Revolution For Vengeance

It is done.  The first draft is complete and printed, photo included below.  It sends a tingle up my spine when I see the last two months hard work sitting there in hard copy.  It is so much more satisfying than seeing 339 pages or a 140,000 word count on Word.  When it's there in front of you it's real.  Of course seeing the finished printed and bound article is better and I'm one step closer to that.

I used to work in the paper industry so it is something I know a fair bit about.  I changed my paper stocks recently from Revive Business, a responsible quality 100% recycled paper to HP Office a slightly lower grade made from virgin fibre.  I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the HP.  With the Revive it starts to curl after the first 50 pages are printed due to the heat of the laser printer.  It's not a problem, but it does mean I have to feed it manually when I do the second side.  The HP on the other hand stayed flat.  It is currently printing page 250 without me needing to intervene.

I won't bore you with the full explanation, but the short version is it curls due to the moisture content of the paper.  As the printer heats up it dries the paper and causes the curl.  Now to be fair the Revive was sitting open on my shelf for a few months and the HP was a fresh packet.  This does make a difference as the paper absorbs moisture from the air.  It will be interesting to see how the HP copes when I print the 2nd and 3rd copies for editing.

I did my full workout and went for a run this morning.  I think this has earned me the right to celebrate completion of the first draft with a 1,352 calorie Goodfellas Takeaway, Sloppy Joe frozen pizza.  I'll be lubricating it with some Jack Daniels Whisky.

It's day two of testing at Barcelona for the Formula One teams.  Normally I watch Ted's notebook on Sky F1.  It's brilliant, just him a cameraman and an actual notebook.  Testing is technical, there is no other way to say it.  It's all about lap times, running distances, new parts on the cars, what tyres their using, how are the engines holding up, etc, etc.  I love the relaxed way he does it wondering round the paddock and chatting away.  It's rough and ready and he makes mistakes occasionally, but that's part of his charm.

This week though Crofty is doing it under his #askcrofty tag.  I was a bit worried and I was right.  I really don't care what other people are saying on twitter.  I want facts and figures not opinions.  He even missed out two entire teams yesterday.  No mention of Sauber or that Force India weren't arriving until the next day.  He said almost nothing on Red Bull, arguably the number two team after Mercedes.  His interview with the Lotus technical guy was responible, but the rest was rushed without telling us what we needed to know.  It's a shame really.

It's 5 pm and there isn't really anything else I can do so I'm going to go read a book.  That's not something I've done in a while, when you spend all day working with words, reading isn't top of your to do list.

Total now at 140,139 words and the first draft is complete.  Editing starts first thing Monday morning.

Revolution For Vengeance

Wow, the first draft for book three is just about done.  I think I have maybe an hour's work in the morning doing that character switch and that's it.  I'll print it off and have it ready to work on come Monday morning.  I won't let the rest of the day go to waste.  I think I did enough of that last week.  A list is already up on my whiteboard of jobs to do around the book.  There are a number of household jobs I have been putting off as well.

Very pleased right now, bery pleased indeed.

Last night I was watching some recorded TV.  It finished at 10.45 and I planned to go to bed.  My TV is set to BBC one and Question of Sport was just starting.  I watch it occasionally as it is a good laugh, but I'm not really a fan of sports so a lot of the questions fly right past me.  I was about to switch it off when I noticed the Mercedes F1 car in the foreground and Fleetwood Mac's The Chain started playing.

It was an F1 special with David Coulthard, Suzie Perry, Kevin Magnessen and Christian Horner.  It was brilliant and those guys knew their stuff, as they should given they live and breath the sport.  I was particularly impressed with Magnessen, he's a young lad, but he knew a lot of answers.  For the first time I was able to answer a lot of the questions as well.  It was well worth staying up for.

Total now at 140,000 words, hopefully I can call it complete tomorrow.

Revolution For Vengeance

A good day at 5,500 words and I finished the last chapter.  I've got a couple of additions to put in and the Epilogue to tie up all the loose ends still to do.  I hope to get that all done and have the first draft completed by end of play Friday.  Wow, it's a big thing, particularly given the low point I was at last week.

When I'm not sure about a word or phrase I'll google it to make sure it's real or makes sense and isn't just me making stuff up.  I wanted to use the phrase 'spidering out' to describe lots of little cracks.  Do you know what the first item was on google?  'How do you get a spider out of your vagina?'  It kind of surprised me and I have to be honest, I almost spat out my tea across the computer.  Unfortunately, I do that on occasion.  A mate of mine once said something particularly funny in a pub and got covered in beer.  Needless to say that the next round was on me.

I suddenly realised last night that I had left a character out.  He was just not doing anything.  Fortunately it's an easy if painstaking fix.  I need to switch him with someone else, their male so only the names to do and a few things they say.  Hopefully no one will notice he's been show horned in.

It's karate night so I need to rush off.

Total now at 135,000 words.  The end is in sight.

