Prompt

We interrupt this break in blog posts to bring you a special bulletin. Aurealis has hit a new low in its processes, taking almost three weeks to confirm receipt of submission. They have Displeasures of the Flesh in case it makes any difference.

We now return you to ... nothing.

Tough slog...

...but hopefully a rewarding one. I am about three-quarters through my final edit of Ghost Kiss and I am both shocked and delighted at how much I've been able to cut from something already revised three times. Editing with the 10% rule in mind and working around Chipewa's distaste for the word 'was' has taught me some major lessons in economy of language – an economy I'll strive to apply in first drafts from now on. It feels like a major step in maturity as a writer – recognising that proper, brain-pain editing is just as or more important than the euphoria of composition.

At a rough estimate, I expect to cut Ghost Kiss down from 92,000 words to 87,000 words – nearly 8 Word pages of superfluous description and clumsy sentences. When it gets in the Chipewa ring, Ghost Kiss will be lean and hard and ready to fight. Ding-ding!

Journey's end

Truck Me reached its destination at about 5:30pm yesterday evening. Its GVM is approximately 92,000 words – not a huge novel, but the kind of load the smaller publishers look for (for some reason).

Now it's all available hands on deck for Ghost Kiss. Not much exciting or interesting happens during the editing process, so I'll probably give this blog a rest for a couple of weeks. Let's hope the next entry is good news!

The final chapter

This afternoon (and perhaps tomorrow morning) I will finish the final chapter of Truck Me, which looks like it will come out almost exactly the same length as Ghost Kiss – about 90,000 words. That's not a bad thing when your potential market is most likely the small press.

The final section has had a pleasing economy of language – not rushed, not underwritten, but lean and clipped.

I'll make another entry upon its completion.

Trials of life

Wow, this one really hurts. Andromeda rejected 'Level Two: Time Trial' this morning. I honestly thought I had a chance with that one. It's so frustrating to get to the third round (again) and then dip out (again).

What I need to do now is try and find another suitable market. I think I'll try one more, and then if it is rejected again, I will offer it up for Scifantastic #6.

Not for the weak-hearted, this publishing biz...

Go west, young man!

...and into a world of terror! The cover art and contents list for Hell's Hangmen has been finalised. Looks like I'm third cab off the rank - not too shabby!

In the clear

Glad to say that all the cobwebs were well and truly gone today. Kellie needed my laptop for uni, so I hit the keyboard when I arrived at work – and knocked out almost 1,900 words in a single session. The finale of the novel is also gaining some of the emotional momentum, that it seemed to lack yesterday. If I keep up this work rate, my goal to complete Truck Me before the end of May is more than feasible.

Had a short story idea about relative intelligence today ... I was quite taken by it, but I suspect it's probably an area another writer has covered before. If the idea survives beyond all my editing plans, I might attempt to put it down on paper.

Also been trying to do dribs and drabs of Ghost Kiss when I get a moment. Roughly halfway through now and feeling positive ... although like my composition, I have some days where I feel like a genius and other days when I don't think I'm fit to share a shelf with Sidney Sheldon.

A fat grey slug

That's what my brain has felt like all morning. I thought for a second I had lost the momentum on my novel altogether (at page 131 no less) but I managed to get the stylus back in the groove and complete 800 words at work. Nonetheless, the final pages are not running themselves off in that panting, breathless flourish of euphoria that they usually do. In fact, this is the flattest patch I can remember since the 80s... perhaps because it has a more sedate conclusion than most of the other books I have written.

As you can probably gather, the weekend wasn't the trove of productivity I had hoped – although I did put fingers to keys on both days (1,200 on Saturday, 800 on Sunday) so it was far from a dead loss.

A quick flick back to the start of Truck Me to check names and events affecting current composition has suggested that steady characterisation is going to be the toughest part of the editing job this time around. Particularly deciding how much of an arse my main protagonist should be... a real balancing act.

