Strange Changes

So, having spent a very long time trying hard to not only like my book's manuscript (apparently colloquially known as an MS... Easier to write, to be sure), and to also make it entertaining, I got last-minute inspiration over the weekend to hack up a key scene near the end and completely change it. I don't know why...

Though I thought the original one was fine, something about it always nagged at me, and now I wonder if maybe this new idea's got it right...? It does change the dynamic of not only the story, but also the dynamics between the characters, and I think maybe it really does work better. I've hacked up the book and the characters as a whole in the last few months - developing them, maturing them a little more and bringing their dynamic to a more preferable and smoother pace, and getting the pacing as a whole much better too (or at least I hope I have, and the work I've put in hasn't been for nothing).

I'm hoping this latest edition is also a more positive change to it, especially since I've been trying to obsessively get it out of head and onto the Word doc for the last 2 days. Once finished I'll then have to go back and edit it, which is always irritating because you have to be faced with all the daft mistakes you made when sketchily trying to touch-type your ideas as fast as they get into your head. And all whilst the wireless keyboard that is the bane of your existence insists on continuously skipping out not only odd letters but also entire bloody words -because heaven-forbid the damn thing should work properly. Or at all. Ever.

Unfortunately, this will also change the dreaded Synopsis - but hopefully for the better. It streamlines the story more effectively (or so is my humble opinion) so maybe when I amend it, the Synopsis will also read better and make a bit more sense. And be shorter. If I'm happy with it, then I might finally have the guts to send it off to a couple of people - obviously one will always hope that one day someone will read it, think its utterly marvellous and cheerfully offer you whatever you want for the rights to flog it to every publisher that will offer a small fortune for it. Of course in real life, one must deal with people reading the first three lines and returning it to you with the dreaded Rejection Letter and letting you get on with weeping into your morning coffee as you grieve for the lack of love that thick-headed agents have for your "baby". Always the best part... Can't imagine why I haven't done it yet.

I will, however, continue to comfort myself with the reality that even JK Rowling and The Beatles were met with many a rejection before a sensible and clever person spotted the diamonds in the rough and the genius in what they had to offer, leaving those who had the audacity to infamously reject such treasures crying into their own coffees whilst the sensible ones went laughing not only all the way to the bank but also into the history books of creative arts and entertainment.

I will always love the irony that Decca records will always be infamously known for brutally rejecting The Beatles, whilst EMI went down in history as being the ones who saw their potential and became their recording label. I'll also bet all the publishing houses and agents who rejected Harry Potter will always regret the day they decided to be small-minded and turned down the chance of a lifetime, and the money that obviously went with it.

Ironically, they told her there was no money in children's books. I somehow doubt they think that now...

Grass Is Greener Syndrome...

Isn't it ironic that when we're at work all we do is crave for time off to do whatever we want to do - sleep in, watch daytime TV, play XBox games, eat proper lunch in your own kitchen instead of a cardboard sandwich from Tesco... Then when you actually get given them you're bored to death within days!

Home is not so interesting when you have nothing much to do and you've done everything you wanted to do all day every day for a week, and the novelty has worn off. And when you're home alone, with no co-conspirator to keep you occupied or do anything with, it rather starts to feel like you've been kept home from school because you're ill and your friends can't come round, not even after school, because you're still infectious. It. Is. So. Boring!

As a contractor you get lulls of "between contracts" and whilst it may seem like a good idea to take advantage of it and have a "holiday", when the other half goes back to work sooner than you after said holiday because they've got a "proper job" they've got to go back to, you're left bored stiff waiting for the phone to ring and watching rubbish on 4OD and iPlayer an wanting to go back to work... Until the novelty of having a job to do wears off and you want to be on "holiday" again...

Personally, I'm taking the time to try to do some good - I'm working more on my little book (or not so little, as still working on that part...) and hoping I'll once and for all nail that synopsis that will make the imaginary gullible agents in my mind clamour for the rights to represent it within seconds of reading it... See, I'm a perfect writer with an amazingly vivid imagination!

At least what I have done so far with my time off is re-write and edit the manuscript to a more sensible size and made modifications that I think probably does make it much better - curtesy of my rather insightful partner, which was a surprising source receive such a thing given she absolutely refuses to read such works from other people!

All I need to do now is guzzle more coffee (unfortunately it's Kenko, as opposed to my favourite full-bodied Starbucks beans - unfortunately they're not bottomless never-ending bags, despite the price), convince myself I'm not really dying of boredom, and go back to writing. Which is always more interesting than trawling through hundreds of jobsites for rubbish jobs I don't particularly want to do. They always tend to come to me anyway - which works just fine for lazy-ish me...

A New Chapter And A Synopsis

Right - out with the boring philosophy shite ... Time for more enthusiastic griping and menial chatter me thinks!

So... Moving onto something new - trying to go back to the writing. Feel I'm getting nowhere fast. I have an actual manuscript and extract I'm actually almost happy with and would like to try to annoy and authentically convince several more people into reading it. Though I do feel getting my partner (no great reader of fluffyish fiction by anyone's standards) to read it and be entertained is quite impressive in and of itself!

However, this reading of the manuscript extract cannot be achieved in the more "professional" world without The Synopsis. This has now become the bane of my writing life (my shite and impossible-to-use wireless keyboard not withstanding) - I find it completely and infuriatingly impossible to condense what had ended up being (so far - the culling hasn't ended yet) 32 chapters of book into about a page of descriptive overview. How the people who write 10 lines of blurb for the back of published novels escapes me. I've vaguely impressed myself with keeping it at less than 3 pages so far, but I think that still maybe at least 1 1/2 pages too long...

I cannot write anything simply, nor easily say something in a few words - I do not possess that talent. As a lover of words and detail, I always find myself having far too much to write, and then must spend most of my time subsequently removing 60% of it afterwards - something that made writing essays and coursework at school and college a lengthy process and, frankly, a bit of a bore.

I have so far (on and off) spent months writing, re-writing, and completely writing from scratch again something that could vaguely constitute as a Synopsis, frankly to the point where I'm starting to be convinced I spent les time writing the actual book itself (the First Draft at least). I'm still working in it, but I've got it down do far to two whole pages - and while that may be too long it's better than the original (approx) 10 pages that I once had!

On the other hand, if my damned wireless keyboard doesn't start getting its act together and actually start writing out what I'm typing on it on a far more regular basis, the chances of me ever finishing it before I become of pensionable age is, at this rate, are exceptionally minuscule and rather laughable... Next time I won't be taken in by the brand's name - there is nothing but irony behind the name "Logik" when it's a keyboard that won't bloody well type!