NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 30

Potter survived with a little
mad look in 'is eyes

It is done. November is over. In the last 30 days my hair has grown unreasonably long, as did the hair on my face - at unreasonably strange angles too. Some of the summer lustre has disappeared from my skin - now paler. And I do believe there might be a bag or two more under my eyes. Maybe that's just from the count of my years and not just 30 days in November.

NaNoWriMo has at times felt a little like trying to run on ice. It has been impossibly, dangerously fast (god it feels good writing adverbs and adjectives) and at others, like I was getting nowhere.

Above all I entered the month hoping to learn a little more about the kind of writing process that works for me. As ever these things often end up revealing the obvious. I discovered writing isn't about hitting a daily count or monthly targets. It is about giving yourself time to write every day, even if that time is then spent researching the obscure and arcane. It is about finding some way of progressing the story each day even if it's in building the detail of the world and not the word for word. I learned writing is about being imaginatively fearless, believing in what it takes for you as an individual to write the best story and not worrying about others or hitting those targets. I learned I can write upwards of 2k in a day with a full section of the story plotted in my head. That it sometimes takes me two or three days of no words and lots of pondering to get to that point. It is more efficient for me to take these days of no words rather than writing 6k of words because I need something on the page to hit a target, only to later find the story doesn't need those words. Or worse being blind enough to justify keeping them simply because I wrote them.

It feels like I have tried everything this last year in learning the best method for my writing, with the irony being that I've come full circle to the process I started with while writing Chasing Innocence. I do know that the initial translation of mental imagery to the page is the part I struggle the hardest with.

For the baying millions waiting to hear my final count for NaNoWriMo of November 2013 of the common era - it is 23,433 - the most words I've ever been aware of writing in a single calendar month.

I will be continuing with The Handyman now to completion and will be posting progress through this blog, if only revealing the word count infrequently.

< NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 27 - The Handyman Day ?? >

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 27

Fifteen beats of the sheet

Before I started writing the actual story of The Handyman, I spent about a month mapping out the fifteen or so key markers I'd need to hit during the story. This process also maps the core plot complexities. Not what happens but why it happens, the character motivations and backstories. The beat sheet for The Handyman totalled some 25k of words before a single word of fiction narrative was written.

In creating the beat sheet for the Handyman I didn't want a standard revenge structure where Daniel went straight out to kill Angela's murderers. Earlier this year I read Helen Zahavi's brilliant 'Dirty Weekend' and loved how she transitioned her heroine from timid victim to effective vigilante. Daniel has never been timid but his fear of losing the memory of his wife keeps revenge in check. When he sees video footage of Angela's murder, he hears one of the killers laugh. The seed for his journey is sown.

The story then to the mid-point is all about him tracking down the murderers. In my beat sheet they are described as The Driver, The Mercenary and The Psychopath. It is Daniel's interactions with the Driver that will lead him to the Mercenary and indirectly to the Psychopath. I intended for the Driver to be part of the murder squad because he has been radicalised. He isn't the guy who laughs or pulls the trigger. Just the driver. For all his hard believing the deaths have an effect.

That's pretty much what I laid out in October. Two days ago I reached the point in writing the Handyman, where Daniel tracks down the Driver, and therefore the moment life has to be breathed into the Driver.

It is very important to me that each of the Driver, Mercenary and Psychopath are living and breathing characters in their own right. Their actions are undertaken with the same kind of convictions and justifications Daniel uses for his goals. So how do you create a living and breathing radicalised twenty-eight year old male with two children and a wife?

The answer is of course - not easily. I definitely didn't want to make him the 2D bad guy terrorist. I wanted to create someone we understand and therefore empathise with as Daniel relentlessly closes in. A similar understanding of character to Simon the child kidnapper in Chasing Innocence.

The last two days then have been about researching the different facets of radicalisation, which is a well documented trait in human societies. Radicals have existed in every culture, religion and ideology through time. They are a result of an individuals belief that the institutions and structures defining law and society are de-legitimatised and need to be replaced. There are usually multiple facets, society, cultural and often family, that have to fail in the person's eyes. Even then most people do not possess the capability to radicalise and then only a small percentage that do, would actually turn to violence.

My driver's first name is Aslan. He has grown up in a largely orthodox family. A strict father who believes the old ways are best, who also views the ruling structures of society to be de-legitimised but change must be achieved politically. Aslan had an older sister he was very close to, who was beaten and died as a consequence while at University - never solved and thought to be racially motivated. The family discovered she was leading two lives, a western life at University and a compliant orthodox life in-front of the family. She had a secret western boyfriend who Aslan believes murdered her. It is Aslan's belief the structures of society covered up the murder. That she didn't matter. Society failed her and so did his father, who's pedantic attempts to introduce orthodoxy politically are as flawed as the ruling society itself. He is frustrated by his communities inward focus at observing doctrine while not doing more to force change in a society that demonises his culture. Azlan believes the deaths of Angela and Molly are part of the vital process for deconstructing the existing infrastructure. Except he is also haunted by the laugh in the car as Angela was killed.

That's the premise. Now I have to put Daniel and Aslan in the same space on the page and see what happens.

< The Handyman Day 23 - The Handyman Day 30 >

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman - Day 23

Now what the hell am I going to write this blog post about? It is day 23 of NaNoWriMo by 93 minutes. I'm in Birmingham sat in a friend's study. I've had about three Desperado's too many and I have just watched Sucker Punch - which was nothing like the movie I thought it would be. In fact I think it was rather excellent, save for the fact it tried to be too clever by holding onto the secret of reality far too long. Which wasn't even the Sucker Punch reveal. Zack Snyder is an incredibly original visionary but he isn't at this stage the genius story teller he aspires to be. Watchman spoiled him. Classics are not so easily conjured.

Anyway, a few days back I was thinking I'd soon hit 20k or at least be close, then when I look at the posts that was nine days ago - aarrggghh.

It is day 23 as previously mentioned. I have just breached 20k. This is disappointing on two levels. First it means my average word count per day has been less than 1000 words through November. The second is I'm so horribly far behind on NaNoWriMo it makes me shudder to think.

