Tuesday 20 May 2014

"Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart"

Naito8
Stephen King

This morning I woke up to edits for PHANTOM FEARS in my inbox. Being the dedicated writer I am, I did them as soon as I got to work (I am a slightly less dedicated PA). I don't know if there'll be another round after this, but either way, we are one step closer to Shannon's solo adventure being released! Huzzahs!

I'm lucky in that most of the edits were missing words and changing UK spellings to US spellings - that made it a really quick, smooth process. Generally speaking I think my shorter pieces are pretty okay when it comes to editing. My novels are somewhat messier, mostly because I don't outline beforehand and tend to meander my way through the plot with no sense of direction.

Short stories though, you can't do that. Short stories were the heart and soul of my writing degree and I spent three years working with very low word counts (100 words was the lowest - that was a tough piece of homework), and learning that you can't afford to waste a single word. I think the result is that my short pieces are pretty tight and neat, and that's reflected in the small amount of editing they (thus far, touch wood, etc) have needed. With my current WIP, The Beast of Birch Hill, I'm aiming for 12k, tops. It's sitting at around 8k right now, and I'm starting to worry that the remaining 4k isn't enough to wrap everything up nicely and satisfyingly. Luckily, I can already see parts early on in the story that can be hacked out without causing too much damage.

My aim is to get the first draft of this WIP done this week (I'm pretty sure I said that last week, but this time I mean it). After that I'm stepping back into novel territory, where everything becomes chaotic and weird, especially because this will be an Ethan novel. Expect whiskey, demons, dogs, and cursing. I can't wait!

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