Countdown. The clock is running and the home fires are lit.

If I can’t quite see clearly now because I’m looking through a dark glass, at least the light at the end of the tunnel probably isn’t a train coming. No, this isn’t an attempt to see how many metaphors I can get into an opening paragraph but rather reflects a certain uncertainty of mind, or perhaps the fear of an at times seemingly unlikely dream finally coming true.

As the title of this rambling indicates, the countdown to moving back onboard the boat has started. Originally, well at least a couple of weeks ago, I’d agreed with Rose that I’d move out by the end of this month, as I write that’s five days away. She was thinking of a trip to Australia and had thoughts that it might be an extended one. Rather than commit myself to housesitting for an undetermined length of time, we agreed I’d move out to allow her more flexibility in planning. I’d be quite happy to housesit if it would help out, but with the boat launch looming, I wanted to get Trouters in the water asap rather than pay F$500 per month for being on the hard and leaving her alone at anchor isn’t an option. So with five days of the self-imposed deadline to go I’m readying a cabin and tidying up the saloon as best I can. Tonight, Rose said to stay until the boat is ready for launching, apparently it will seem strange not having me around. With a few of us ‘Peters’ around the place, apparently I’m refered to as ‘our Peter’, I can think of much worse ways of being refered to. We'll see.

The engines ‘should’ be ready Saturday Martin told me today and I’m going to chase the electrician to connect the batteries/test the lights and wire in the cabin fans. So far so good, but boy it feels strange thinking I’ll soon ‘be home’, particularly as home has been somewhat remodelled since I last lived there and is minus many of the ammenities that I used to enjoy.

At the risk of sounding like an Oscar acceptance speech, I guess I’d better thank some people for getting me where I am (where am I and who are all these people staring at me?). First and foremost, to those who made it financially possible, thank you. You know who you are and probably wouldn’t thank me for naming you. Without your help I’d probably be stacking shelves somewhere. Probably; there have been dark times, darker than perhaps I’ve let on. At least with the price of drink here I literally couldn’t afford to disappear into a bottle, that I think would have been fatal, but believe me the temptation was sometimes very strong. To those who provided much needed and appreciated moral support, again thank you. ‘I refer you to my previous comment’. Somebody (Beez Neez I think) likened the last ten months to going up Everest twice with a camel on my back; believe me it certainly felt that way at times, but regular emails, phone calls and visits kept my pecker up (and no Andy, that isn’t a reference to any torrid imagined combination of Gina and Alice!). I have to make a special mention of Rosemary and Vincent, who welcomed me into their home sometime last June and at times must have wondered what the hell they’d let themselves in for. I guess I would have survived camping on the boat, but maybe not. Like I said dark, dark times. I hope my ex-crew has found a safer berth, and can still enjoy being on a boat. Sorry and all that.

So, thank you all. It’s still not all ‘plain sailing’ from here and I suspect the projected launch date of April 7th may be put back, not least because I probably won’t be able to afford a crane until the end of April when the old pension gets paid in. Yep, financial miscalculation rules yet again, but this time it’s an inconvenience rather than an insurmoutable barrier. To quote an old chum, ‘budget? Think of a number, double it and add on a bit!’ Hey ho, at least dried beans are cheap in Fiji! That reminds me, the heads still need to be connected and I must have a rummage around and see if the pressure cooker survived. Ah yes, curried beans, bean stew, beans a la (com)mode, I remember it well!

As to the future, well I think I’ll be in Fiji until the end of June before moving on. Henning (Smiley) has volunteered to crew for me when I leave Suva and take the boat round to the west. I’m both looking forward to the trip and dreading it, many reefs on the way y’know.

It will be strange to be part of the yottie community again.

Not total inactivity

Not a lot of work on the new book I'm afraid, mainly I've been too preoccupied with work on the boat. However I have been keeping my writing hand in. I think I've had an op-ed piece rejected by an online paper.

