Those of you swinging by now, expecting the podcast, I’m afraid I have to admit that I am still editing it.

I don’t mean textual editing – I finished that on time – but actually editing the audio file. This is taking a smidge longer than anticipated. I’ll post it, somewhere, as soon as I can.

Apologies. *shuffles away embarrassed*

I am typing this on a train so apologies if the odd typo slips in.

Things have been quiet as the abject terror of what I’d foolishly said I would do settled in. Also, I actually did Stuff this week. In between I’ve been planning, tearing up plans and then planning again.

It’s been fun.

Sometime around Wednesday (shockingly late, I know) a novel poked the first signs of it’s existence into the world. By last night I had clawed back enough word count to still be in this thing (NaNoWriMo). I was right at the brink though, I need to watch this or I could fall too far behind.

I can confirm/remind you that the first podcast will go up Sunday.

In news that will come as no surprise to anyone who has been in my vicinity when I actually write, I have already deviated from the outline. That’s OK. The outline is to help if I get stuck, not a stick to beat myself with – never really been my thing, y’know.

Anyway, I still need to get into five figures by Sunday night and so I’ll leave you for now.

I haven’t had the most auspicious start: three days in and I still haven’t written a word.

On the positive side I have a premise, an outline (chapter level), character descriptions (principles), a backstory and a title (Eleurethia). I will break words either later on or in the morning.

Now I have a title and a rough idea what the story looks like I will knock out a blurb sometime tomorrow for posting Thursday. I’d love to get it live sooner but I am at a concert tomorrow night and will need any spare time pre-work to get my wordcount going.

Remember the first part (in whatever state) goes live Sunday.

Alright folks, as I said the other day I will be participating in NaNoWriMo this year.

It was a hard decision because my other projects haven’t run to time this year and so the story I was going to use, being an SF tale, is not ready to go. Mainly this is owing to the amount of research required to do the thing justice from a science and setting perspective.

I digress.

I didn’t really want to just try to do the month for its own sake because when I tried this in 2007 I woefully failed. I need extra heat to keep going. I’m also a bit of a tinkerer who is keen to try different methods of writing novels and it seemed to me that these two things weren’t incompatible.

Here’s what I’m going to do:

1. Produce using (or attempting to use) a story design method, an urban fantasy of at least 50,000 words.
2. I must hit 50,000 words by November 30th and the whole story must be finished by 20th December.
3. It must be research light (based on current knowledge or my own world building).
4. I will have a tip jar of some description that will, during the month of November, go to a charity of my choosing. (NB – More to follow on this in subsequent posts).
5. Starting on Sunday 8th I will begin podcasting the story as I go.

Yes, you heard me right: I am going to podcast the draft as I go. Not the sound of me typing as I inadvertently made it sound like when explaining the concept to a friend, but me actually reading the story. Why?

I haven’t excluded the chance that I have actually lost it but that’s not the actual reason. There is a certain, screwy, kind of logic going on here:

1. I want to experiment with producing a more reader ready first draft by doing planning up front rather than producing a draft 0 as I have done in the past.
2. I am doing NaNoWriMo for fun rather than trying to advance my writing career and so I want a way to prevent myself endlessly tinkering. Broadcasting it provides a way of closing the door on the story.
3. Although I’m doing it for fun I do want people to experience the story and I’m not confident that I can proof and typeset this kind of volume at the frequency required to get it out in text (print or online) as I go. By reading it out loud I will pick up the errors as I go – in fact this is how I line edit; all I’m doing is recording it and editing out the mistakes.
4. I want to see what the results are of adopting a serialised approach to writing as novelists often did in the Victorian period and as comic writers frequently do today. How will the results differ when I can’t go back and add in things I think of half way through the draft? Is it freeing or constraining?
5. I enjoy reading out loud and don’t get a chance to do it very often.

Mainly I’m doing it for fun.

So that’s the plan. Beyond this I haven’t done a huge amount yet: I know it’s an urban fantasy, I know where the story is set, I have a faint idea of a plot, I have some twists planned and I have a small but growing menagerie of creatures.

From here on in I’ll be blogging as I go, albeit short posts, about where I’m at and I dare say my twitter feed will be an eye opener: http://www.twitter.com/neilbeynon

I hope you’ll listen.

It’s been quiet round here because:

a) work is a little bit mental.

b) I am in a frantic push to finish The Scarred God

c) In a fit of sheer lunacy I have decided to do NaNoWriMo this year, with a slight difference in approach to my previous attempt and have been planning for that.

More information will follow as I attempt to shamelessly drum up interest for my experiment/blogged insanity…

Things sound quiet on the writing front because I am working on what I am now affectionately calling the-absolute-final-unless-someone-buys-it draft  of The Scarred God. I’m at the all too familiar middle point sag where motivation dips and self-doubt swings a low blow. I’ve been here before with this manuscript, I recognise the signs and have deployed counter measures.

Still.

I want to start something new. I’m about done with Anya’s story, this one at least and I have another, entirely different, story I want to write – one more ambitious than anything I’ve ever tried and I have a ton of reading to do before I can start it. I have a protagonist in my mind, a premise and a loose idea of the world(s). Much to my surprise it’s SF not fantasy.

Anyway, my plan was to be ready to go on Nov 1st and therefore be able to run in NaNoWriMo. I’m not sure I’m going to make that deadline now because I was supposed to finish TSG last weekend and then go into creative rest for two weeks while I read the research material. I’m behind on TSG but still making progress and I really want to finish properly. At this stage I have too much time invested to rush it and fumble the ending, again – the last act being the area that require most work as regards pacing and somewhat left field developments. I still think I’ll finish up before November but whether I’ll have enough time to recharge is anyone’s guess.

In other writing related updatery I finished a new piece of flash that read well with my test reader and so I think I may try and flog that for a change. It’s also SF.

And now: back to TSG.

I have been away. I am now returned.

Thanks for all the comments on the last post and apologies for the delay in approving comments. I find myself increasingly unwilling to pay the ever inflated internet charges in international hotels and that goes in spades for 02 roaming charges for data (£3 per mb!).

Anyhow, nice to be back. Normal service resumes soon. etc.

As is customary on the first day of a holiday, for me anyway, I have been ill.

I spent most of Saturday on the sofa feeling sorry for myself and ploughing through a research book for the next project and then Gene Wilder’s autobiography. There are worse ways to spend your time.

G was out doing a shoot in the evening and so I took the opportunity to indulge myself with some comfort food. I hadn’t felt like much during the day and so when I started to feel better I went a bit mad. One of my favourite meals when I was a kid was burgers and mash. I totally indulged with some expensive burgers and some decent spuds. I followed this sophisticated meal with a tub of ice cream.

Funny, the way food can make you feel better or evoke memories. I still like tomato soup for the same reason.

What are your comfort foods?

Presently, I am in Dorking on day job stuff.

It is unlikely – between a fairly intense few days, peppered with occasional wordcount – that I will have a huge amount of time to post.

Trying to remind myself that not everyone gets my snarky sense of humour. Not entirely succeeding.

What personality pitfalls do you try to avoid?

I see my friend GLP is also braving the direct-to-audience model.

Having a copy of Future Bristol I can assure you “What would Nicholas Cage do?” is indeed worth a donation in order to read and in this case I am clearly a little biased but hey: that’s what friends are for. However, you don’t have to take my word for it: Gareth’s first novel is out next year, he has been published in Interzone more than once and kicked arse in their readers’ poll for best short story in 2007.

Go on: you know you want to.

PS – There is a degree of cross over between our sites and so this is aimed at readers who don’t know GLP’s work. I’m assuming the rest of you already know about this…