We’re In This Together

I’m still very much trying to get a handle on what it is that I’m doing here. I read a few posts about the practical realities of sharing a work in progress (interesting one here) and I’ve also explored some of the platforms where writers upload their work as they go – Wattpad seems to be the biggest of these – but I’m not sure that any of that has furthered my understanding of the pros and cons of blogging a WIP (that’s one thing I learned*).

As ever the Nine Inch Nails have the answer: clearly, the way out is through. I’m just going to keep writing on both the book and the blog until I figure it out. It’s what the nerdy kids call grinding (the cool kids have a different definition). Obviously, this means that you might have to witness me driving into and reversing out of a number of cul-de-sacs but, really, what else have you got to do with your post-Jeremy Kyle life? And as NIN have pointed out…

So what have I concluded thus far?

  • This blog will contain spoilers for the book. I’d love to find a way that someone could read this blog and not have the book spoiled, but I think the only way around it would be for me to be unnecessarily elusive.
  • I’m feeling positive about sharing it all. There’s an uncomfortable feeling of being exposed, but I think another way of saying that is that there is accountability. After all, I really don’t want to just say that I’m writing a book, I actually want to write one.
  • I’m very grateful for anyone subjecting themself to this. FWIW I really think it will help me improve the book, especially if you get into the habit of commenting – this is very much a two way process rather than me simply broadcasting.

In book news I’ve now got a full synopsis and a breakdown synopsis, where I gave myself a single line to say what happens in each chapter. I’ll share it with you in the coming days, I want to tinker with it a bit more first. I also think I’ve got a work schedule set in my head. I’m going to aim to have a first draft written by the end of July. It’s probably going to be around 80k words, which means that I’m looking at roughly 1,333 words per day. In the current synopsis there are 25 chapters, so that would give just over 3,000 words per chapter. That gives me August to forget about it, come back to it in September and either burn the whole thing and murder everyone who ever subscribed to this blog until no record of it exists anywhere, or rewrite enough of the first draft that I could take it to my agent and see what she thinks. I’d need to be feeling strong for that last option because my agent scares me to the point that my bone marrow curdles when I think about her.

*The other thing that I learned is that the world now has enough poor vampire fiction to last until the sun expires. I also learned that Black Woman White Man is a genre that not only exists but is common enough that its earned its own abbreviation – BWWM. Am I really naive to say that’s a bit weird? Isn’t it just a romance? Why would it make any difference that she’s black and he’s white? I mean if they’re all set in Alabama in the 1800s then I get it, but these all seem to be modern stories. Has anyone actually read one?