Friday 1 May 2009

BURIED IN MANUSCRIPT

Hallo. I'm sorry. I'll say that again. Hello.

Which of the above is correct, do you think? I'm darned if I know but my editor has deleted all my 'a's and replaced them with 'e's. Whazzat all about?

The reason I've been off the radar since Easter is as follows: I'm re-writing the edit of the edit of the edit of The Toyboy Diaries II - The Daily Male. I thought I'd finished this book about a year ago, but when my publishers got hold of it, they told me I had not.

This is a blog, sez they, and a blog doth not a book make. And so I've had to go over every single word of it - 82,786 words in fact - to create a proper story with a narrative arc of no more than 70,000 words. The deadline was last week. I'm only halfway through and I'm suffering - oh boy! am I suffering...

It's going to be good though. By wielding her iron fist inside a velvet glove, my editor has encouraged me to craft my story in a different more readable way.

The cover is ready. The shelf-space in the shops has been booked. All that remains is for me to finish subtly honing the text.

And then I can start to tell you my other little stories again...like the one about the toyboy who came for Sunday lunch and stayed till Tuesday.

And the 44-year old I made a date with because I'm trying to be good and climb the age ladder.

And the wagon I'll doubtless fall off when that doesn't work out...

6 comments:

Wild Willie o' Orkney said...

Oh shit. What a load of old,,,,(on second thoughts, better no express my thoughts to the whole of cyberuniverse in case any of your Publishers are spying here (oh yes they DO you know!)Anyway 'sorry for your troubles' as the Irish say of the departed (in this case your defunct MSS, not YOU of course!)Here was I thinking you'd been abducted by a gang of teenagers in Brighton intent on persuading you to have your wicked way with them! (plot for another story?)Glad you're back. Missed ye, as no doubt our other happy band of contributers. Good luck with the next few days (God how I HATE deadlines!) Put butter on your fingers or something (seem to remember Marlon Brando doing that somewhere once!)

Liz said...

Now then - there I was thinking you were away having fun.....

I'll be asking for a signed copy of your new book please! Can't wait to read it - am away on my hols (on my own....) for a week in June so it'll make excellent beach reading I'm sure.

More than busy here, but not complaining just glad the recession doesn't seem to have hit to badly here.

Watch out for sore fingers....

Liz x x x

palmstreet said...

i've always been rather fond of 'ello...

Wendy Salisbury said...

Thank you William, Liz and Palm Street for your encouragement and comments - all gratefully accepted!

I'm happy to say I'm getting there and last night, for the first time, I actually quite liked it.

Only about 40 pages to go now and then I can r-e-l-a-x. . .

Thanks for hanging in and hope to be back with you in earnest soon.

Wendy x

Wild Willie o' Orkney said...

Keep goin' gal! (I was up 'til 3.00am today on that vital final page of my THIRD draft, so can empathize.)We'll all hang on (out?) for you, so don't worry!
Williamxx

palmstreet said...

If i see 'ello in the book i shall, at the very least, expect a small doff of the cap for my literary genius. It would be a small consolation for not being part of the research!

Best of luck miss...