This has been a wonderful exercise though. I know writers who have already tipped 50k this month. I find that inconceivable. While I am writing to a carefully plotted structure the line by line for me is entirely from the characters perspective. What are they thinking in the moment to moment? Creating a scene and having the characters play the scene to the benefit of the story is tough work. I write short scenes, in the main. It takes a while for me to reset between scenes. To properly stage them in my mind.

Of course at 20k I have just finished the hardest part of the book - act one - the bit where we introduce characters and give them substance, set-up all the key markers that will play and evolve through the story to it's conclusion.

The hope is I am now playing these established characters in the story. I have so many hopes and aspirations for how this will play out, that trying to hit a word count feels entirely wrong. Sitting down and trying to creatively tell a sizeable chunk of the story each day does feel good. I will have mentioned it before. The key lesson for me has been to make sure I sit down every day and commit to writing for a few hours. No matter what.

Off to bed now with the hope I will have chance to write for an hour or so in the morning without being too anti-sociable. Am off to a Memorabilia Comic-Con type event at the NEC tomorrow afternoon.

With seven days left and the 25th as my next realistic writing day my hope is to hit 30k before the end of the month.

We will see.

< The Handyman Day 19 - The Handyman Day 27 >

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 19

Wave hello

One of the toughest parts of starting a book, is getting the characters on the page. I'll often see them in my mind but finding the words to convey them as real can take some time.

Invariably there is a magical moment during the process, usually about the time we get into the mix of the main story, when the characters make themselves known. They become real and the words to describe them come a lot easier.

It is a moment I seldom see coming. In Chasing Innocence it didn't happen for Sarah until late - when she was fighting Simon. For Mahrie it was her return after burying her husband, and her reaction to the police waiting outside her house.

When the characters do start waving from the page. It is one of the great feelings.

Of course you may read the following excerpt and wonder what the hell I'm going on about. It might be difficult to know without the context of what happens before. This was the moment for me when Daniel Harper started waving. It will now be about honouring his story that drives me to the end.

Daniel does a last check, makes sure the keys are secure in his rucksack, the change of clothes, clips his shoes into the pedals and freewheels onto the road, merges into the traffic. 

The bike is gleaming, oiled, there are no gears. There are no brakes, the bike's momentum is controlled by the continual rotation of the crank - it stops and the bike stops. The handlebars are seven inches across, left hand to the right, designed so he can filter through traffic, between cars, taxis and buses. He’s spent the morning giving it the once over. He wants to see if he’s ready to work. 

At the station he pulls on his cap because he doesn’t want trouble. The train has to pass through Slough. London is the multi-cultural hub of Europe. He’s nervous. Not the fear of physical confrontation but of being reminded of other people and their anger. There’s a telescopic batten taped to the inside of his bicep, just in case. 

The worry is for nothing. He climbs on the train, lifts in his bike and they rattle and roll into Slough where people pour off and on, the doors close. On into Paddington. He doesn’t think anyone paid him any attention. He has been trained to notice these things. 

The underground could take him to Wimbledon but he needs to get back into the flow. This is where his days were spent, couriering envelopes and packages, criss-crossing through the alleys and roads of the ancient city. Tuned into cabbies and bus drivers, pedestrians with a death wish. Upwards of one hundred daily miles on a seat narrower than his wrist. Decent money and flexible. It could be unpleasant, the weather, the nutters, never worse than sitting in an office. 

It’s nine miles to Wimbledon, it takes him forty minutes. He’s an hour early for his appointment. Sits in the park to cool down. Knows the child voices and the mothers aren’t Molly and Angela, has to stop himself hoping. Watches them with his body heavy with loss, a malevolence wants to twist inside. For those who robbed him. A tension he lets flow to the cool autumn. He thinks of Angela and the love she had for life. 

When he’s ready Daniel takes his lock from the rucksack, the sort you’d get for a high-end motorbike. A long chain of thick links encased in a kevlar sheath. He removes the bike wheels, takes them with him. Only the frame is shackled to the bike rack. He changes in the public toilet, the cloying bleach and piss. He sprays deodorant. He knows Wimbledon well, he used to see Doctor Mistry at the Neurological hospital, after he came out of the army. Daniel likes to be respectful. Would never wear his cycling gear to see a Doctor. When he leaves the toilet he’s wearing his wedding suit trousers and a shirt. Polished black shoes. The wheels in one hand in a special carrier, rucksack on his back.

  < NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 18 -  NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 23 > 

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 18

Keeping the study warm
while Potter feverishly
creates pearls of fiction...

And then there were 18 days of November almost gone. Life has kicked in the last few days and I have not written a single word of fiction since the 14th #gulp

I knew I was going to struggle Fri for the same reasons I mentioned in the last post - I was trying to find an innovative way to introduce the video found footage. Sitting down on Friday I thrashed through the details, working through potential scenarios. I didn't want the found video to just arrive through Daniel's letterbox or be nailed to a wall or something - although I seriously considered these as solutions. I wanted some interesting angle, and how I vexed myself.

1.6k of debating words later, which is how I resolve plot issues, by writing down the debate in my head, I had some great additional ideas for the story but nothing original for the found footage.

Then the weekend kicked in and projects I was working on with other people took precedence. Chasing Innocence is getting a fresh proof and copy edit to try and get the last few rough edges out of the text. I'm starting a business and needed to get business card designs ready for the printers.

Saturday I finally came up with the found footage solution by thinking outside of the problem and looking at which characters could solve it for me. I came up with an excellent idea - hoorah to that. Now It's Monday and business needs took over again. So it's 16:00 and not a NaNoWriMo word has been scribed since Thursday night. I need to get back into the mindset, to get going. 20k of The Handyman beckons. I'm currently at 15,500 words. Wildy behind schedule but the set-up and introductions of act one are almost over. I'm about to move into the fun and games of act two. It'll be easier, words will be plentiful, I keep telling myself.

I'll let you know how it goes.

< NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 14 - NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 19 >

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman 14

It happens like this just about every day, at least those days I'm supposed to be writing a blog. I'm just about to pack up and go to bed, when it suddenly occurs to me I haven't written the damn NaNoWriMo blog.

