Long Division

I thought it was about time I gave an update on my second novel, Perspective, as last time I was here I was about to send it off to a few agents to see whether I could get anyone interested. Then, well…life happened!

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, the main personal event of last year for me was my marriage break-up. Well…the good news is…we're back together again! And much stronger for the experience. We're now in the process of moving to rural Wiltshire, which is taking up much of my time and will do for a couple more months I expect. On the positive side, not only will we be settled into a new home together, I'll also be free of having to deal with Virgin Media.

At the same time, just as I was wrapping up Perspective, I came across the excellent Jericho Writers creative writing course. Well, you're never too old to improve and learn something new. I started off with the intention of applying things that I learnt to my next novel, The Skein. However, by the end, I had several pages of notes and ideas to improve Perspective. Nothing fundamental on the story itself, but some definite ideas on how to enhance the story-telling and particularly a couple of key characterisations and relationships. It wasn't just the things I learnt on the course itself, but also the chance to look at it from a different perspective with the passage of a couple of months. The most important things of all are tweaks to the motivations and journey of the main character, Jemma, to hopefully make her a more rounded, imperfect individual.

So I've now started a fairly significant rework with the goal of both improving the novel, and improving myself as a writer. It's slow going at present, but once I've moved house, I should be able to get through it much more quickly. I've given the new version a different working title, largely to allow me to more easily mentally separate the old and new versions, although I'm unsure which I'll end up with at present. However, for now, Perspective has stopped crawling around, hardened its shell and become Long Division. Who knows what it'll be called once it cracks through the shell and flies free into the world!

P.S. Don't get me started on Aviva, particularly their pensions division and associated website. Their reliability and customer support make Virgin Media look good...