Annabelle Cloud

  • Losing Her Voice

    Three weeks since my last update. At the end of that post, I mentioned that I was going to take two weeks off — I didn’t!

    It lasted a whole 2 days before I started an even more vigorous edit.

    One of the things that I noticed while reading the story, is that the narrators tone changes over the course of the book. Part of that is intentional, part could be considered theme, and part is just because it took me too long to write. In some parts the descriptive writing actually improves, and there is some lovely prose describing places that Annabelle visits, and the action that happens there.

    I realised that I was slowly losing Annabelle’s voice. So it all needed cutting, and re-writing, and all ended on the proverbial cutting room floor.

    The next thing was that I split up some of the chapters for size and pacing, but they remained sequential. I never wanted them to be sequential. So I made the decision to order the chapters the way I wanted, before people started reading it. At least that way I get feedback on what could be confusion. This also lead to additional writing, because suddenly these chapters needed a little bit of reintroduction. Word count levelled at 81k

    I then did take two weeks off.

  • Seven Weeks

    It’s been almost seven weeks since I started the concerted effort to complete ‘The Many Dreams of Annabelle Cloud’.

    47 days of which I actually wrote on 43 of them. The only days I didn’t write was those I was away from computer in Leeds. That is the best writing streak I have ever managed!

    I added 3466 words on the last two days of September, 44460 in October, and 673 in November.

    I say added because it’s a Net amount. So November stands out, because I don’t have a total of how many I actually wrote, it’s a final amount. I was editing all of November so I added a lot of words, but I also deleted a lot of words.

    The novel currently stands at 82.5k words. ~400 pages.

    But I think I have finished my edit. Everything now will be done in response to others. Changes needed because things don’t make sense, or clarifications, or other opportunities in the story that now present themselves. And of course standard editing I have missed.

    I intend to take the next two weeks as a break from writing while I consider the next steps.

  • The First Edit

    Just over a week since I finished the first draft of ‘The Many Dreams of Annabelle Cloud’.

    I definitely underestimated the amount of work just to do that first polish. I decided to deal head on with the obvious mechanical issues. Typos, spelling, punctuation, and grammar. These are things that I can use software tools for – but I was surprised just how bad they were. I originally typed a long piece about the issues I needed to resolve, but it was a ramble… too many words!

    TLDR; I do software I do… so I wrote some code to take the manuscript paragraph by paragraph and push it through a number of online tools to help with the mechanical errors.

    Anyway… I know I got myself stuck in the weeds over the first week, but that edit was done, and it was an interesting refresher. BTW: During that stage I’ve only dropped around 1k words.

    So, the first edit is complete, on to the second edit. Maybe another week of reading passes and then I’m ready for a few key people to start reading it.

  • The First Draft

    So this happened last night. The first draft of “The Many Dreams of Annabelle Cloud” is done. Twenty Six chapters. 83k words – anywhere between 35O to 450 pages depending on final layout.

    This has been over 13 years in the making. I wrote the opening of what would become this story March 2013 in the Bewley Hotel (now Clayton) in Leopardstown, Dublin.

    It became a germ of a novel a few years later and then my sole focus a few years after that. When Fergus suggested that my current novels- The Children of the Dreamgate, and The Lily Wood Trail – were maybe too big, or complex for me at the time. He wasn’t wrong.

    Annabelle Cloud became a way to help me transition from short stories to a larger canvas. That conceit is built in to the story – or so I intended.

    Over the years life got in the way. My brain got in the way. And I managed to over complicate this one as well.

    This month I managed to break a deadlock. I deleted stuff that I’d been hanging on to but couldn’t resolve. Ideas that seemed good at the time – but could never find the payoff.

    I drilled down on everything else a slowly brought a number of loose ends together. This in turn suggested ideas that replaced the ones I’d removed – and momentum brought me here.

    I still have a long way to go. This first edit has to deal with almost 12 years of writing. I am sure there will be consistency problems. I am sure there will be continuity issues to now to iron out.

    But for the first time – the story is told. Now it just needs some polish and TLC.

  • 80k

    Tonight I hit 80k words – approx 290 paperback pages.

    I have one story chapter to wrap up – the one from this picture. And then some loose ends to tie up in my penultimate – tie it all together chapter. I’m estimating that it will take another 5k words – I definitely won’t get to 90k

    I’m really hoping that I can claim to have hit “first draft” by the end of this week.

    The hard work begins… editing!

  • 70k

    So 70k words is now a thing. That’s ~270 paperback pages. I can definitely see the finish line for the first draft.

    I have 6 partially complete chapters at various stages and 3 intended chapters not yet started. Those 9 chapters will fit within the next 10k words – Only, they won’t. I suspect they will be closer to 15k-20k

    Sure this is not an exact science. It’s not about having a direct amount of words or pages per chapter – each chapter does what it needs to do, however long or short that is. If I hit 90k words – so be it, there is still the edits to come. But even if 90k survived, then it means a ~350 page paperback.

    The 3 intended chapters might just get deleted, I have an idea of what I want them to be about, but right now, I’m not sure of they still fit to the current story. This is the problem of outlines. So far I have learned, especially in the last few weeks, that I shouldn’t keep rigidly to the outline – it constrains me.

    One of the partial chapters is likely to get dropped. The text already written is valuable, but could be move somewhere else without the need to expand it or finish it off.

    I’m getting really excited that I might just be able to hit first draft during November – definitely by the end of the year 🙂

  • 60k

    Another milestone on my wip. I hit 60k words tonight. That’s a really tidy additional 20k words over the last 2 weeks. So 3/4 of the way through to what I consider to be the target for first draft. My writing tool Scrivener has my Paperback output now at ~250 pages. I do think it’s going to start slowing down again now though, as teasing out the end of this story is going to start getting more difficult. I’d love to be able to hit 70k by the end of the month! But, if I’m honest, I’ll take anything I can get that keeps the momentum up.

  • 40k

    The Many Dreams of Annabelle Cloud - Cover Artwork.

    Major milestone with this work in progress. I know it’s taken me a long time of trying to find my way through this story, but I finally hit 40k words. That’s exactly half way to the target I set myself.

    Now I just need to keep the momentum going!

  • The Girl in the Picture

    The girl in the picture said that her name was Kailee, but I was sure she was lying. So, for a while, I called her Dilly, after the nursery rhyme, Lavender blue dilly dilly, Lavender green. She didn’t like that. 

    Whenever she was grating my nerves, I would just say, “Yes, Dilly Dilly,” and she would stop grating my nerves. She would stamp her feet, stick out her tongue, and then frown like an old man thinking. 

    She insisted that her hair was red, but it wasn’t. It was bright like the sun, sparkled like the stars, and smelled of the ocean.

    Mum bought her for me at a car boot sale. Paid fifty pence for her. She could have paid twenty-five pence, but the smallest thing she had was a fifty pence piece, and she said that she felt guilty asking for change.