I then spend about ten seconds deciding whether to give it a miss or not, the outcome of which will largely be determined by whether I bunked off the night before. In fact last night I didn't give the blog a single thought. So here we are, sitting here at 00:23hrs on the 15th November, trying to be insightful.

Today was one of those writing days, NaNoWriMo or otherwise, when the needs of the character changed the needs of the story. In my extensive plotting of The Handyman, I had cleverly created a moment halfway through act one that would serve as a catalyst for the rest of the book. It was a moment when Daniel looks through the pictures of his dead wife's camera having dreamed of her asking him 'What do you see?' I go through this whole section as he hunts through the pictures as if we are looking through found footage. He sees her life and world through her eyes. One largely unknown to him. It is a lovely moment and frustrating for him because he cannot see anything that might lead to her murder.

I wrote the scene today. I like it a lot and it works real well. This moment pays off later in the story. It immediately leads onto a scene with actual found footage of her murder, taken by the murderers. In looking through the footage he hear's one of them laugh and his revenge gene kicks in. He is now on board for the main story.

It all sounds cool, and reads pretty well in a story outline. The trouble is in writing the two back to back found footage scenes you get found footage overload. The two scenes show different mediums of camera and video, have largely different content but have very similar narratives. They are essentially the same scene played out twice in a row. Readers will disengage.

The solution so far is to move Daniel doing the camera review to a much earlier stage during the setup in the first half of act one. And then think of some imaginative way of revealing the video found footage, which I haven't quite come up with yet.

Hopefully next time we meet in the middle of the night, which should be Saturday(ish) at the latest, I will have. See you there.

<NaNoWriMo - The Handyman 12 - NaNoWriMo - The Handyman 18 > 

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 12

It's amazing how the days get away from you. One minute I'm mostly doing a blog a day, or every other day, the next it suddenly occurs to me I've not done one for three days. Not even thought about it at all.

So it's the twelfth day of November. If I was keeping track of the NaNoWriMo thing I should have 19k of words under my belt. I actually have 12k. Which is so far off the pace it is almost totally unrecoverable in terms of hitting the 50k word count at the end of the month.

The realisation of this month for me has been understanding it's unlikely I'll ever be able to write 50k in thirty days. I can work all day sometimes and have little in actual additional word-count to show for it. Here is an example of why:

Sunday, I spent four hours editing two chapters I'd worked on the day before. You might ask why I was editing and not writing, it is after all NaNoWriMo. The simple answer is everything I write is character centric, if I haven't got their perspective accurate in chapter five, it's not going to feel right in chapter six, seven etc. If I don't take care of the characters viewpoint and world perspective in chapter five, I'll end up increasingly uncertain and go off course. Which will later take a disproportionate amount of time to fix. I might as well get it fixed when I realise it needs fixing and keep subsequent chapters on message and building from a sure platform.

So Sunday, I'm editing these two chapters. One heralds the catalyst for what will be the reveal at the end of the story and therefore needed to say certain things in a certain way. I'd got it written but it was too obvious in leading Daniel to the catalyst. I needed to be roundabout in the reveal and blend the conversation so the reader realises the catalyst a line or two before Daniel does. The other was a conversation between Daniel and another man about their motivations for the upcoming story. The Handyman is a revenge thriller. I'd written the scene but didn't have a valid reason for him being reluctant to embark on the revenge element. I had to make sure he had valid reasons for rejecting the cause but give the reader a clear understanding he will of course eventually get going.

It took a lot of work and I eventually laid it out not as a reluctance to embark on the story but a reluctance to leave the memory of his wife and their life together behind. A very tricky thing to pull off. Four hours of hard work with a total twenty-two words added to the project's overall count.

The next NaNoWriMo word-count update will be Friday 15th, where I should be hitting 24k but will be grateful to be near 20k.

< NaNoWriMo - The Handyman 9 - NaNoWriMo - The Handyman 14 >

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 9

A wise man once said get it right and do it first time. Or something like that.

I doubt that wise man ever tried writing, moreover a work of fiction.

So here goes this writers evolving and guaranteed not to be right first time, daily routine.

I get up, make a cup of tea and read emails, check-up on a few bits and pieces for about twenty minutes.

I'll open up Scrivener, find the section I finished up the previous day or if applicable the bit that feeds what I'm writing next. I'll read the section, fiddle a little and get going. It's a combination that really helps me to get into the headspace.

I start writing two lines below where I left off the day before, even if I'm starting a new chapter, because lets face it, who likes starting writing on a blank page.

When I've built up a few paragraphs or am ready for my second cup of tea, I'll split the new text into a new chapter. I'll keep writing and drink lots more tea.

Sometimes I'll reach a stage like I did today, where I'll realise the conversation I have in chapter fourteen, that takes place in a white house, needs to take place after chapter seven in a hospital.

For something like this I will stop right there and move the chapter and blend it into the required location. References to the white house become the hospital and conversation will reflect the new scenes need. I'll build a fresh chapter fourteen, hopefully paying off this extra work.

This of course is not productive if you're only focused on word count. I have tried lots of different approaches but I cannot continue writing if I realise the structure of the early story doesn't hold together at a high level. I'm not so worried about the line by line perfection of prose.

I have found it is unlikely I'll have more than a thousands words before I'll hit a point that will require lots of thinking, walking about and looking like I've entered a catatonic state. Invariably the background processes will throw out a solution sometime during the day.

At some point I'll sit down and start writing again. This will be a harder session to initiate but it will also be the more productive because everything has been busy brewing through the day. I'll still be in the zone from the earlier session.

I've sometimes written upwards of 3-4k during a day but tend to find the narrative becomes increasingly disjointed or bland and will require a disproportionate period of time editing or even re-writing to make it feel right the next day.

I tend to produce about a thousand words of good prose in a three hour morning session and about the same in a two hour afternoon or evening session. Which means I can churn out about 2k of decent fiction a day. This will by no means be the end product or close to it. It will represent about 70% of completion at a line by line level, as long as I've got my planning correct or don't later think of a better way to progress that section of the story. Or realise it needs to be dropped altogether.

