Falling into place?

So having got the manuscript and other 'stuff' off to Emma, I thought I'd take a look at the next book. The first step was to decide on a plot. The outline came fairly quickly and easily, two pages of A4. That covered most of the characters as well, so I then spent some time 'justifying' the story line and the use of the current cast of characters. That took one page of A4 and exposed holes in the plot and where I needed to find new characters. Also indicated where I needed to do more research.

In the middle of this Emma got back to me and said that she was starting the process of going through the second book and was exited by the idea of selling two manuscripts at once (well, everybody has to have some excitement in their lives!). That spurred me into producing a plot outline for book three.....I didn't mention this but we're talking about the third book in the Eliezer trilogy here. That's taken most of my spare time whilst I'm here in Brisbane, but two days ago I had enough to send off a 'what do you think?' email. Emma acknowledged that and seemed to rise to greater levels of ecstasy at the thought of having a trilogy to flog, perhaps I should have a quiet word with 'Mr Emma'? Perhaps I should hope that she hasn't got time to read this blog! She hasn't gone through the proposal yet, but in the meantime I'm trying to write a chapter synopsis, which I must say is at the moment an easier way of doing it than writing 'on the wing'. On the other hand, I'm certain that things will change in individual chapters and most likely the four chapters I've planned out will expand to about eight by the time I actually come to write them.

With ten or so pages of notes, I pretty much have the book 'plotted out'....well Ok, there'll be at least another ten before I've finished the chapter plan. Pretty much all I have to do now is to start writing and see how it pans out. I'm tempted to make a start, but I only have the IPad with me, and although I downloaded Apple's Pages word processing program, I haven't got to grips with it yet. Typing on the IPad I find OK, but formatting etc is a little different from Word and at the moment I don't find it as intuitive as Word, probably something to do with being set in my ways, old and grizzled etc etc. I also prefer to transfer my hand-written notes to a computer, or at least the chapter plans....something to do with not being able to read my own writing. Not too sure if I can transfer notes between the PC and the IPad via Bluetooth, so that would mean emailing myself whatever I put on the IPad, unless of course I get the MacPowerbook back, in which case I'm fairly certain I can sync 'stuff' between the two. I'm pleased with the IPad, but it does have some limitations, or maybe it's my lack of tektkie nous that causes the limitations. now THAT wouldn't surprise me.

On the boat front, I've been sourcing a few things here in Oz. I expect to be pretty busy once I get back to Fiji, so may not be doing much writing until I'm back in the water and 'home'. Luckily, there is good 3G coverage, so any additional research won't (hopefully) be too arduous. I'm toying with the idea of delaying my departure from Fiji until maybe the end of May, then going over to Vanuatu for a few months. The advantage of that is the living will be cheap and I'll have plenty of time at anchor to write. We'll see!