Dealing with rejection

In this case it's not too much of an ask – the reply from the zine I sent 'Displeasures' to made me think it was a dodgy outfit, and I just received a rejection from Fictitious Force for 'Fresh as the Bright Blue Sky' ... which I didn't have a great deal of faith in anyway.

I might try sending 'Displeasures' somewhere else – perhaps even to Andromeda – but otherwise I'm going to concentrate on finishing Truck Me during the next three weeks. Pushing up towards the 130 page mark now, which hopefully I should achieve sometime tomorrow morning.

The home straight

I hit the 118 page mark of Truck Me today and have begun what appears to be the denouement of the tale. As with every novel I have ever written (the possible exception being a fantasy book I penned five years ago) I began to rush it, a wild steed heading for home ... but this time I caught myself. If I'm going to write it, I might as well write it properly. If revisions on Ghost Kiss are finished at the end of July instead of the end of June, so what? The publishing world moves with painful slowness anyway, a month here or there isn't going to matter.

Patience is a virtue ... one that I'm trying to learn. Not with the people who block escalators or don't drive off when the light turns green, but with the things that need and deserve it.

A real eye-opener

Sometimes it's all about asking the questions. If you don't ask, you never know (to quote Wal Footrot).

I received a reply from Sarah Dobbs this morning and I'm pleased to say it was nigh on revelatory. Apparently the good folks at Chippewa have a vendetta against 'was' in the context of "...it was like a big point in a tennis match and she was choking every time." They would prefer "...it was like a big point in a tennis match and she choked every time" and by God, I have to agree with them. While 'she was' is not passive voice in the strictest sense, it does break the White/Strunk rule of 'Omit needless words', which can be just as bad.

When my fourth draft of Ghost Kiss is done, I'm going to use the find/replace tool on my word processor to comb through my manuscript and eliminate every unnecessary 'she was' I can find. I'm also going to do the same for all my other novels and stories.

2nd draft = 1st draft - 10%

This is the rule of thumb that many writing teachers swear by and as I was chipping away at the fourth draft of Ghost Kiss last night, I realised I had not been following it. Then this morning I was revising potential markets for it and saw that Chippewa Publishing, which is where Sarah Dobbs has had a book published, accepts novels up to 90,000 words. Currently Ghost Kiss runs to just over 92,000, which is why I had dismissed Chippewa as an option.

But if I can close the discreprancy in numbers it should work in my favour – my novel will be leaner and better at 89,000 or 90,000 words, and if I can get it down to the minimum word count, I like my chances of being published at Chippewa (not least because one of their own stable sees something worthwhile in my short fiction). I have also emailed Sarah asking what to expect and if she has any inside info. Can't hurt to ask, can it?

The last novel (for a while)

I made the decision this morning that once Truck Me is complete, it will be the last novel I write for some time. I have perhaps half a dozen short stories waiting completion or proper editorial attention (not to mention Ghost Kiss, which has been sitting on my desk untouched for the past week) and it is yarns like 'Blue Diamond Pool' that should have priority if I am ever going to have a crack at full time authorship. It's all very well to pen book after book, but if no one is going to read them because I don't have a good enough list of short fiction credits, what's the point? I might as well head to a vanity press and be done with it.

Speaking of Truck Me, I purposely got an earlier train this morning so I could run a few errands before work and therefore did not get a seat. But once I was at work, I put together 1,100 words in what must be record time ... and I'm hoping to add another 500 on the way home. Not a bad tally!

Jilted lover

I'm the worst kind of jilted lover - the kind that keeps coming back for more. The dodgy American 'zine I submitted it to rejected 'Displeasures', so I've swallowed my hubris and decided to send it to Aurealis. Am I a sucker for punishment or what?

Really down in the dumps this morning - writing on the novel was like trying to dig out a muddy hole in the pouring rain. No coincidence, I fear, that I spent Sunday hungover after a boozy engagement party for friends. I think I need to get serious about the no-drinking policy if I'm ever to have any success. So many wasted days.