Writing the first draft of the story represents about a quarter of the total work required to eventually make the story anywhere close to entertaining. For me at least.

As an example, here's the very first chapter of The Handyman as it currently stands. This is the first time I've written third person present tense. I have got better at it but this isn't quite there. What I learn about the needs of the characters and story will evolve this chapter during the writing and further in the editing. It will be crafted to give a greater sense of the moment, the desperation and fear and more technical detail on the weapons sounds etc. Then it'll be given to proof readers. Anyway:

It is early afternoon. A sunny day with powder blue skies, wisps of cloud chased by energetic breezes. There is a junction of roads and open grassland, cars parked on the gravel verge. Picnic tables and walkers in small groups. Horses roam free and graze. 

Angela is sat at one of the tables, occasionally brushing loose hair from her eyes as she reads, sometimes looking up at Daniel and Molly, her daughter’s excited yelps and his deeper, joyful shouts. A kite skits over and between the breezes, a yellow trailing tail. She returns to her book, grateful for these happy days and this holiday. 

The breezes carry the sound of a distant motorbike, the pitch of it’s small engine rises and falls as it climbs and descends the low rolling landscape. Molly in her excitement of holding the kite, lets go and it is carried away, the string and the handle bump across the gorse and grass and lift into the air. Daniel sets off after it and Molly shouts encouragement as it bucks and twists higher. Her voice fades as Daniel chases, knowing the mischievous plastic cannot stay up forever. A broad happy grin on his face. There is nowhere he’d rather be 

The motorbike engine hitches, an almost silent break in the pitch, a bungled gear change. The momentary break in noise carries a singular sound on the same blustering eddies carrying the kite. A latch, a mechanism, a spring and Daniel is running. No longer chasing the kite, barely even recognisable as the happy man he was a moment before. His legs and arms piston, angled towards the road, between his daughter and wife and the approaching motorbike. His eyes are wide and there is nothing to see in his face but intent. Daniel runs fast, upwards of 25 mph over short distances, in the right shoes, a flat surface. Can run faster than a pushbike for longer than anyone would want to cycle. He bares down on the road, limbs and heart and lungs working to the same goal, towards the space he has calculated the bike will be the moment he makes the road. He can see it at his right periphery. The sort of small motorbike you see learners riding, jeans and a beige jacket, a red helmet. Daniel sucks in air, blows it out, takes in everything, Molly at this left periphery, 150 yards now, Angela a hundred more beyond her, now standing and watching, hand up to her mouth, dotted cars on gravel beyond the road, beyond Angela. 

The red helmet has seen him arrowing in, thirty, twenty, ten yards, one arm directing the motorbike and the other up to rest on it. Aiming. Daniel weaves as mud and chipped stone kick into the air, spray his face, a tug on his arm and then his side that spins him around and off his feet, felled and rolling and back up and running. A wet stain above his hip that does nothing to slow him. 

Now he is the wrong point of the triangle, the wrong side of the bike as it heads towards Angela and Molly. The sun glints off the cars parked on the gravel beyond the road and he runs harder. Angela has her back to the motorbike, running across the grass, dragging Molly behind. She knows what Daniel can do, she just has to stay alive long enough for him to do it. 

The motorbike is on its side, front wheel spinning, the man in the helmet aims and fires, successive cracks carried across the landscape. The wrong gun for distance, the woman and her daughter more than a hundred yards and still running. The man from the motorbike runs too. He wasn’t expecting this, he’s wearing cheap shoes, a crash helmet. He quickly gains on the woman dragging a panicked child. 

Daniel is moving faster, a jack-hammer punch to the base of the man’s spine, mid-stride and he has hold of the gun arm before he hits the ground, the arm twisted and the gun loosed with the body’s momentum as he kick through the arm at the joint, a muffled scream as the helmet hits the gorse and Daniel switches the weapon between hands and fires twice through the visor. Turns and immediately fires three times in the direction of two cars parked across the road. A BMW, a man is stood, a tall silhouette against the skyline, using the roof to aim, a long barrel. The windscreen etches cracks and gravel kicks but it cannot stop the heart breaking roar, a drifting cloud of cordite and Angela is no longer running. Molly stops bewildered, the warm hand pulling hers is gone, a billowing floral dress and sobbing tears and Daniel is closing in  on the BMW. He knows he will not make it, fires hopefully, knows the gun too, its strengths and weaknesses, held straight in front as his legs carry him, the windscreen shatters, the dull clunk of the car’s bodywork. Another roar and now there is no Molly.  

Daniel doesn’t stop, makes the road and a different kind of sound, a lower calibre, from the car and a punch high on his chest and he’s on his back looking up at the sky. The pop of gravel beneath tyres and a face looks down on him, inquisitive and dark, a gun poked through the open passenger window, a camcorder. Daniel only feels the impact as the bullet buries itself in the tarmac beneath him, the taste of exhaust as the engine is gunned. Soon it is only his ragged breathing he can hear, the taste of copper in his mouth, the echo of the heartbreaking roars. Then distant voices, cautious shouts. Eventually footsteps. He can hear Angela’s voice now, he is sure, coaching and soothing.

< NaNoWriMo The Handyman Day 8 - NaNoWriMo The Handyman Day 12 >

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 8

The good thing about blogging when things aren't working out is you're never short of something to say. The flip-side is when everything goes well there's little to whinge about.

So I'll keep this brief because it's going unreasonably well. I struggled for a few days blending in and cutting down a whole load of Angela background into the beginning of The Handyman. I'm sure it would have been quicker to re-write it, except I'd invested so much time and effort in the original text I didn't think I had it in me to do again.

The text is now blended, some contextual changes have been made and we're into the story proper. All that planning is paying off and I'm having fun writing Daniel and Angela Harper's story.

The question is whether I think it's any good. This is of course a first draft, I don't even think of it as that - more like Beta v.02 There are some sections that will be cut and shaped and others I know need expanding. There will need to be an extensive smoothing over process to tie things up and bring it all to a cohesive whole and something closer to what I would consider a completed first draft. Which is when the real work will begin.

