have found: most of it it just a bit thin. Not very fleshed out.

Zombies can’t eat the flesh if it wasn’t there in the first place

This could be a common enough issue with everyone’s first draft, but even compared to my other early work, this lacked in shading. Quite a lot of scenes boiling down to “Man and woman were in the room, it was green, one said blah, another said blah blah,” and so on unto infinity.

Not that the dialogue was bad, in fact some of it was very good, but compared to other, better bits of first draft, it did read a little like I was hurrying to the finish. So, in short, my experience of editing NaNoWriMo writing: putting some meat onto the blasted white bones of description-free scenes.

This grew a repetitive when blasting through scene after scene doing the same thing every time, but it could be worse. At least I didn’t have to delete and rewrite everything. And hopefully next week, we move on to the next big step: finishing the second draft.So that’ll be exciting.

The Trouble With All That (WriteBlog #22)

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Since last week’s London Book Fair adventures, I’ve returned to my normal life and tried to live the lessons, y’know? I’ve emailed a couple of people, spoken about things, set wheels in motion, and then… well, at some point I had to sit down and do some writing again.

And honestly, it almost felt a bit dull compared to all the faffing around checking my book options and seeing pretty colours. Not to mention, there are so many things to be done on the vague self-pub checklist, there’s always some other task I could/should be doing.

In fairness, I’m pretty sure I’m not the first person to feel this way. In fact, the self-published authors who spoke last week often touched on the difficulties involved in both achieving the ten million sundry publishing tasks and getting the work done. Oh, and continuing a regular human life outside both those areas, if possible.I think there’s a lot of novelty value here too.

I’ve been writing in some form since I was about 18 and I’ve pushed a hard cranking schedule in the last year or so especially. At this point, I know pretty well what it feels like to sit at a desk and type. But all this cover-selecting strategy stuff, that’s new and interesting.

Still, I’ve done some research and at some point soon enough, I’m going to have to process my Scrivener files into a correctly formatted ebook. I don’t see any way that won’t be an enormous ballache, so I imagine that’s about the time I’ll fall back in love with writing.

So for now, things keep going as they have been. A few slow, steady moves towards that self-publishing thing, another 1.5 chapters edited in my novel. Imagine I’ll have settled happily back into my routine soon enough.

And happy Easter to anyone reading this. Hope you’re having a good one and not yet suffering from diabetes. A more substantial entry next week, perhaps. For now, stuff is happening, work continues.

London Book Fair 2014 – “Eventual self-published author Nick Bryan goes to seminars, eats crisps!”

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I normally have a writing update in this slot on the blog, but I haven’t done much work this week, as I went off to London Book Fair 2014 in Earl’s Court. So, I thought I’d write about the experience from my perspective as an internet-using nearly-maybe-self-published author, on the off-chance it helps someone else or satisfies some curiosity.

(Although for anyone who is here for the writing updates: I got another short comic story pitch accepted by the nice chaps at GrayHaven Comics, so things are progressing.)

Anyway, for one week only, let’s move the adventure outside my room. I went to London Book Fair and what did I learn?

Forging the Ultimate Edition

As plenty of people will tell you, London Book Fair is not really a place where writers go to talk/learn about writing – it is a publishing industry event where those in the business go to network and discover what is coming up in that world. Not many traditionally published authors seem to go, unless they are one of the few special guests or have a meeting lined up.

However, we are living in an exciting new age. Not only are some authors doing a lot of their own marketing via Twitter, but a fair few are their own publisher too. I haven’t yet self-published anything – although you can buy my stuff on Amazon in these anthologies if you want – but as avid H&C Podcast listeners will know, I’m slowly getting my shit together for some kind of Hobson & Choi Ultimate Edition via self-publishing.

With that in mind, I went to quite a few seminars about the whys and wherefores of self-publishing, and did end up reconsidering quite a few of the approaches I’d been going for before. Firstly: probably will do a print edition as well as digital, at least for my first volume. If it sells fuck-all, might not bother for Volume 2, but I’d been assuming I wouldn’t be doing any hard copies at all. But apparently print readers are still out there, according to a few of the Bestselling Indie Authors who spoke.

If nothing else, my Mum will be happy. And, in fairness, the first time I mentioned this plan to a friend, they immediately asked if there would be a print book – and they’re a Young Person with an iPad and everything.

Obvious Idiocy – the worst kind?

Also, I will likely hire a proper editor, for at least a copyedit to make sure it’s a competitive product. This is something I have been back and forth on, but it was the one lesson every single self-publishing seminar agreed on. And if this venture turns out to be a disaster, I’d rather it not be because I ignored the most obvious tip everyone gave.

I’m also hiring someone to do a decent-looking cover design, but I’d decided that already. My limited Photoshop skills are not up to the task, and I’m not really up for joining the terrible self-published covers club.

So, that was the fundamental returns of London Book Fair for me. I went to immerse myself in self-pub research and I succeeded. I have discovered things. Well done me. If you too are an author wanting to explore this area, it is probably a good exercise – but again, little discussion of the actual writing.

If you’re planning for the publishing end of your operation to be handled by your mum/a publisher, there may not be much to do. But hell, it’s a fairly cheap event, so if you can see any interesting seminars then why not? It’s sufficiently inexpensive that you probably won’t feel guilty if you pay and only go for a day.