Now, you might be thinking 'think it's been rejected?', either it has or it hasn't. Normally I'd agree, but I had a quick response to the submission, in the form of a question about what I'd written. In fact, it pretty much indicated to me that the submissions editor didn't 'get it'. Well that's fine, but I'd rather have a 'sorry but I think your central premiss was rubbish' than a question then no response to my answer. That's why I say I think the piece has been rejected.

No news on the article that was accepted by Latitudes and Attitudes magazine. This week I might drop the editor an email and see if they have any idea of a publication date, the money would come in rather handy about now.

I've been toying with the idea of 'sounding off a bit' on this blog. Well why not, I have to admit to holding some opinions and anyway everybody else seems to get on their soapbox on theirs! I would ask your opinions because I know you're out there. It seems I have a small but regular group of readers spread thinly virtually all round the world, even if nobody feels sufficiently moved to comment.

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!

Done and Dusted!

Finito!
Well, maybe. I've done all the 'homework' that 'Miss Emma' insistes on, chapter synopsis, book synopsis, contents table etc etc. I've actually edited about four thousand words out of the book, which I think makes it a lot tighter and keeps the story moving forward. Now I need another pair of eyes to look it over, so having gone through it twice I decided to send it off to Emma. As well as being an agent she does a mean job of editing (no, none of the observations are actually mean, but criticism can be a bit painful, I mean, wot I write is perfec, innit? Peeple spel there names differentely every ovver day and wot's this plot consistency thingy?)


So, off to see 'Bazza of Brizzie' tomorrow. Should be back in Sunny Suva on the 2nd March. If there's any news about anything, of course I'll let you know, but in the meantime although I thought that I was going to be taking a break, Book Three in the Eliezer trilogy has started buzzing around inside my head so.....


So I'm going to write the book synopsis first! Then I think I'll try and write a chapter synopsis, and at some point expand it. Well, that's the plan at the moment. Then of course there's the research. Speaking of which...

Don't asky why, but I need an insight into how a Hareidi femail scientist (could there be such a person?) would interact with work colleagues. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you can't help, but thanks for offering! And I told you, don't ask why!

Editing

I decided to set myself a timetable for the initial editing process, otherwise nothing would get done! So, as I'm off to Brisbane for ten days next week because my Fiji visa runs out and believe it or not it's only about US$70 more expensive to fly to Australia than it is to extend the visa in Fiji, my target is to finish the first 'run through' before I leave.
So far, I've averaged six chapters per day, working three full days, and I do mean FULL days. Just to clarify, by editing I mean firstly reading each chapter, maybe rewriting sections I'm not so happy with, then doing a grammar/spellcheck, then a word count. I aim for five thousand words per chapter, and if I'm more than 8% in excess, I'll either look at deleting anything that doesn't drive the story forward, or move the 'excess' to the next chapter if it's necessary to retain it for continuity purposes. That's only happened once so far, mainly it's been excess that I can delete, and boy can that be hard if you think it's a 'neat turn of phrase'.

I've also been writing chapter summaries as I go, so all in all things are progressing. As tempting as it is to get this finished then blast it off to Emma the Agent, I may just finish this week then sit on it until I get back, then look again with a fresh eye. The only problem with that is things are 'hotting up' on the boat front. My new rudder posts are now in Fiji (haven't got them yet, but they were released by Customs at Nadi airport on the afternoon of the 14th, so the first job today is ring bloody TNT and get them delivered. What was advertised as an eight day delivery will turn out to be ONE MONTH!!! Folks, DON'T USE TNT. I've had no word of an apology, nor explanation as to what took so long! Terrible service, I certainly won't use them again.

Anyway, be that as it may, it looks like I may be busy with the boat interior in order to meet my self-imposed launch deadline of April 7th, so I may be too knackered to do much work on the old editing front, and I know from experience that when you get tired the quality of the editing slips. It also occurs that a writer is not the best person to edit his/her work. Removing the bloopers and obvious inconsistencies are easy enough, but the rest just looks so good!

