Happy New Year

In 2013 I set up my blogsite, and then didn't do anything with it.  My New Year resolution is to be more disciplined in posting what I have learned through the year as a writer.

2013 was a busy year.  I uploaded my first novel 'Highway Code' onto the Harper Collins authonomy website and began writing my second novel 'Waters of Grace'.  Trying to balance two projects at once - taking on board and responding to reader comments on authonomy whilst writing new material - was a distraction to both endeavours.  I realised that the re-editing process can be as creative as the intial flood of ideas.  'Waters of Grace' was completed by May and uploaded to authonomy for reader feedback.

Being a member of the authonomy community has given me a thicker skin, a greater willingness to 'murder my darlings' and cut the stuff that doesn't work.  I no longer focus so much on my experience as a writer, but spend more time thinking about the reader experience.  This is more than looking to the markets.  It is about wanting to give the reader pleasure, allowing them to suspend their disbelief and bring their own imaginations into a story.

Both books have been sent to agents and rejected; both submitted to competitions and come nowhere.  However, I am now starting to write my third novel, tentatively entitled 'The Gardener's Daughter'.  This time I am using a more structured approach, plotting each scene in detail before I begin to write.  This is a less enjoyable experience for me, but I am hoping to have less re-writing as a result.

In this New Year of new beginnings, I am starting my new novel from the end point and working backwards.  This reminds me of the way in which God knows the end from the beginning.  All that we now experience is driven not only by the past, but also by the final resolution that has already been mapped out.  Will I be the kind of character who takes off in a direction all of my own, digressing from the central thrust of the plot, or will I stick with the Author's intentions and live my story according to his will?  Only time will tell.