Guy Fawkes.

It’s been four hundred and thirteen years since ‘John Johnson,’ arrested under the Houses of Parliament, turned out to be none other than Guy Fawkes, who would soon be deprived of not just his life but numerous body parts which were then distributed across the country.

I sometimes argue that half the country celebrates the anniversary of the plot to mark the arrest and execution of a traitor who tried to kill both the King and Parliament, while the other half celebrates the fact that at least somebody was willing to try.

In the current world, with Brexit being the complete shambles that it’s turning out to be, Parliament can sleep easy knowing it’s no longer possible to rent enough of an acreage under the Palace of Westminster to stash sufficient, or indeed any, explosives intended to induce revolution.

So much for history.

Progress Report.

I can almost cheerfully announce the completion of the Chapter 11 rewrite.  My hesitation in claiming any victory stems from a lack of satisfaction that I’ve got it right this time.

I can’t speak as an experienced writer, or as someone whose experience should count for much, since I’m not halfway through the first revision of a first novel. But what little experience I have suggests that, while I’m writing, my gut instinct is fairly accurate as to whether what I’m writing is up to standard. When it comes to alpha and beta readers, and then the final professional edit, I may have to revise this belief, but for right now if I feel like I’m writing well, upon later revision I’m not strongly motivated to rewrite the content.

This chapter is a good example of that. While writing the original chapter  – previously Chapter 5 – I was not happy with it. I’ve linked it here because it was the last chapter I shared off on this site, and it will probably have killed off any interest in following the story any further for anyone who took the trouble to read it.

I’ve now split it up into two, amputating the worst of it, but toward the tail end of the rewrite I started to feel the same again, as if I was forcing the story, or, perhaps, just writing garbage again. Thankfully I intend another read-through and revision before I let anyone else cast their eyes over work that I’d then be prepared to stand behind.

So there’s a backstop in place. Brexit pun intended.

Garbage.

This brings us to the planned Chapter 12.

If the old Chapter 5 was the worst part of the initial manuscript, then the amputated scene was the worst part of that chapter. I’m not even convinced that the scene is entirely necessary. When I started this story, it’s plain that I intended to cover both sides of the issue of the relationship between House and Staff in this world, but the story line I set up for the Family business doesn’t seem to be to deeply affect the central plot. It doesn’t seem to me that it’s necessary and it sets me up for an accusation of demonizing the Family and treating them unfairly or at least deliberately showing them in a bad light. I don’t think that would be entirely fair, but there’s a nugget of truth to it.

Newsflash.

I hadn’t considered it until right now, but that’s part of the issue I have with the end of Chapter 11.

In all honesty, reflecting at this very moment, I could easily drop the next chapter and the associated plot line without any damaging impact on the main story.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

Decision Made!

Awesome!

Up Next…

This is going to be a busy week. I have effectively stolen the time this afternoon to write this post, for no other reason than to avoid feeling guilty for failing to meet my own arbitrary Monday post deadline. There a lot of more important things I should be doing today, but the tasks I have scheduled this week are much harder to blow off. I’ll be voting with the wife tomorrow before attending a Graze Land Workshop all afternoon, and then on Thursday evening, followed by all day Friday and Saturday, I have other farming related classes to attend, while tonight is a rescheduled Girl Scout Troop meeting.

This is all in addition to everything else I’m already behind on. So it’s unlikely I’ll have a new chapter finished next Monday.

But next Monday is the anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War I, so if I don’t have a new chapter written, I have some thoughts on that I can share.

Meantime, have a great week.

Categories: Revision, The Old Man, Work Update, Writing