Right now it is all there in the same way Chasing Innocence only was going into the back third. I really did spend a lot of time hammering out the details, twists and turns of The Handyman. It feels like it is paying off. I have read back through some of the sections and love it. What a great feeling that is. I really do think the Handyman has the potential to be one of those stories you put down and are still thinking about weeks later.

Of course in two days time I'll be wringing my hands and beating my head against the desk, but then that's all part of the fun too.

< NaNoWriMo The Handyman Day 6 - NaNoWriMo The Handyman Day 9 >

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 6

In terms of starting this post with something prophetic, it would seem I have failed. However, today is not about fortune telling, it is about hard numbers and some considered thought.

Day six of NaNoWriMo is done. The scores on this Scrivener's board stand at a total 6872 shiny new words, which falls some way short of the mean average requirement of 9996 words.

However, if I have learned anything this past year, it is that writing is not about numbers. I've experimented a lot. Writing is about story and characters. Word count is just a number. Numbers are only cool if you're writing math.

What NaNoWriMo has made me realise, is the importance of setting aside time to write each day. Another no-brainer, it sounds like. But I mean writing each day no matter what. To write every day even if it is an internal monologue about how you're going to make the next book, twist, character schism or cultural viewpoint play as entertaining narrative. Or how you will build, block by block towards it.

Magic happens if you write, nothing happens if you don't.

Write every day, not just 30 days in Autumn. Don't count words. Count every moment as precious. Your characters need you.

In keeping with the spirit of the event, the next Potter word count check-in will be November 11, which should, if one is keeping to the mean average, tally 18k.

Another post tomorrow, on the quantitative quality of the currently accumulated 6872 words.

NaNoWriMO - The Handyman Day 5

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 5

Blame it on Truman

This is my first NaNoWriMo. I think it's a great premise and a really worthwhile experience. The plan for me is to see what the experience can add to my writing method.

My fiction writing and planning is all done in Scrivener, in which you can set a target word count and target date goal for the project's completion. With a 30 day deadline for NaNoWriMo and a defined target word count goal of 55k, it seemed like a great idea to enable them. Except it hasn't been. I've been fixating on the count and even with a good story structure in place, the whole experience feels like running down a steep hill too fast - sometimes it's exhilarating but mostly it's about worrying I might break both legs at the bottom.

A good example of what's not working in aiming for a daily word count, is a chapter I finished yesterday. I did a lot of planning for The Handyman, I have a scene map for the entire first half of the book. I knew the scene I needed to write was of a detective talking to my protagonist who is laid up in hospital. I knew what they needed to discuss and the outcome.

With the required word count taunting me, especially as I was 1k off the pace after three days, I headed straight into my detective narrative without giving any real time to imagining how I would stage it. I just went for it and the result was 500 words of event and discourse without any sense for the moment.

For me, feeling confident about writing successive chapters, hinges on the previous ones playing well in my mind, even if I know they will be edited, sometimes extensively, later. It has to feel right and that feeling has to come from character. I have to look back at the chapter in my mind and be able to see it play like a scene in a movie.

Just getting a scene down to hit a world count and not being able to 'see it', feels like building a house with the wrong kind of foundations, or more to the point, getting an actor to recite lines of dialogue without any attention to the quality of the performance.

Which makes the whole writing a book thing not fun. It has really brought home to me what is important about my creative workflow, which is giving myself time to write the filmed version. Not trying to hit a word count. That sounds like a no brainer now I say it, but all you seem to hear is the 'word count'.

So, I just disabled the Scrivener targets. While I did, I got to thinking how a movie director might approach 'creatively staging' a scene on a given production day. I don't expect they make up how it will play on the day, they will have planned and know ahead of time. So... over the next few days I'm going to end the day by looking at the scenes I will probably be writing the next day, and have a go at visualising how they will play.

This is still NaNoWriMo however, and in keeping with the spirit of the event I will be posting total word counts once every five days, starting from tomorrow (Day 6).

I'm not expecting anyone will be wondering where yesterdays NaNoWriMo Day 4 post went, but if you were - I totally forgot. I sat down to watch The Truman Show last night and was tucked up in bed watching the end credits before I remembered. Oh well, I thought.

Now off to plan the next five scenes. No doubt you will be hearing how it went in the next day or two.

< The Handyman - Day 3 - The Handyman Day 6>

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 3

There I was, heavy eyed and thinking I might bunk the last quarter of the Eagles handing it to the Raiders, when it suddenly occurred to me - I'd not posted about my NaNoWriMo day.

I'm not sure if any of you listen to movie audio commentaries, but I listened to a lot. I'll buy a bad DVD if it's got a audio commentary, just to hear what they had to say about the process.

There are a lot of repeated themes across these commentaries, the most frequent are statements about dropping treasured moments to drive on the story. The second most frequent, is of actors bemoaning how hard it is to act the scene they auditioned with. Simply because they have to dig deep coming up with something fresh.

Which is exactly what it was like for me today. In the first and abandoned edition of The Handyman there was an extensive scene in the hospital where Daniel repeatedly mixed visions of his dead wife with flashbacks of how they met. This is a scene I previously spent a lot of time writing, editing, perfecting and cared deeply for.

Except in this revised version of the Handyman it calls for a vastly smaller hospital section. So today has been about delving into what I'd previously written and working to create something new and fresh with less than a third of the original word count.

It isn't quite there, the first draft was first person past tense, where this is third person present. In the original Daniel's injuries were a lot worse - it took him almost a year to recover. In this it takes him three months. It has taken some serious effort trying to give insight into Angela's past in so few words.

It is getting there. For me Daniel's character has only ever worked if we care about Angela, and so anytime I give her life, everything comes together. It happened in patches today.

See you tomorrow.

<The Handyman Day 2 - The Handyman Day 5>

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 2

Getting in a few NaNoWriMo
words between sessions at the
Imperial College

Well howdy folks, day two of NaNoWriMo is rapidly dwindling.

This whole experience has so far been hugely liberating and I would go so far as to state this is the most I have enjoyed fiction writing since I was powering to the end of Chasing Innocence, waaay back in the last decade (2009).