Finished!!!

Apart from a chapter by chapter review, spell and grammar check that is. Oh and not to mention a book synopsis, chapter synopsis and chapter word count. Apart from that, it's taken just twelve months, one shipwreck and the end of a short but not going anywhere relationship to produce 136,000 words. Now all Emma the Agent has to do is find me that oh-so-elusive two-book deal with an option on the third!


As I type, I have a bottle of Aussie sparkling white in the freezer, two bottles of pre-chilled Asahi beer whilst I'm waiting, and the one remaining house cat who seems to have adopted me would like his fleas scratched! Little does he know, 'there is flea powder'.

A productive weekend

The weather here in Fiji has been pretty damn wet these last few days, in fact I read that the rainfal last week was 'the most intensive anywhere on the planet'. That meant that I spent the entire weekend writing.It didn't as it happens actually rain much, but it looked like it was about to most of the time. After a booze-free week last week, that meant a brisk walk to the nearest supermarket for wine and some cheese. How provincial my dears!
Almost there with "Elieser's Return". My chapter plans indicate 1.5 more to write, although of course this may change as things get put down on the hard drive. I've found making chapter plans really does seem to help things along, although you can get bogged down in detail and spent many minutes/hours tracking down old place names and investigating new locations. Sometimes you have to say 'well, it's fiction, so I'll make it up'. Take it from me there are no floor plans of Solomons palace in Jerusalem, or none that I've been able to track down at any rate.
So, most likely finishing the book this week or by next weekend. I think a final spell/grammar check will be in order, although I only have Word 2000 on this machine. Yes, I'm still bloody Macless, the spare parts STILL have not arrived, so my usual industry-standard Word 2003/4 is missing right now. On the other hand, last week I took the IPad into an Internet cafe and downloaded Pages. I haven't played with it yet, but I've read on another writers blog that it is compatable with Word. Maybe I'll start Eliezer 3 on it and see what happens, small amounts of text I can email easily enough.
Speaking of the next project, Eliezer 3 or something different? I think I'd like to take a break from time travel. I have a couple of chapters of 'Karno' written and it might be instructive to chapter plan that out and see if that makes life easier. Whatever, I do need to put E's Return to one side for a couple of weeks then edit it, despite the temptation to dash it off to Emma the Agent. Mind you, I still have to write the book synopsis and chapter summaries for her, trust me writing the book is relatively straightforward, it's preparing the submission that's the really tedious bit! Having said that, I stumbled across this which at first glance tells me I should write the synopsis first! I guess it depends on your working style, but after I've internalised this, I'll give it a go. Writing is a learning process, isn't it?

Sometimes it works

In an effort to get the writing flowing again, I decide to write out a couple of chapter plans. It was really frustrating, I knew where the story was going, I even knew how it ended and in fact was able to rewrite the last chapter (which turned into a chapter and a half in the process) incorporating a couple of newly thought-of twists in the plot, but nothing else was happening. Oh you know, that's not quite true, I finished Steig Larsons Millenium Trilogy!
Seeking enlightenment, I visited The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America website. There was an interesting piece by a VERY enthusistic lady recounting how she managed to write up to ten thousand words a day. Now, I frankly reckon that's probably a case of quantity over quality, at least if you achieve it on a regular basis, but she did talk a lot about 'the planning process', something that, to be honest, I'm not great on. Certainly, I have the basic plot in mind when I start writing a new book, I do my research and work up a 'biography' of the main characters, but I've found that somewhere along the line the characters themselves take over and the plot evolves through my interaction with them. Spooky thought that, do I spend a major part of my working day interacting (i.e. talking) with myself or do the characters actually come to life, in which case have I the ability to create them? well, never mind all that, it seemed to me that there might be some merit in my adapting this planning process to suit my working style, so on the rough assumption that I was aiming to finish the story in around another six chapters (not set in stone, but I aim for five thousand words +/- per chapter and between one hundred and thirty and one hundred and fifty thousand words in total) I wrote a summary of each of the six chapters, i.e. what I wanted to include in each chapter, but not any details.
Well I have to tell you that it works! Of course, chapter content evolved once I started writing and there's going to be a fair bit of editing, but things have started moving again. I don't write every day, and when I do I maybe get a half a chapter done, but the end is nigh! Interestingly, the final book of the trilogy suddenly came into focus and a couple of characters dropped by to say 'hello'. Unfortunately, there will be much research required into the background/beliefs of one of the characters, but hey, that's the name of the game!
I'd emailed 'Emma the Agent' to see if she'd had any feedback. The answer was 'no', but she wasn't expecting any unless a publisher wanted the book. She repeated two comments, the first being that it usually takes three to four months to hear anything back, and extracts from the manuscript were submitted in November, so early days yet and the second being
QUOTE All we can do is continue submitting on your behalf, no matter how many it takes, just accept from me that Eliezer's Journey is a great story, and it will be published - we just do not know when. UNQUOTE
So, that's this weeks happy thought.

