Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Another draft bites the dust...

I finished the latest pass on The Vanishing of Owen Taylor this evening. It's 507 pages long, at the moment, but hasn't been reformatted to fit into a book so will probably wind up about 300-325 pages spread over 4 parts.

I'm a lot happier with it. Jake's voice has become more forceful, more direct. I'm getting rid of about half the softening words I'd used...like then and well and sort of. And I did cut back on a lot of Jake telling what he or someone else is feeling and tried to make it clear through description of their actions.

It does keep getting tighter and faster as the story goes, so I may try to speed up the action in the beginning...but I can't go too far on that. As of now, everything in the book is there for a purpose and ties in later.

When I get back from the book fairs, I'll give it one quick pass then see if anyone is willing to give me feedback on it. Someone who hasn't read it, yet. If that comes together without major issues, I think I'll be ready to start setting it up for publishing.

I want an image for the back of the book, so may look into working up a version of Owen's painting of Jake and Dion. I photoshopped a photograph into a rendition of it, but I don't have the rights to it and have no idea whom to contact to license it for this. I'll have to think on that.

This has not been an easy process, I know...but it's been rewarding...finally. Working through it has sharpened my writing skills. I can tell the difference from just when I wrote Bobby Carapisi.

I almost feel like I'm training for the marathon of writing Place of Safety.

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