It's all about control. I have planned The Handyman around a great structure and know where I'm going with every scene. I'm not constantly worrying about the story, whether it will work or where I'm heading as I've already thrashed the hell out of the story. I'm just trying to make what I'm writing as good as possible. Very liberating.

In between my 1.6k NaNoWriMo words today (hoping for a huuge day tomorrow) I went to the Writers and Artists Self-Publishing in the Digital Age seminar, at the Imperial College in Kensington. There was some great interviews helmed by Amazon's Jon Fine of Tracy Bloom and later of Mel Sherratt. Both authors were incredibly interesting in vastly different ways. The highlight of the day was the talk on marketing by Joanna Penn.

I also had my first experience of networking which actually went really well. Met some really interesting people.

Here's some of what I wrote, mostly this morning in Starbucks Paddington before the Imperial College and after I got home. This is as written, so first draft caveats and all that:

He knows it isn’t real because this happens every night. It feels real though. Angela is dressed for work, it’s night because that’s when she usually worked. Smart trousers and shirt, short jacket in the summer. She is stood in a road, walking towards him, camera strap wound around her wrist, camera held in her hand. There is a car moving fast, coming towards her from behind, the headlights cast long shadows of her limbs that reach out. He can hear her voice but her mouth isn’t moving. Her eyes implore. Any second the car will hit her, it isn’t slowing. 

‘What do you see?' 

Daniel sits up in the spare bed, swings his feet onto the floor. He hasn’t slept in their bed since the night before the holiday. He stares up at the picture in the half light of night, ambient light outside casts shadows, early traffic builds momentum. The picture fills the wall, has been printed to the highest resolution, so much detail and colour although he sees little in the pre-dawn monotone. If you had asked Angela, she would deny it was her best, but it has been her most successful. It predates Daniel in her life, even Molly but not Nikolaj, who was with her in Hawaii when she took it. In the water beside her, keeping her stable in the relentless surf. You first see it and think of telescopes and space and far away galaxies, sparkling stars and hued greens and rusty nebulas. Then your eyes adjust and realise the shapes and textures and you see a giant wave crashing into a seabed, stirring silt and stones, the distorted radius of a setting sun filtered through dense layers of aqua, glinting sand. It is an image you can lose time to. It has adorned books and hung from gallery walls, sold in supermarkets rolled in plastic and framed in specialist stores. Ten years after Angela lay at the bottom of the ocean, trying to capture the perfect moment, royalty cheques still fall on the doormat. Once a quarter, twenty pound, sometimes less, or a little more. 

Her cameras and the accessories of her work are lined and stacked in bags beneath the print. He is still sat on the bed as daylight pushes back the shadows. The traffic drums outside. Sunlight creeps up his back. He has less muscle definition than before, two months now. Has only just started working out again. His wounds are purple puckered flesh, will in time fade and blend with the other scars. Daniel has many scars, at the periphery, his arms and legs, several beneath the hairline above his right ear. He used to be too quick to sustain anything but peripheral wounds. The angry flesh in the middle of his torso stands alone.

< The Handyman - Day 1 - The Handyman - Day 3> 

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day 1

It is 20:00hrs of November 1. Which means National Novell Writing Month 2013 is but four hours from its second day of thirty.

At ten o'clock this morning my Mac was on the desk and waiting. I had not written a word. I was cradling a cool cup of tea, leaning against the kitchen counter. My mind was working overtime, skimming through a psychedelic collage of images and scenes and dialogue that changed perspective and narrative faster than I could blink. It's not that I didn't want to write the story, it was the fear of the journey.

A journey that will absorb me like a great movie does, except the experience may last days, months, sometimes years. Absorbed to worlds with characters larger than life and twice as real. So real the only way out will be to do their story justice. The needs of groceries, housework and personal relationships fade to black.

Leaning against the counter with my cool cup of tea is like waiting to be parachuted into Jurassic Park long after it was overrun by velociraptors.

Here's part of what transpired after I survived the landing. This is not the beginning, it is about chapter three. First draft caveats and all that, as it was written:

The apartment is open plan on the ground floor. A kitchen and living room. David Ford presides over a clear plastic kettle as it vibrates around a boiling [tumult]. He pours water into three cups, stirs and places them on a counter. He carries two of the cups into the living room, a barely discerned imbalance to his gait, his left leg. 

He hands a cup to Daniel who is seated and wearing the dark grey suit he wore to his wedding. His only one. He cradles the cup in both hands and continues staring beyond a slender urn set on the coffee table. Angela had been adamant she never wanted to be buried. She never made her wishes formal, just joked about it. It was the thought of the mud and worms. 

There is a brown leather sofa, covered in complementing cushions neatly patterned and aligned. On the floor beside the sofa is an identical pewter urn - Molly. Her father is upstairs. Nikolaj is packing the last of his daughter’s possessions. The sound of his footsteps above move between carpet and sanded floorboards. 

What’re you going to do with them? 

Daniel’s eyes shift across to his friend, back to the table. Find them, he says. 

Bins considers this. The ashes. He clarifies. 

The footsteps above break their pattern, approach and Nikolaj descends the stairs, a small suitcase in either hand. He aligns them side by side by the front door and takes his waiting cup from the kitchen counter. Steps around the table and sits amid the cushions on the sofa. He is wearing a grey shirt beneath a dark cardigan, dark jeans and shiny shoes. He is taller than Bins. Blue eyes and cultivated beard, dark hair swept to one side with his hand. A poetry in movement. He addresses Daniel. Is there nothing of hers you would like to keep?

Daniel shakes his head. She is your daughter. 

She was part of your life. A statement. Nikolaj’s voice is accented amid smooth English. The two men are diametric. Daniel is two inches short of six foot, lean, not unattractive, not in the same league as the father of Angela’s child.

<NanoWriMo - Handyman -1 - The Handyman Day 2>

NaNoWriMo - The Handyman Day -1

Get set...

Back in 2009 about four months before I finished the first draft of Chasing Innocence, I came up with the idea for another book. It would be about a man who is guided by his wife as he hunts for her killers.

The idea grew in the months and then years it took to bring a polish to Chasing Innocence. I started writing it in 2011. I abandoned it in 2012 after it had turned into an unwieldy mess of a political thriller I had no desire to write.