A new career beckons?

Apparently my 'war scenario', if not convincing is at least feasible (thanks larry). Hmm, perhaps I could become a freelance 'war planner'? I mean after all, there are party planners, wedding planners, doubtless other all sorts of other 'planners', so why not a freelance 'war planner', or has it been done? Probably, I normally have a great idea sometime after somebody else has thought of it!
Eliezer's return is progressing slowly, but not yet flowing. I'm not sure why, I know where the story is going and how it ends (but to leave open the possibility of the third book or wrap it all up? THAT, I'm not sure about yet, although I do know 'why' everything has happened). Right now, I'm trying to weave into the current chapter a 'Homeric' aspect. Sorry to be enigmatic, you'll just have to buy the book when it (eventually) comes out.
In the meantime, plans are afoot for this years forthcoming sailing season, perhaps that's why the writing is not flowing, I'm a bit preoccupied. This weekend (it's Saturday morning here in Fiji) I'm going to devote to writing. So why am I posting on the blog, you may well ask yourselves? Good question, if you discover the answer let me know, because I'd really like to know myself.
Right, that's it! Or is it? I'm off to have a quick skip through Homers 'Odyssey', in search of a legend to base a 'new legend' on. Of course, that will entail 'booting up' the old Kindle, which will open at the current page of the book I'm reading, 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'. I saw the Swedish film the other week, which I thought was enthralling, so I brought the book(s). See what I mean, I'm only about two years behind the rest of the World!
Of course, before I do that I suppose I should/could have breakfast. Avoiding work or what??? Answers on a postcard to 'Shirker of Suva'.

Planning a war

No, I haven't suddenly succumbed to Napoleonic delusions nor am I 'on the warpath' about boat repairs. I have to work out a realistic scenario for a forthcoming (hopefully fictional) modern war. Writing about a three thousand years ago fictional naval engagement was relatively easy, I mean who really knows what went on? Hopefully you found it a realistic scenario and enjoyed reading it, even though nobody has commented on it.
My present problem is writing about a war in the present day. It's simple enough to find out relative strengths, equipment and locations of bases (within reason, of course), but it's another matter to come up with a realistic sounding briefing for a head of government. Of course, previous recent wars do provide guidelines, but if you're trying to come up with a new sneaky strategy, then a lack of knowledge of things military is a distinct disadvantage, still, I struggle on. I might even say that it's a bit of fun, except of course you hope that what you're writing about never happens.

On a brighter note, I've had my first (and for the moment only foreseeable) royalty payments from Emma the Agent. She transferred them via Paypal, which I suppose is easier, although by the time she'd had the payment in pounds, it was changed into NZ dollars because of course she doesn't have a Sterling bank account, then transferred by Paypal who take their cut, I was left with £32.21p!! Actually, their fee was in the order of £2. I suppose if that's a flat fee then it's not too bad, but as a percentage it's horrendous. I must investigate further.