May have mentioned recently that our book on the Massacre at Le Paradis has been accepted by a publisher (Pen and Sword). So I set to work to attempt to have a first draft completed by the end of the year. Am well on target but it's a bit of a hard slog and I worry that what I come up with doesn't really depict the real feel of what happened.
I spend much of my week writing - The Hethersett Herald, the Norfolk Ancestor magazine, a daily blog, a diary and now Terror in Le Paradis - but at times go through periods of uncertainty. That's why I have never written a novel.
Over the years I have had some blistering ideas. Well they seemed blistering at the time, But when I start to turn them into prose I get quickly disillusioned with what I have written. In the old days it would end with me tearing paper up but nowadays in me wiping out the computer file.
But this time I have to see the book through. Much of it has been written so yesterday I started the arduous task of reading it through to see if it made sense. The skill is stepping outside of ones self to try to see it from somebody reading it for the first time and somebody who knows nothing about the subject matter. That's quite hard to do.
My main problem is I think there are one or two instances of repetition. So I will have to re-read and change sections. Then I have another 10,000 words or so to add.
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So what did I do yesterday evening after spending the entire day reading and editing? I went to Hethersett Writers' Group. More writing.
I do a bit of reading as well. Currently reading A Year at The Circus by BBC journalist Jon Sopel which is about the Donald Trump administration.
Sopel once asked Trump a question that he didn't like and was referred to "as another beut" or something like that during one of Trump's rants against the Media.
I am enjoying this book. Let's just say it makes the sleaze of our Government look like Noddy in Toyland.