gday gentle reader, 

There’s a reason why my website link to here, says occasional blogger. It's been over a year since my last confession, a year of rewriting as last posted, 

The Face of the Goddess.

As I said I removed 40,000 word from the beginning, several pov chapters from part one and three chapters from the end, which rightly belong in Book III. It dropped from 193,000 to 132,000 words.

On 28/1/2024 (I know, its last year. I'm a slow writer; I have a life.) I began rewriting a couple of deleted pov chapters from a different pov. Some worked some didn’t. Two glaringly obvious old pov chapters remain, I need the information, but couldn’t see how it reworks for another character. It was holding me up; I left it for the next edit and ploughed on. By the time I reached the old ending the story had grown back to 155 K words.

For me writing is so much easier than editing, and in the last month I’ve added 14,000 words but here’s the rub, the extra chapters have now buried the end point goal to which my hero and heroine have been striving. It only dawned on me when saw I was reaching my target word count (180,000) that I now

had no end point to work towards, I had already passed the end point. If I'm thinking, “Why am writing this?” I can easily imagine readers thinking “Why am reading this?”

Time for a rethink.

ooroo until my next post, Rob

The Dread Rewrite

gday gentle reader, 

Now that  The Break of Civilisation  Vol 1 of The Restoration Legends trilogy is out there, both as an eBook and as a trade paperback, I’ve been working on rewriting Vol 2; not just editing but rewriting significant bits.

Originally, that is, way back in 2000 on finishing Vol 1, I ploughed straight into  The Face of the Goddess  Vol 2 writing 50,000 words in a couple of months. 

I kept my trio of POV characters from Break and added two more, a son of one, and a daughter of the other two. Five POV characters, complicated, yes?  

But wait there’s more .....

I always intended each book would be a new generation, so I started roughly 20 years after the events in Vol 1.  But then I, the author, felt I needed to know what happened in between and began filling in the 20-year gap, eventually pushing the story back to where it finished, and adding a 6^th POV character.  Chapter 1 was now Chapter 42, 60,000 words later, half of them (30,000 words) before the heroine, the daughter, is born.

The reason for all the above is attempt to explain why I'm rewriting. I'm trying to recover my original vison. It’s not all bad but I’ve slashed 40,000 words, from the opening, and will reduce the POV characters to the three children. 

All that background material that I needed to know, so I could write with authority I can and will re-use in short stories.

Speaking of which brings me to the just self published (15/12/23) collection  Colony Worlds: 13 of my award winning stories but that  story is for my next blog.

ooroo Rob

The winter of my discontent

 g'day gentle reader

I'm in my seventy fifth year. That's 3/4 gone should I be lucky enough to live to 100.  If you consider 100 a year beginning with spring then I've passed from autumn to the winter of years. So I better get  on with it.

Time to publish the damn trilogy one way or another. As a subscriber to Authors Publish, they send me reviews of publishers 'now accepting' with links to the publishers web sites, often straight to the the submission guidelines. 

The first to intrigue me was CamCat,  so I browsed the quite extensive advice to authors, one of which was  7 Things to do to Your Manuscript Before Submission, 

1. Put your manuscript away

2. Reread your manuscript. Start to finish. Out loud.

I went no further. My magnificent octopus had been sitting in the bottom file of my PC for 3 years. Strike 1,  

I began re-reading out loud - well not exactly - I had word read it aloud to me. I took over 6 months. strike 2.  

Meanwhile  I continued to a short story to WotF each quarter but with less alacrity and it showed; after 8 consecutive successes I missed 2.  I had become re-engaged in the world of my novel. 

After filling in their incredibly detailed application form (which, I have to say was one of the most useful writing exercises I have ever done, I now know what my story is about) I find my book is too big for them. Strike 3 your out.  

So in the end I after 20 plus years in the making and 20 plus rejection I've published my magnificent octopus, 

now available for pre-order.    

https://books2read.com/.../rob-bleckly/subscribe/1/428714/

ooroo Rob

until my next post