Health-wise...

... I've been hunting around a bit, too.
Trying to find the elixir of life is like chasing rainbows: you will never get to the bottom of either. Mind you, there are certain things that come up regularly in modern homeopathy. Stuff like Cider Vinegar, Apple Juice, Honey, Maple Syrup, Water. Since I had that kidney problem, though it was a while back now, I've never really felt 100%. Me being me, I had to look around in an effort to learn more about what makes the human body tick. When you put that list of liquids together, you get a kind of health drink that tastes rather good and makes you feel ok, too. I've probably created - accidentally - the organic equivalent of liquid smack ;-) The things I've learned about the human body are amazing. The overriding feeling I have is that most of the organs inside of the human body are add-ons  i.e. they are there to either counter, or supplement, what was originally there. We have evolved. Modern life means we will have to continue evolving... but my knowledge is rather bleak in that direction.
Getting back to drinking stuff: when I go to the Dolly Peel, I have a standing order for what I call a Stressbuster. Linda, one of the barmaids, who also tended the bar at the famous Brunny 'fun' pub, knows exactly what I mean: Bacardi, Coke, Ice. Marvellous! Usually, though, I leave out the Bacardi. I just can't drink these days. Kidneys don't lie, and they can give you an alarming dig in the ribs to remind you.
But I'm off again in October for another two weeks. I'll be visiting my older brother and his family in Shropshire, as our birthdays fall within a couple of days of each other. And then I'll be writing well into what should be the last third of this first book. So I'll need to keep on top of my health if I'm to give it my best shot. I'm a lot better than I was. I'm not coughing all the time, though the taste in my mouth tells me that work still needs to be done to freshen myself up. That's where that drink concoction came in. Let's see how it goes. I'm a work-in-progress, all right.
Cheers!

A Bridge Less Rickety

So, what I've done is that I've created the bridge from the beginning and into the story itself. I've tried to keep things moving, illustrating as opposed to telling.
I always felt that this would prove to be the most difficult part of the tale, where I'd probably bury it all, and myself, if I didn't get it right. Of course, there are different kinds of 'right'. But we are now into the story itself. It feels like it's working. Now I've got to make it run.
There are gaps, still, as to what is supposed to happen along the way. Some things will be difficult to convey, to explain. The quality of the flashbacks must aid me here, and where they are positioned within the order of events ought to help make sense of things. It's a good mixture, I think, of a lot of things. I'm much more in control of where I'm going.
This way...

Into the night

That's where my story leads. I'm further down the line now, and it feels good to have made a few moves. I have to say that I struggle a lot of the time, my main worry being that I must not simply relay events - there are a lot of them, some of them in the history - but instead ensure that I'm telling a story. I'm trying to set the scene, but moving along at the same time. Think I'm doing that. There are a few people in the story - more than I imagined, but they are all interlinked. Each has their own stream of time, slipping in and out of the main river itself. There is a point I'm aiming at, where I'll have to look at everything and determine the validity of certain things. The direction will be crucial at this point. My readers will see what I've done at this point, too. Pretty convinced that I'll finish it this year...

From nothing...

Well, not strictly nothing - I had a small idea, which seemed a bit odd and nothing too grand at that. I didn't realise at the time that this was probably the bigest idea in writing I would ever have! Years later, I'm still wrestling with 'the big picture'. I hate that phrase, as most people are not so narrow-minded that they don't take in a lot of other things before deciding what they need to do, or where to go. But it probably applies in this case: one book may not be enough.
Research, for example, took a couple of years, as I needed to be sure of what I was talking about. Most of it became redundant. Fiction does that, sometimes: you are creating a story, and you need to entertain the reader. Facts, though interesting, will increase the boredom factor and no amount of jigging them about will stop them killing you off. But I needed to know facts and then arrange them in my head, so I knew where I was going most of the way. Fact versus fiction became a constant struggle, which also took time.
One of the things that has caused me much consternation is that I seemed to be writing in smaller pieces. Not seemed - I did! Not happy with having to 'join up the dots' I wrote more back-story and also came up with flashbacks. I now have a list of events and writing them up before filling in the blanks feels like the way I have to go with this one. When I wrote Sword, I wrote until I filled a hole or fell asleep. Being more naturally a fantasy writer, all I needed was time. Here, I needed a whole lot more: planning, structure, a list of people in the story, factual information, history. Writing in plain english while searching for a style has caused me to doubt whether I could ever make it in modern literature.
But here I am, coming up with more ideas and still working on it.
It was just a small thought, but it has grown rather huge - at least in my head, anyway. I'm not unhappy, more a bit bothered that it has taken such a long time. The end of the year will see the ending of the first book. I can see that. Then my readers shall see it: the Intrepid Four!
Catch you later... :-)

The Big Push

I was watching a documentary on Bram Stoker and how he came to write the incredibly famous Dracula. The form in which it was written probably caused the book's early obscurity. The idea was great, and the setting was typical of the times in which Stoker lived. But not many regarded the book as particularly noteworthy. Tell that to the readers of vampire books and watchers of vampire films these days. The idea is bigger now than it ever was.

Hmmm: I'm not writing a vampire series. Dark as mine is, being mostly at night, I don't go there. Could be a departure for lots of readers, but the realm of night is a plus - at least I hope so. A different kind of predator walks inside this one.

My sociability staus seems to have taken a battering, lately, but I was at a Laygate reunion at the Trimmers Arms on Friday. I can't change anything until I've finished, though, so I still can't do that much until I'm happy the story has gone the right way. Maybe not life as you know it, but it's life as I know it until it's done :-)

Anyway, I'm off for two weeks, and evenings until dawn will see me writing as far as I can get. It's an important time and there is so much to do.
So I'll get on with it!