Sunday 25 August 2013

External Readers

We have given the novel to our parents to read. We have asked them to read it like any novel they pulled off the shelf, not to edit it (except for grammatical errors and typos) but I think they're finding it hard. I don't want them to look at it as something to edit. I want them to read it as if they can't ever talk to the authors. But parents never do as they're told.
I've seen that Dad has underlined loads of stuff in the copy already...kind of annoying because now I can't give that copy to anyone else because it has his notes on it. I'll have to print other ones...it's a lot of paper...
I've also created a facebook page for it! When the time comes to let the bird fly it's nest, I'll let everyone I know on facebook know about it and ask loads of people to like it.
We have plans to advertise it in Ben's school and also in his best friend's school.
But, as I said, it is not yet time for the bird to fly its nest.
When the time comes, I'll give you the facebook link on here :)
My stomach is telling me it needs feeding.
I don't even know if there's anything to eat in the house.
Wish me luck!
M. x

Tuesday 20 August 2013

Read-Through

Ben and I decided to leave the novel for a few days - entirely forget about it - so that we could try and come back to it fresh the next Monday.
That didn't turn out nearly as easy as I thought it would be. I kept saying to myself - stop thinking about it, focus on a different project, so, of course, my mind could think of nothing but the novel! The weekend was a real struggle, especially because I had so much time to myself that I had nothing to distract me from thinking about it!
So I took to reading the Harry Potters - again - which helped to distract me enough. In about five days, I've managed to read through the first three books and I'm now on chapter nine of the fourth!
So yesterday, I went to Dad's and we printed out the whole thing in A4 which comes to 123 pages. Ben and I spent a lot of time over the last two days sitting together and reading it through, just to get the bigger picture and see if it's actually readable as a novel. I guess it was like a director watching over their movie for the first time after all the special effects and so on had been added.
Reading through it, I found myself amazed! It was a lot better than I thought it was!
If you've ever written something, you'll probably recognise the feeling I get when I usually read over my work. I completely cringe like I'm watching myself do the most embarrassing things over and over.
But with this, I didn't cringe once! I'm really happy with it!
I also found myself addicted to it which I really didn't expect. I honestly thought reading it would make my brain reel, after having read through it so many times, but, even though I knew exactly what was coming (I even knew the descriptions and words that were coming), I really wanted to carry on reading.
That's got to give it some credit, hasn't it?
I am one of the most judgemental people over my own work so I am really happy with that outcome!
Of course, knowing it so well, I hardly had to take my time understand the information given so it took me about 5-6 hours to read it total over two days.
It's 32 chapters long and I really don't think we could have done any better!
M. x

Thursday 15 August 2013

Finished!

That's right!
I finished editing today!
I edited 6 chapters in one day with a real drive to get them done!
I have written a novel called Departure.
It's kinda cool to be able to say that...
I knew I'd get it written before uni started!
That was our first goal - get it written before uni.
And then the goal was to get it edited by uni.
Now?
Now, it's to get it sent off to publishers by uni.
This is gonna happen!
I will put all my driving force into pushing this.
I will get it published somehow.
We may have to go the Kindle route but if so, then that's what we have to play with.
If so, I'll do the donkey work and advertise advertise advertise!
This has to happen.
It has to.
M. x
P.S. Just finished watching The Social Network.
That's probably why I'm so pumped with this right now...

Friday 9 August 2013

Major Catch Up Time!

So...I've been a crap blogger recently!
The book went from 12 chapters, to 9 chapters, to 16 chapters, to 32 chapters to 34 chapters and has settled on 32 chapters. I just spent a week in Wales with Ben and we finished writing all of the chapters! One of them is going to need a lot of editing because...it was crap.
Editing shouldn't take too long if I just knuckle down and do it. And then it's all done! Departure is almost complete!!! :D
M. x