I really am on the final lap of getting my next book out there and available – I did have a splendid title for it, but then thought the title actually gave away one of the narrative strands. I haven’t come up with a better title though, so I may have to accept it’s a great and readers will know one of the outcomes of the various plots.
As a writer I have been very fortunate that I’ve never suffered the blank page syndrome/nightmare when you want to write, you know what you’re going to write about but you just can’t get the story underway. I have so far always been able to plunge in – sometimes I might go back and revise, rewrite, reorganise the first chapters, but its the middle slough and then knowing when to stop fiddling about with what is effectively a complete story that is my difficulty!
I’ve got to that stage now. The story is complete, I’ve checked and rechecked to make sure it makes sense; I’ve lost nearly a whole novella worth of extra words that weren’t needed; I’ve spell-checked a dozen times; I’ve read it backwards; I’ve cut out whole scenes – I confess a couple were by accident when I didn’t save a page of paragraphs I was going to put in somewhere else but in fact, it didn’t matter; I’ve cut out a lot of conversation because I know it can get boring; I’ve removed a lot of references to other stories in the series (not all, I want to intrigue people!); I’ve put in page numbers which I for some reason often forget…
What more should I do? I can go on forever playing with it! I’m going to send it to my reader (my husband) I’m going to get a proof copy and then, with a title finalised, a cover decided, a blurb written, uploaded to Amazon KDP, it will be there, out in the world…
… and I can move on to the next story!
If you haven’t read my Radwinter stories yet, here is a link:
Radwinter – Thomas Radwinter goes in search of his family roots; using the internet he traces his family back to war-torn eastern Europe, and follows their journey from arriving in England in the 1830’s, across southern England
Magick – Encouraged by his success in discovering his Radwinter ancestors, Thomas Radwinter sets out to investigate his maternal line, starting with the mysterious and alcoholic Sylvia.
Raddy and Syl – Thomas Radwinter continues his journey into his ancestor’s history; he has followed his paternal line of the Radwinters, “and what an interesting journey that was. I mean journey for me in a non-literal way, but it was an interesting journey for the Radwinters, literally”.
Beyond Hope – Beyond Hope is the fourth in the series of books following the life and genealogical investigations of Thomas Radwinter; in previous stories he has followed family’s history back several centuries and also found some uncomfortable and very painful truths in more recent times.
Earthquake – Thomas Radwinter’s life seems settled and content as he juggles working as a free-lance solicitor, genealogist and house husband. However a new arrival in the family puts extra pressure on him as he has to balance looking after them and earning some money
Lois Elsden 