Neen Sollars: Blog

So, since the next chapter got broken in half because it was so long, and since I really wanted to get both halves edited up asap and together, the conclusion of the 'Weekend With Remy' is in the submissions queue.

Fair warning, there's a couple of moments that are a bit emotional, but also a lot of Lia being very Lia about things too.

Time to go dunk my eyes in ice-water for a couple of days.

Neen

Quick heads-up.

Chapter 7 was a bit on the long side, so it's getting posted in two parts. Not a problem as there is a natural break between them. First half is in the queue already, but the second half with be a few days as it's a chunk of proof-reading and editing. That's why I proke it up.

Enjoy.

Neen

Funny how these things go.

As I'm editing the next chapter I realise there are a few loose threads which would benefit from tying up, but none of which are important, leading me to decide to write an in-between chapter so that I know what's happening, the intention being to use it or not depending on if anything comes of it.

And somehow that goes through three drafts, three endings, and a whole day's writing junked as it really takes Jim and Lia in directions I don't think are right for them. The proof of this is that when I cut that section out and write something else, it feels much more 'them'.

So now I'm somehow tidying up the first draft of a disposable chapter that ended up exploring some interesting things and running to over 10,000 words. And it was meant to be no more than an afternoon's amusement for me.

All of which means I'm now free to go back and do the (hopefully) final pass on the next chapter (6), though that might get broken in half as it runs over 20,000 words even though it does cover a very long weekend's events. That's what happens when Lia invites him to meet her Pop.

Thank God for copious cups of Earl Grey.

Neen

Sometimes writing is just weird.

Like when you've finished doing a hard edit on a chapter, you decide to sketch out some of the ideas arising from that chapter, and instead you find you've spent a day writing a 7500w chapter that ties in a few things in subsequent chapters.

As a structuralist who believes in planning down to the last possible detail before writing a word, this kind of thing annoys the hell out of me.

As someone who detests the whole 'let the characters go wherever' fantasy, this infuriates me.

And yet here I am, an interim chapter drafted out and ready to fill in some gaps I hadn't realised were there on the first parse of Jim'n'Lia's story.

The moral of this story? Sometimes you have to swallow your intentions and let your subconscious go places.

If you need to, you can always delete later and pretend it never happened.

Neen

And it's done.

After a harsh edit, a rewrite, a cogitate, and a few tweaks, ch.6 is done and in the queue to submit.

For those who're interested, this was in part driven by the idea that we often subconsciously imagine that everyone is quite vanilla in their lives, and the reality is they often are not, and in quite surprising ways, too.

Also, some of the codes won't be applying to Jim and Lia directly, but I have to 'tick' them nonetheless.

Additionally, some of what happens in ch.6 sows seeds for the future, and some of those seeds will flower quicker than Jim might imagine...

Neen