The concept of a man hunting for his wife's killer has stayed strong in my mind and continued to push for a way out. Two months ago while on holiday in Cyprus I'd just finished reading Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood'. A whole bunch of ideas came together and suddenly the solution to writing The Handyman came to me. It would have to be a story focused entirely on the protagonist throughout. It would have to stay tight to him and resist all attempts to get large.

Unfortunately this meant most of the originally abandoned draft of the book, save for a few early scenes between the man and his wife, would have to be shelved. I also needed to balance my desire to get Handyman out of my head and not derail my schedule for Hunting Demons - the sequel to Chasing Innocence I'd been writing during the summer.

I read an article about National Novell Writing Month, which is an annual event where writers from all over the world try to write a 50-60k book in November. While writing Hunting Demons in October I started outlining the revised HandyMan with a plan of devoting all of November to writing it.

The outline is mostly done and November beckons. I'm super excited and will be posting every day during November with excerpts and word counts and maybe even some of my favourite bits from the first draft.

You can follow me on Twitter using the tag of #thehandyman, which will also contain daily links to posts and in the trenches updates.

Here's a quick synopsis of The Handyman that will be:

A veteran of two middle-east wars is guided by his wife as he hunts for her murderer 

Veteran soldier Daniel Harper’s wife and step-daughter are gunned down during a family holiday in the New Forest. A released video of their murder states they were killed for his crimes as a soldier in the middle-east. 

Daniel’s unique skills are deployed to hunt down the cell responsible. As he delivers justice to each in turn he is plagued by repeating dreams of his wife, dreams that lead him away from revenge to look elsewhere for her true killers.

Good luck to my fellow NaNoWriMo participants. I'm going in. Writing will commence at midnight tonight, just to get the ball rolling.

< The Handyman Day 1>

Hunting Demons: Finding Momentum not 10K

It is funny how we come to things. Trying to write ten thousand (10k) words in a day was a consequence of needing to kick myself out of a ponderous editing compulsion. A single day word count goal that would prove beyond me, as it happens. But I had guessed that from the outset, having calculated it would take me over eight hours of non-stop typing at twenty words per minute, with no pondering, or breaks or anything to achieve it.

But I wanted to see what I could achieve in a day of flat out writing. Especially as I needed to get my arse in gear with a deadline looming.

Before starting on the day I planned the medium term goals of the characters and the story. And then I began. I wrote in three sessions of three hours. Managing on average 1.2k words per session. Totalling just under 4k for the whole day. I stopped just before 9PM having written myself to a standstill. An expected fail you might think, but a funny thing happened during the day.

A novel is a strange beast. It is nothing like any other writing medium. It is focused on the moment to moment and at the same time it is a dauntingly huge canvas of interlinked threads, most of which are layered deep into the moment and only realised as we move between these moments. A lot of the links won't even be neatly tied off when the first draft is finished.

And in the four years since finishing the first draft of Chasing Innocence, I'd forgotten about those interlinking threads. As I built momentum through the 10k day they started to form, wildly branching out the more I wrote. It was incredibly thrilling realising the shift from ponderous editing to full on novel writing. This is what I got most from the day, that once my characters feel real and I know where I'm going, it is momentum that will fill the canvas and build the core elements of the book I'm trying to write.

Here are a few other observations I made during the day:

I thought in trying to write a lot in one day I might overwrite - the actual output if anything was lean. It will be built on, with additional colour edited into the core story. It will change by percentages, getting swapped about, added to, moved or dropped. I do think those percentages are considerably less than I might have expected.

Dialogue was fully realised within the needs of the story as it currently stands. There were some nuances, emotion and character inflections built around the dialogue but only those that helped the characters speak as I progressed. Once more additional colour and drama will be layered, again in lesser percentages than I expected.

By writing with momentum I was far more creative in how I told the story than I would be in ponderous mode. I think this is important for me at least in my thriller mission statement.

If I realised I needed to change previous content as I wrote, I only went back if it helped build the story. If it was just an edit I made a note and continued.

I have to see the physical environment in my mind to tell the story, so if I can't I have to stop and mentally build it. This I had to do twice during the day. Better planning would have overcome this. I knew I was going to be in these environments but realised while writing I needed more geographic detail.

Huge fun.

Shout out to Melissa Foster for providing the inspiration to attempt a 10k day.

Hunting Demons: Writing 10k in a Day

Taking the imagery that exists in my mind and producing prose that plays that imagery in other peoples minds, is a complex multi-layered process. The first layer is the hardest for me, which is the actual process of writing the first draft. Anyone who thinks an author sits hunched over a keyboard, massaging the keys with conductor like flourishes while producing sparkling jewels of literary treasure, has quite clearly never tried writing fiction.

The production of my first novel took three years, largely because I made so many mistakes and learned a lot of lessons.

For book two I'm on a tighter schedule. I need to have finished the first draft before the end of September (2013), preferably earlier. With a publish date scheduled for February 2014.

I'm currently behind schedule. This is in part due to my usual slow start while finding characters and voice, but it's also a product of my propensity towards over editing. While writing I will habitually comb back through the last few paragraphs and smooth them out. There is nothing about writing I enjoy more than editing, but with a whole book to write, these edits are a luxury I don't have. Especially when so much will change once the first draft is completed and 20% of those excessively edited paragraphs will be discarded, as I tend to over write in draft one too.

I have a number of writer friends who have studied the art of productive writing. One in particular will manage to produce ten thousand (10k) words, usually on about one writing day a week, 2-3k on normal days. 10k is often the total output of a good week for me.

My 10k specialist friend says preparation is key for the 10k day, with bullet points to hand for where the story will head, the themes and character goals. Then go for it.

Which is what I will be doing Saturday 8 June, my first 10k in a day attempt. I will Tweet occasional updates #amwriting10ktoday on my progress and blogging my considered thoughts after.

If anyone else has any productivity tips, I'm all ears.

Hunting Demons: A long takeoff

About three months into writing Chasing Innocence, way back in 2008, I stopped and did a calculation based on total word count and time so far invested. I worked out it would take me seven years to finish the book.