Sundry Observations

Nick failed to take a photo at London Book Fair, what a moron

I spent a lot of time in self-publishing seminars (in fact, probably enough time – I was feeling ready to lie down by the end), and the above section does contain my substantial learnings of LBF. But there were other things, and here are the highlights:

  • The Negotiating Author Contracts panel on Wednesday with a group of literary agents was a pleasantly insightful, intelligent, enjoyable discussion. Nice mix of enthusiasm and insight. Worth a listen if it ever appears as a podcast or similar, I’ll tweet it if I see it.
  • I don’t even like crisps that much, but I swear the packet I ate Wednesday luchtime after not eating all day was one of the tastiest treats I’ve ever consumed.
  • Did The Power Of Series Fiction panel on Tuesday. Obviously, I love serialised fiction in all its forms, so good to hear people caring, even if this specific discussion was largely about child-targeted serial stories.
  • The packet of mini-Party Rings I ate later on almost surpassed the crisps. Almost.
  • Author HQ at LBF was sponsored by The Daily Mail, unsettlingly. Gotta get the money somewhere, I suppose. I wasn’t bored for long enough to read the free papers left everywhere.
  • Really should’ve taken a relevant picture to accompany this blog post, but no, the only photo I took during those two days was the one over there of a smashed up bathroom and toilet near my house. Let’s pretend it’s a metaphor or something, okay?

That’s it, I think. Thanks to fellow blogger/writer-type Julianne Benford for accompanying me to the event – read her more informative, less crisp-focused blog post about it here – and already-self-published author and fellow Big Green Bookshop writing group member Chele Cooke for sharing her personal experience between seminars. If nothing else, self-publishing almost feels like a real thing that real people do now, y’know?

Man Edits NaNoWriMo Third On Video – A WriteVlog Experiment (or WriteBlog #21)

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I have a new iPad, so decided to play with the video function and do this week’s WriteBlog in straight-to-camera video form. See me struggle with what a chapter is, the sound on my computer and where exactly I’m meant to be looking!

Good times. In terms of actual content, this is me talking about starting edits on the final third of my novel – which I wrote during NaNoWriMo – and worrying that it is garbage – because I wrote it during NaNoWriMo. There is some embarrassing turning-off-the-sound stuff which I have’t edited out because it made me laugh when I watched it back – potentially I should be a bit more brutal with myself, but for a first effort, I think is okay. There may one day be a second effort.

Anyway, if I bang on much longer, I’ll defeat the labour-saving purpose of doing it on video in the first place. Here it is!

If you’re reading this in a format that doesn’t support YouTube embeds, here’s a clickable link to the original.

2048 – Ideally this would be my review score… (WriteBlog #20)

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When last we met, I was having some massive writing days, but also worrying that I was maiming my ability to function in a basic human way. I was also developing a growing addiction to 2048, the stupid tile-matching number puzzle which has managed to somehow bypass my usual instinctive avoidance of timesink phone games.

Not content with pouring hours into the Doctor Who version on my computer, I have now downloaded the actual app for my phone. It has not improved matters. But anyway, this isn’t meant to be a weekly blog where I moan about my latest procrastination discovery (although that by far one of the biggest challenges I face in my authorial life, sadly) – how’s the actual work going, Nick?

Old Father Time

As you probably know, I turned 30 this Tuesday just gone. You can read my thoughts on the actual milestone here if you’re so inclined, but in writing terms, it… had surprisingly little impact. I rarely work much on weekends anyway, so the only day of hard labour I really lost was the Tuesday itself. Got back into the novel editing with reasonable fervour by this afternoon, having completed my weekly Hobson & Choi tasks.

That’s still going, basically. I’ll probably hit the two thirds mark in a week’s time, and then we move into a slightly different phase and I’ll discuss that when it happens.

For now, though, I had a bit of chat about my novel at writing group last night, extending beyond the scene I read out at the time and out to the rest of the story. That was great fun, even though not every single comment was mega-positive and I have some stuff to think about. Helpfully, I’m still at the early stage of authorship when I’m slightly excited by anyone reading my work and expressing thoughts about it as if it’s a serious piece of story. I love every one of my Hobson & Choi reviews on Web Fiction Guide, even the not-glowing ones. (So feel free to add one. Ahem.)

Maybe one day I’ll be published, read my 1-star reviews and despair, but for now, yes please. Relatedly, someone reviewed the “Hero’s Best Friend” anthology I recently appeared in on Goodreads, and described my story as “Good story, but not a favorite”. Amazing novelty value, I don’t even give a shit about the but. I may have it framed. You can find more details of those anthologies in this post here, if that has enticed you to go buy.

Stop Touching Me, Please

So, that was the keen writery part, let’s now talk about my fuckton of recent procrastination. The big problem with 2048 is this: now I’ve become okayish at it, each game lasts about half an hour. So even though I don’t have twenty-game marathon sessions, it still eats up a chunk of time whenever I reach for my phone to have a couple of goes. I may inflict forced cold turkey on myself soon.

Oh, and I’ve decided to keep my Marvel Unlimited subscription going, because it’s an amazing service in terms of value for money, but having that amount of comics at my fingertips at all times is not good for getting other stuff done. Luckily, I can’t really use it when away from the house, so going to my usual cafe pretty much kills that, even if it has taken me a bit longer to actually get out of the house to go there lately. 2048 is on my phone, so there’s no escape.

Anyway, it’s now 11PM, so this is definitely a time when it’s okay to unwind with a few casual Marvel Comics. We seem to be thoroughly back to business as usual after the birthday. So, yes, that does mean I will stop talking about it on Twitter. I know you’ll all be relieved.