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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Novel - THE BIG FREEZE


Anyone who was unlucky enough to make contact with me over the last few days either by phone or email, has already had to listen to all my woes about life and novel writing  through the current big freeze!!! 

My Life
Due to a series of errors we ended up running out of heating oil on Saturday morning once the BIG FREEZE had taken hold.  Coincidentally as it happens the power also went on Saturday, meaning that along with no heat (other than the good old fashioned fire), we had no electricity, and of course no phone.  Then later that day the water went, and yes I know it is my own fault for choosing to live up in the mountains!!!  Anyhow by Saturday evening the power was back on, so Xfactor could be watched on tv, then on Sunday morning, the water too decided to be kind, which meant we could at least have showers even if the bathroom was in Siberia. 

Just to extend the suffering, the oil company didn't deliver the 'failed oil delivery' from Friday on Monday either, as the 'Man' went home without making 3 deliveries.  Now I know the real reason why the 'Man' went home was that he just did not want to drive up the hill in the snow!  Even though the roads were fine.

After more snow last night, any chance of an oil delivery in the foreseeable future was well and truly put to bed, which means that we are going to be without heating in one of the coldest spells ever recorded for November, and yes you have guessed it, in one of the coldest part of the country, the east, which is especially cold on high ground!!!

The Novel
The Novel has been a bit like the oil story in its rather trying failure at delivery.  Don't get me wrong, I worked hard last week, and despite being told by many to ignore the revised plot line and just keep moving forward, I did the very opposite.  It was really tough spending hours on chapter after chapter with words falling off the page instead of on to it.  We also had a family birthday which meant I was forced to do some food shopping, (just as well with the snow making us housebound), cooking and baking, safe in the knowledge that after the weekend, Monday would soon be here and my word mountain would rise again.  This did not happen!  Firstly I had lost nearly 1,000 words with plot revision over the previous days, then I had a miscalculation, reducing the word count by another 300 words.  When I finally did write on Monday, I spent 3 hours fixing an opening paragraph that I still hate, so I was devastated.

I moaned to anyone that wanted to listen and even those that didn't want to listen, because basically all I wanted to do was moan.  I was giving up, I had enough.  Sane people told me to walk away, to get a real life, with real people and real things, something nothing to do with murder, or madness, or whatever else is on the pages of my 'would be novel'

But did I take the advice?  Of course not!  So I went back to fixing the blasted thing and finally I got to a place this evening that I had completely forgotten about, being so long since I had last been there. 'A NEW CHAPTER' finally got started, and the words came out.  Some good, some bad, but all of them NEW!!!

Anyhow after about 6 days of whatever it was that I had been through, I managed to add in an extra couple of hundred words, which is pretty amazing seeing as how I lost 1,300 on rewrites and miscalculations.

So like the power and water going and eventually coming back, so too did the words, however temporary it might be.  Maybe the novel, like the oil will arrive sometime in the foreseeable future.  And just maybe, I might get to live a normal life again!!!

10 comments:

  1. Wow, that's great perseverance. Sounds like you've ironed out that problem. You really are very close to finishing now, so it would have been a shame to not press on.

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  2. Ah thanks David. I do hope so. The blasted thing is like life, you just have to work with it as you find it. I'm of the mind that if I could just throw caution to the wind and not worry about things so much, I might get the first draft finished this side of christmas. I think for me in my head, that would be important.

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  3. I can't blame you for the moaning at all. I hate to be cold, but I have to tell you, your bathroom in Siberia line made me laugh!

    Well done on working through the novel's bumps. Can you offer any advice on a sestina?

    Kat

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  4. Hi Kat,

    Not being a real poet,I'm afraid a sestina would be out of my league. But it's great to know I have such intelligent friends on line!

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  5. you've been through the winter woes this week. Perhaps it will lend grist to the novel....if you can get your hands to write!

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  6. Thanks Gerry,

    Maybe it will add something to it alright! Or hopefully like your poetry bus poem, the spring will follow!!!

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  7. We can't go on. We must go on.

    (Think it's a Beckett quote... anyone want to correct me?)

    You are an inspiration Socks!

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  8. Ah good to hear from you Domestic Oub!!! And quoting Beckett as well, I am ultra impressed!!!

    I stick that quote on a postit for 2morrow.

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  9. Keep on Truckin Socks, sounds like hell, but it'll be good for the writing, hopefully :-)

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  10. Yeap, thinking about bringing some frost and snow into the story line!! I am just going to push myself, and as you say, keep truckin!

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