Two Thousand and Sixteen
2016 was a monumental year.
I married my soulmate, had the honeymoon of a lifetime in Paris and New York, bought a new home in a lovely part of Scotland, and moved in just in time for Christmas.
All in all, probably the best year of my life.
And although this blog (at certain points last year) was used as a means by which to focalize where I am, where I’ve been, my ups and downs, all that guff, everything has now settled; I feel happy, supported, balanced. In short, I’m burning to do some work.
Now, I’m aware I’ve had time off before and that I’ve used the phrase “I’m back” on a couple of occasions, but now really is the time for me. It’s been a long road I’ve trekked and everything in my life is now as it should be (and how I want it), and with the purchase this week of a new writing desk for a brand new writing room, I really have run out of excuses.
I’m at the brink; I simply must finish what I started.
In my new home, one of the spare bedrooms is being turned into something else, something beautiful; I’m aiming to create a space for creativity, reflection, idea development, and of course, writing. That won’t be the room’s only purpose, mind you, but for me it will. The new desk will sit at a window looking out over my new hometown, and is south facing so I can get a tan as I write!
By the end of the week the desk will be built and installed, my Mac set up, and everything should be ready to go. In fact, I’m hoping to do my first proper work in a verrrry long time this weekend.
GDRs
With all of this coming to fruition, I spent the Christmas holidays developing a new set of GDRs (Goals, Dreams & Resolutions) for the coming year. They’re different from previous years, in that they take into account my long lay-off but try to press the right buttons to motivate me in the right direction with the right pieces of work. It took me a while – I had to be mega-realistic with myself with what I believe I can actually achieve.
There are two things I’m going to be working on in particular this January.
The first is the continuation of my work on my greatest unfinished novel to date, GATECRASH. I need to sit down and seriously think about where this book is going and what it is trying to achieve before I just dive back in, which is where I’ve gone wrong already with it. The goal is to complete the first draft by end of February.
The second is to repackage and republish STELLA and to include it in a double-publication issue with BACCARA BURNING. It took me a long time to get the book rights back off the publisher, and now I have them, I’m going to do with it what should have been done in the first place: make it work. I’m aiming to have this back on the market in the Spring.
Blogging won’t be as frequent as it used to be. Once upon a time I blogged religiously every day but I can’t see me going back to that, mainly because of my day job commitments (I leave the house at 6:30am and don’t get home until 7:30pm) but also because it will detract from the writing time that I have left.
I’ll think about publishing my GDRs this week. I still think I need to shape them a bit but when they’re done, I’ll consider putting them up to make them public.
That way, it’s harder to deny they ever existed.
Freedom from the Mundane 
Reblogged this on Perth Words… exploring possibilities. and commented:
Colly, I am so pleased you’ve had a wonderful year – congratulations on finding your soulmate too!
While you’re examining GATECRASH, may I suggest you just write a synopsis from your head. A 1, 2 or 3 page explanation of what the story is. One or half a page would be ideal but I know from bitter experience, it’s very hard to do. However, it has helped me get to know my story again, to reconnect with the characters by looking at them and their journey holistically. Also answers questions of why, theme, structure and new possibilities.
Best of with it all…
Thanks, Frances – for everything you’ve said here. I’ve actually gone a wee bit further than what you’ve suggested because I really needed to get inside the story and the characters properly before I could start, just like what you’ve suggested. So the synopsis I have for it went to 7 pages and I’ve started using Scrivener to deep-dive into it including the characters. I’m now about halfway through the novel. It’s not been easy because of all the holes I kept finding but it’s definitely in a much better place than it was when I last looked at it.
Really god to hear from you again, by the way! Hope you’re doing great!!
So glad my advice was useful – must say I’m impressed by the speed of your editing/re-writing. Very impressed.
I look forward to buying the e-book.
p.s. Perhaps the speed means you didn’t re-imagine, but edited the mss?
The first half a dozen chapters were already written to a good point so they were copy edited. That definitely helped me get back into the flow of just writing again before the plunge. Chunks were removed though as they didn’t fit the overall rewritten synopsis in those first few pages. Everything that came afterwards has been new thoug. My mind kept wandering to where the story had veered before, which was where the synopsis and character development really helped keep me on track and with the revised plot (Which is a better story, by the way 😊).
Being between job contracts has helped free up a *lot* of time. Too much, in fact, as I’ve had to find other distractions in order to prevent me becoming mind-swamped with it. I’ve been at this fresh attempt to finish the book for three months nearly now and I’m wondering when the middle sag is going to hit. Or maybe being away from writing anything has reinvigorated my enthusiasm. I’ve yet to work this one out.
Well I admire your tenacity. 🙂
All my books are free for you 👍🏻
Really? Thank you, Colin, that’s a tremendous compliment. 🙂