Feeling like I've received more than I gave

I’ve been (probably far too slowly) critiquing a friend’s YA MS over the past few weeks.  The experience has been incredibly rewarding for me.  Apart from my own MS, I think that this is the most in depth analysis I’ve ever done on a book.  This is probably because when I’ve read a book I’ve bought, I’ve looked for the major things like Plot, characters, style and how they’ve made the story active as opposed to passive.  Invariably, I’ve been drawn along by the story and not looked as deeply as I should.  But, from the next book I read I know that I will be delving a lot deeper into it.
Sorry, I seem to have gone off plot and started rambling.
Ahem… Right, now where was I?  Oh yes. My critiquing...
Because I needed to provide some (hopefully) good feedback, it made me look a lot deeper into this book.  (I can honestly say that the story blew me away.  If she doesn’t get a deal, then there really is no justice in the world.) and it’s made me wonder whether my MS is really a YA book.  It’s probably at the bottom end of YA, bordering on MG.  Looks like I’ve got a bit of working out on where this fits in.

Does this mean I'm growing up at last?

In all the time I’ve been writing, I’ve always struggled with revising/editing part.  I’ve understood the need for it, but just couldn’t get enthused about trudging through the text looking for issues and faults.
I think that I’ve tended to find myself immersed in the world in my head, and became carried away with exploring the story as the details flooded out.  Re-visiting something that was no longer fresh and exciting felt like treading water, and was holding up all the new plots and ideas queuing up and banging on the door for attention.

That was until I started on my current WIP.

This story has been different.  Although I know that it probably  falls well short of what makes it a ‘page turner’, I’ve felt compelled to keep re-working it to make it shine.  I don’t know if it’s the culmination of everything I’ve learnt over the past year, or whether it’s that the previous stories weren’t quite right, but with every little change I make, I get excited.  When I find a big improvement, I have to refrain myself from jumping up and down.
I still have the little voices whispering away in the darker corners, pointing out that the characters are probably not deep enough, or that the twists and rug pulling moment aren’t twisty and turny enough, but I’m going to ignore them and let my Crit pals confirm if that really is the case.

For the moment, I’m just going to enjoy the feeling that when someone else finally reads my MS, it’ll be the best I could get it.

Training Update

It appears that my training is going well... Click here for the news report

Nothing is as fixed as I thought it was

I thought I was quite flexible when it came to converting my plotted outlines into a WIP. In the process of writing it, the details of the tale unfolded, and I could adjust the story accordingly, ending up with a fairly tight story. It turns out that I'm not as flexible as I thought. I seemed to have been of the mindset that the major points in the story lead on to the next major point in a chain of events, and that they were all unchangeable. The story would fall apart if I tried to tinker with them. The realisation that I can move the final conflict's location, and increase the tension in the process, has caught me completely by surprise. My head is buzzing with excitement at the new and improved ending, and I can't get it written fast enough! I'm now thinking that I need to review the other 'fixed' points and see if they can be tweaked. And that is a very weird feeling. The knowledge that I'm not as close as I originally thought I was in getting my MS out to Crit partners is a little bit disappointing, but the renewed excitement I'm feeling for the story is more than compensating for it. Is it just me who sometimes he's better than he really is?

My new 'friends' - Paula and Lance

When I received my acceptance letter for this years London Marathon, the first thing I did was run out (no pun intended) ((Well, maybe just a little bit)) and buy a Nike Plus.  It's a little unit that fits in your running shoes and syncs with your iPod.  It records your run, and then when you connect it to your pc, it uploads a record of your run onto your personal space on the Nike Plus site.  This allows you to track your improvement, pace, etc.
The cool thing is that it talks to you while you're jogging along.  It gives regular distance updates, and then counts down the last 400 meters.  The really cool thing is that if you do a personal best, at the end of the run a top sports person tells pops into your ears and congratulates you.  So far, Lance Armstrong has mostly been visiting, and Paula Radcliffe stuck her head round the corner once.
The down side to getting little accolades from Lance and Paula is that when the training isn't going so well, they are very conspicuous by their absence.  It's like they are whispering behind your back, saying "Look at Iain.  What a slowcoach, I don't want to be associated with him."  Fair weather friends - Who needs them?

All this monitoring stuff made me think.  Wouldn't it be great if you could get a Nike Plus for Authors.  You set a target of a thousand words, and it tells you how far you've got, counts down the last twenty words, and allows you to see a graphic representation of what your writing pace was, and when you've done a personal best, J.K. Rowling, or Stephen King pops up and congratulates you for doing so well.
Then again, maybe not.  Let's face it, when I'm writing, it just pours out.  It's more of a case of how much time I have available to write in rather than word count.  And if I'm honest, the Revision Group that sprang up from the RevMo last November are far more motivating than getting platitudes from someone that I've never had any interaction with.

Round Three Revisions update

At the end of last week, I (kind of) finished my 3rd round of edits on Odd Squad.  I say 'kind of', because I'm probably going to change the end slightly.  I think that the arc dip when they realise that that they haven't defeated the bad guys and saved the day, needs to be extended.  I've mapped the new piece out, I just need to start writing it.
The thing that's stopping me from diving in head first, is that I suddenly feel that my writing isn't strong enough.  The story is at the shorter end of the acceptable length that a YA book should be, and I have a problem seeing how I can make it longer (other than putting in stuff that doesn’t drive the plot forwards).  At the same time, thouh, it feels that there is something missing.  Maybe I'm confusing developing the characters and their relationships with unnecessary padding.
Maybe I should just bite the bullet and give the MS to a couple of Crit partners and see if they feel the same.

The really odd thing is, that in typing this, I think I've managed to work out what is wrong, and what I need to do.  Thanks for listening, and pulling the sympathetic faces at the right moments.

History Lesson?

It's just occurred to me that they probably have sniffer engines connected to Google that look for combinations of keywords, and when they find a match, the searcher ends up on a watch list or something.
In the course of researching my two books, I have looked up some dubious things.  Off the top of my head, I can recall that I have Google mapped Faslane Naval Base (where the UK's nuclear subs are docked), tried to establish where the nuclear missiles are re-conditioned, enquired about killer satellites, and researched satellite earth stations and the surrounding areas.  I'm sure there's more that I've forgotten about that should be added to the list.
Maybe I should start doing my research on public wi-fi from now on.

Interestingly, there are two men in trench coats and dark glasses coming this way.  I wonder what they want...