Revolution For Vengeance

Phew, a smidge under 8,000 words today.  That is fantastic.  I'm really making up for my mucking around now.  I've practically pocketed an entire day in two days of writing.  The story is flowing, characters are growing, conflicting and their arcs are being completed.  I'm actually back to my worry about running out of space, but I think I will end around the 150,000 mark.  It's strange how it works out that way without me actually planning it.  Maybe I'm smarter than I think?  Nah!

I was so excited after last week Revenge, I watched this week as soon as Sky had recorded enough for me to fast forward the adverts.  I've got to say that I loved it.  Emily/Amanda (I have no idea what to call her) got to talk to her father properly and we saw her in full ninja mode.  It was great.  My only niggle now is Victoria.  She's far too smart to think she can pitch a man against his daughter.  Even Conrad never betrayed Charlotte.  I'm looking forward to the next one.

I glanced at Tom Cruise's IMDB page earlier today to see if another Jack Reacher was on the cards and it is.  I'm pleased about that and then I saw another project - Top Gun 2.  I just don't see it.  Is this a bunch of men sat in office chairs flying drones against each other, while Maverick proves you can't beat an actual pilot in a plane?  Hmm, that might actually work.  I'll be a bit miffed if that's the plot.

One thing you never realise when you start to write a novel is that you have to be the best at everything.  You're character needs to give an inspirational speech?  You have to write the bloody thing.  How do you do that and be able to get across that it has the impact of "We'll fight them on the beeches" or "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"?  Blood sweat and tears are put into these things by professional speech writers.  Often dozens of people will work on them.  How's an average guy sitting at his home computer meant to do that?  I guess people will have to let me know how I did.

I tried a couple of approaches.  Actually putting the speech in and just giving the impressions it left behind.  I wonder which works the best.

With Revolution, my chapters are longer.  I've just started chapter 31 and on the last two I was at 38 and 35 respectively.  I'm sure why.  Oh well.

Total now at 129,500 and time for dinner.

Revolution For Vengeance

Ah, a great day.  6,500 thousand words completed.  The extra 1,500 words will let me start to catch up a bit.  I could certainly have done more today if I started at the normal time.  This time the delay wasn't me mucking around.  Today I did my full callisthenic and weight work out followed by a twenty-five minute run.  I also had to do the read through before I could start writing.  I normally do that over the weekend, but as you know, I was actually writing yesterday.

So all in all very good.  My aim is still to finish by the end of the week and, if I keep up this pace, it's looking very likely.  I am knackered though.

One thing I'm finding at the moment is that I keep thinking about my next project.  My creativity brain is almost in demob mode where it comes to Dark Vengeance.  It wants to forget about it, put it away and move on.  I'm getting all these ideas for what I'm going to do next and I have to keep reminding myself that this one isn't finished yet.

I'm always like that.  If I go away for a weekend, week, two weeks, whatever, when it comes to the last day I just want to get up and go.  I don't want to hang around and leave sometime in the day.  I want to be gone and out the door as soon as possible.  My mind switches from relaxing to thinking about what I have to do when I get home - washing, cut the grass or even play Skyrim or whatever.  I'm no longer in holiday mode, I'm almost instantly in home mode and the sooner I get there, the better.  That's my weird brain for you.

I did find something interesting over the weekend.  A butcher very local to me in the middle of the small industrial estate.  I'd seen this program on BBC one recently that was all about saving people on their shopping bills.  One point they made was that you can get better produce for the same price from your local butcher.  So having seen the sign for this place, I thought I'd give it a try.  I bought a dozen sausages and half a dozen burgers.  I haven't had the sausages yet, but I had the burgers on Saturday and they were gorgeous.

I don't stimp when it comes to food, I don't go crazy, I have a budget of £3 max for a main meal.  It'll normally end up less than that, it all depends on what I'm cooking.  For burgers I go for decent, fresh stuff rather than frozen and they are nice, but these butchers ones were much better.

Anyway it's 7.00 pm, I'm starving and knackered so time to call it a day.

Total now at 121,500 words.

Revolution For Vengeance

It's Sunday and I'm writing a blog post.  Yes I actually did some work today as I said I would.  To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure if I would.  I certainly owed it to myself to regain some of the ground I'd lost.

I didn't go for the full 8.00 am start and had a more relaxed beginning to the day.  I actually sat down at 10.00 am and after spending an hour recording all my sales on a spreadsheet, I started writing at 11.00 am.  It hasn't been the most productive day, I must admit, but it has been better than most recently with an OK 4,000 words.  Not too bad for a total of 5 hours and 30 minutes writing time.

I have finished a little earlier as I'm having roast potatoes for dinner tonight.  They take an hour and a half to cook.  I don't need to attend them that whole time of course.  I do need to go back every ten minutes or so and that breaks up the writing concentration so I had to stop.  I am still working of course as I'm writing this and I plotted out the first thing I'm writing tomorrow.  Hopefully I can get into it without messing around.

That's all I wanted to say today.

Total now at 115,000 words and currently 2 days behind schedule.