It turns out the hardest part of writing that book was the beginning, for all sorts of reasons, mostly as I got to know the characters and importantly, getting their voices sounding natural in my head. Once I hit the 20k mark the wheels left the ground and we were off. Five months of writing later the first draft was finished.

So a lot of writing, lessons learned and many adventures later, we find ourselves in 2013. Chasing Innocence has been published for over a year, I've written a lot of words during this time, with one novella: Mahrie now also published. I'm currently writing the sequel to Chasing Innocence, titled: Hunting Demons. With two books published, some award short listings under my belt and a lot of great Amazon reviews, I feel I'm on the right track. The sequel would be a breeze!

The thing is, progress has been slow. The slowness is not because I don't know what's going to happen through the core of the story, or because I don't know these characters. I recently did a calculation and guess what? The average daily word count meant it would take seven years to finish the first draft. And now I think about it, didn't I really struggle at the beginning of Mahrie too?

So the lessons I take from this as I approach 20k of words, is that I'm just a slow starter when it comes to getting a story underway. Daily word counts are not helpful in my planning, but sitting at the desk and steadily chipping away at the story is. Despite knowing the characters very well, it has been about finding their voices, hearing their thoughts in the moment to moment. It's getting there. The wheels feel like they might soon leave the ground.

Hello Orin Moretta

Julie Cohen

The group of writers I meet with each month had invited over Julie Cohen to discuss character generation. We spent an hour stepping through key areas and spending five minutes here and there fleshing out our freshly minted character. Not usually a fan of writing lessons over actually writing I thought it was HUGE fun.

Two chairs further around the table was @daddyhoggy (known in wider circles as John Hoggard). He posted detail of his character to the writing group's website. A great post that got me thinking, so much I slept little last night. Instead I spent an hour between 3 and 4AM editing the product of my character generation and ended up with this.

     Orin Moretta is 41 years old although it would be hard to tell if you were ever close enough to properly look. She is just under six foot and walks with the poise of a dancer despite never having danced, not in the traditional sense at least. Orin wears her hair in a dark bob with carefully woven yellow strands, complimented by the reflective yellow lenses of her glasses. She is a woman that few dismiss, sticking in the memory from that first glance. It is her calling card, a warning as much as anything.
     Orin is moving against the flow of distracted commuters and shoppers, turning into a shadowed side street of high bricked walls and metal fire escapes. Through to another street with less people by some magnitude, lines of locked garages, litter molested by trapped breezes. She walks to the last garage in a long row, a dark blue shutter and peeling paint. Lights a cigarette while leaning against the wall and waiting. The ash burns and she blows smoke that's instantly whisked away. Her attention is entirely consumed by this quiet street and all it might offer, eventually flicking the cigarette, arcing end over end into a small restless pile of rubbish, where it glows and then dims.
     Orin is on the move, back into the alley, beneath a fire escape and she jumps, little more than a hop for her, a brief moment hanging from the metal, and then a pivot through her hips, her legs creating downward force that results in a screech as metal moves over metal. She lands crouched and sure, as the ladder unfurls behind her. She turns and steps onto it and climbs.
     The crumbling warehouse is store these past years to vagrants and vermin. Glassless windows and damp that creeps as a fine moss across the grey concrete floor. A dirt streaked crate has been placed central, beneath this cavernous space. The crate is hip height, a little taller than it is wide. It speaks of time. A stamp on all sides barely legible through the grime. The stamp an icon of four rotating right angles joined at their core.
     Orin's considered gaze takes in the passage of scuffed footfall not yet layered beneath the dust that swirls and settles. She studies the crate, light enough to be carried by a single pair of feet. Arcing around she completes a full circle before kicking forward, a quick blur that connects and a crack of wood. Loosed enough to leverage the lid with her hands, noiselessly placing it beside the crate.
     The object inside is on a plinth, held in place by protective rubber strips. She removes them and takes the object into her hands. At first glance you might think it an anvil with the edges all rounded, made of metal but not weighted enough to be solid. She holds it to her breast as if cradling a child and runs a hand over the smooth cold metal.
     Orin's problem is not the object she now holds or what she might do with it. It is simply that it's now in her possession. She had been taught how to use it, without ever having touched, or seen it. Just as her guardian had trained her never having seen it himself. Orin's problem is that possession has been triggered by her guardian. Her journey begins with discovering why.
     Her conflict is not dismay at being the one chosen from a long line of guardians, now the watchman and protector. It isn't that she doesn't believe she is equal to the task stretching before her. The conflict is having been trained for this very moment, she has during this time grown to despise the needy mass of people she is sworn to protect.
     A vibration in her thigh and she presses her hand to her ear, answering the call. 'Where are you?' The woman asks.
     'Not close.' Orin answers.
     'You didn't call last night.'
     'I was busy.'
     'Doing what?'
     'You know what I was doing.'
     'You switched off tracking.'
     'I did.'
     'So?'
     'You don't need to know.'
     'The customer is waiting.'
     'The customer will not need to wait.'
     'There aren't any flights.'
     'That is correct.'
     'So you're going to miss the deadline.'
     'The customer's deadline will not be missed.'
     She disconnects although the conversation is not over. She runs her hand over the metal, then each smooth end held in a hand, focusing on the metal, seeing now not with her eyes. Her pulse slows and her mind fumbles then joins. She flicks through the vast array of pathways, letting her lifetime's imagination of this moment calibrate with the dizzying reality. Choosing her pathway. The air around her vibrates, an enveloping haze and a crack of sound not heard by any human, sending starlings in a screeching swarm to the sky. All that remains is the dissipating haze and the lidless crate on the old warehouse floor.

Not perfect by any means but great fun and it shows how quickly you can generate a well rounded character (in this case two hours). If you're looking for some great ideas in writing or looking for an entertaining read, then be sure to check out Julie's website. She is a much published author as well as an engaging tutor. Be sure to check out John's original character posting too.

KDP Promotion February 2013

I ran a KDP promotion at the beginning of February for Chasing Innocence. This video is about what happened. It's my first Chasing Innocence promo video and although it may not show, the culmination of many hours practising video editing.