Monday, June 27, 2005

Yippee on two counts

I got a really nice surprise yesterday: Hal Spacejock is now listed with the big three in Australia! (There are three major bookselling chains in this country, with 70-100 or so stores each: Dymocks, Angus & Robertson and Collins Booksellers)

So, this morning I woke up inspired. After several really tough days on the book (a tough day being one where little happens) I vanished into the bedroom with my laptop and worked from 11am until 11pm, with two breaks for meals. In that time I polished off 95% of the remaining work, leaving one little scene to rewrite tomorrow.

Next up, I'll print the whole thing out (currently almost 90,000 words) and delete one word in 9 to get the thing back to about 80,000. At the same time I'll reword, insert, adjust, trim, rewrite and scribble on every single page.

My goal is to have the draft finished by the 30th so I can stick it in a drawer and forget all about it for two weeks. Then I'll give it another polish and send it in to my editor. Then I'll want a holiday.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

2 comments:

Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor said...

Holiday? Holiday? No, sorry Simon, you're not allowed a holiday. I want to read HS4!!
[big grin]

Simon Haynes said...

Hah. HS3 comes first.

I don't think #3 needs as much work as the first two did. By the time I got around to that one I'd had a few years practice. Let's hope #4 just leaps onto the page (and let's hope the first three sell enough to get 4 signed up!)

BTW I did a little talk about writing to 650 primary school kids yesterday. (Just five mins during their assembly.) Pulled out the 300+ page manuscript and told them it was my speech...

Then I got invited back to one of the classrooms for an impromptu Q&A session, and they also got me to do a reading from the new Hal Spacejock book. Fame at last :-)