Blog: Literary Update

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I feel I must proffer an apology to the Waiting World for the lack of information about my current Literary Endevours. I am fully aware of the eager multitudes BEGGING to know when the sequel to Storm House will be released, and I can only thank you all for doing so with such calmness and reserve that it might seem to an uninformed observer that nobody was asking at all.

To these and all interested parties I bring good news, for LO! on Monday I finally finished Draft TWO of what is now most likely to be called "Storm House: Minds Immeasurable"! It has taken AGES to do, partly because it is a bit longer than the first book, and partly because I now have an Actually Quite Interesting job so I've had to do the WRITING on my OWN time!

I think the final document is probably ALL RIGHT, but I have no way of telling at the moment. My PROCESS with this sort of thing is to PLOUGH THROUGH a draft and then leave it alone for several weeks, so that I can go back to it FRESH for the next go. That's what I've done so far with the various drafts of the plot and outline, and then with the first FULL draft that this second one was based on, and it seems to have worked OK. I did the same with the original book and then, the same as this time, the second draft seemed to take FOREVER. Doing the plot/outline is dead good fun because you're making up as much exciting stuff as possible, and then doing the first draft is ALSO fun because you get to put all the dialogue and JOKES in, but the SECOND draft is basically a near complete re-write as you try to make it all make some kind of SENSE and, in my case, make sure that you don't tell the same joke TWICE just because you forgot you'd already told it earlier.

The THIRD draft will, hopefully, be much quicker and involve me LARFING at the aforesaid JOKES because I'd forgotten them, as well as correcting spelling, grammar and so forth, before I try and find some willing chums to have a read of it to see what they think. After that it'll be drafts four (re-writing on the basis of their THORTS) and five (spelling and grammar again) before it gets near anyone else, so it's going to be a while yet before it's officially out. I'd hoped to UNLEASH it before Christmas this year, but that looks rather unlikely now!

In the meantime though I've got another job to do - a re-write of the FIRST "Storm House" book!! "But Mark," you might say, "Haven't you already published that one?" Well yes, I have, but the other week I got a rather brilliant READER REPORT from one of the competitions it got long-listed for, suggesting a couple of MAJOR but also VERY DO-ABLE changes to a) one of the characters b) some of the pacing. It made a LOT of sense, so going to have a go at DOING the suggested changes and then, if it works, re-entering said competition. There's nothing to lose by trying, and if it comes out rubbish I can forget about it!

Once THAT's done I'll be having a go at the second draft of the OTHER book I was working on earlier this year, which WAS called "Alpha Male" and then "Six Billion To One" but is now probably going to be called something else again. Doubtless that'll take a good long while too so it's going to be AGES before I have ACTUAL TEXT to show people - this does, I must admit, make it all a bit of a SLOG to keep going at, as my favourite part of this whole process (SHOWING OFF) is always AGES away!

Still, it's all moving forward, if very slowly, and hopefully it'll be worth the wait when they finally come out. In the meantime, thank you all for your STOICISM and patience!

posted 8/8/2018 by MJ Hibbett

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