In week 1, you may recall that I was struggling with my 6th novella, an apparently uninspiring story set at a BBQ where big things actually unravel. I found it really difficult to write and went through a third draft this week. I suspect there will be more.
Story number 7 was completely different in that it was easy to write. Partly based on my experience of being in a punk band in the 80s and early 90s, I used my experience and band as the ballast for a whimsical story about how we ended (obviously didn’t ) up influencing a huge band from today, tentatively called the MentalZ. Satirical and whimsical and in parts quite funny I knocked it off in about four hours, well the first draft. It was weird reinventing your past for a story, but very satisfying being at the controls as it moves from, let’s face it, a rather dull reality to an extremely unlikely fantasy. Just starting out writing is a voyage of discovery, finding out about what I’m good at and what I’m not so good at, what I enjoy, and what brings me joy as a budding writer, and this I enjoyed immensely.
Recovering from my corrective surgery, I was able to begin to refocus on my business for most of the week, and was absorbed in that, however I was able to put a whole day aside for writing and you can read in this blog here the effect it had on my brain. As for the first time in years I slept over 10 hours in a day.
The upshot was as I focused most of the day on the new story about my former band. In addition, I was able to start my eighth story, based also on some previous experiences of the paranormal, albeit completely updated and in a different setting, but very much in keeping with the general quirky drift of my book.
Out walking this morning I turned over in my mind how I wanted it to end. Currently my book has no death in it, so the conundrum is should the ending just be creepy or should it result in a death, well actually 4! My thinking at the moment is, as it is a story built on a tense atmosphere if in the novel it is the last story of 12 novellas, then deaths will come as even more of a shock, anyway I’ll continue to mull that over.
In other news, once this is on, I’ve now posted five blogs to my new A Novice Novelist, Which I would put down as a better than expected effort, views wise, I hope to start posting just the diary parts on Substack and Medium this week, I have accounts but bearing in mind my almost pathological dislike of all these platforms and social media, I need some sort of a kick up the backside to do so, so I think I’ll get my partner to hassle me.
Friday night, she went out with some friends and I sat down at my desk with a few beers and did some research online about writing and publishing. I ran some of my stories through ChatGPT. ChatGPT thinks the stories are excellent and my voice very original, compares me to Roald Dahl! But here is the caveat, what it diplomatically calls polish is very much needed, which I’m aware of, I know at some point I’ve got to sit down with every story and seriously focus, edit and improve them. I can’t do it now because there will be a dozen stories plus, and I’m interspersing places and characters, not heavy handedly but subtly,for instance, in three stories, three different families live in the same Manor house, so I’ve got to make sure I get all the timelines right.
I went in and challenged ChatGPT. I want my work to be vaguely alternative. I don’t want to do run of the mill textbook writing. I’ve no interest in doing that at all. I want to have my own edge and personality, and I recognize that my work is very original. So, I got quite despondent as it’s very very long list of suggestions and tasks grew longer and longer and all of a sudden the idea of writing a novel got harder and slightly more miserable. But I always find if you do challenge it it’s very fair, so I asked if I do all these things, surely it will just cramp my style and what I’m all about. To which it completely contradicted itself and said yes you must keep your own voice and ignore a load what I said. Never fear Ai taking over the world!
I am currently hatching a plan. I have an old friend who is a proof reader. She knows me and my personality and style of writing and actually when I said to her, earlier this year I was going to use Chat to help me edit my football fanzine with some editing, she just said don’t touch it it will take away your style and personality. So this week I plan to approach her and ask her if she can help me not just proof read, but help with some editing. I know from the way I’ve been doing the second draft there’s still a lot of repetition and general mistakes I could really do with someone to help me with. Chat GPT did make me laugh when I continued to challenge, with a reply that said, ‘yes, you don’t want to be like lots of new novelists who have all been on courses and just like to write about the middle classes and middle aged angst, which is dull and does not have the commercial appeal your stories will have.’ Well not verbatim!
Let’s remember I’m not trying to be some great best selling novelist, don’t get me wrong, it would be amazing if I was, but I’m not deluded enough to think that I’ve got it enough in the tank to do that, But if I can get an independent publisher to publish a book I would consider that absolutely amazing. However, I’m going to be more than happy just entering short stories in for competitions and publishing them online and try to pick up a bit of a following that way. Goes back to when I was in that band, you always knew you’re never gonna make it, but actually all you really want to get a little bit of recognition and a few people to take interest, although in fairness we didn’t even manage that. So I’m under no illusions about what I’m trying to do but I’ve got a lot of faith in my book based on the village in Denham and I’m definitely going to self publish it. Oh and the person I’m going to approach to proof read and edit is also an excellent artist, so I’m going to cross my fingers for some really good mates rates!
#Writing A Book #Content Creation #Novice Novelist #Writing Fiction #Writing for Dummies
Welcome to Denham nr Lewes 