2021 Update: Draft three, the creek of ideas and development

It’s been a while since I provided any sort of update so I thought that the dawn of a new year would be the best time to change that, especially seeing as 2021 is the year I plan to market A Better Crown to literary agents.

It’s a been a weird start to the year; I’ve felt a lot of my creativity dry up over the past month, partly due to the new lockdown in the UK (ever so fantastic) and because I’ve been trying to funnel all my efforts into A Better Crown and getting that perfect final draft done and dusted. I’ve never been great at concentrating on one thing; I’m too much of a jack of all trades kind of guy, I always feel like I need to be working on two or three different projects at once or I get bored. But what seems to be happening at the moment is that I edit A Better Crown, try, and fail, to plan its sequel and then my creative juices dry up and any attempts at putting a short story together are scuppered and sunk.

My creativity for shorts has hit a real dry spot. I have hit the creek of my ideas, the dry riverbed, there are no more ideas flowing, the parchment is literally parched. The ideas I do have are strange in nature, they’re like wild theories; appearing to be all well and good when roughly outlined but going spectacularly wrong when put into practice. Plus; I’ve been knocked back by three short story competitions in the past six weeks, so confidence in my own ability is not sky-high.

But such is a writers life and I must soldier on; I still have my health after all.

So what is happening?

I'm waiting for the results of two more short story competitions, one of which is the Galley Beggar Press Award; which I’ve had my eye on for a while. I’m also editing a ghost short story; due to be entered into a competition held by Fractured Lit. So, despite the drought, there are still some irons in the fire there.

A Better Crown now has several very diligent and very enthusiastic beta readers rifling through it. With their feedback, and another round of editing on my part; the third, and hopefully, final draft will be well underway. Earthguard is in place, the plotline is rigid, the characters are set. A few edges need to be softened and a few corners rounded, but then it should all be done.

I’m a little apprehensive about the world being finally set in stone; the names, places and landscape suddenly being committed to publication. But I guess if that’s my only serious worry about the book then it’s not too bad. I’m invested in the plot and the characters; I would happily have them all committed to the annals of history.

I’ve also been planning the sequel to A Better Crown. I have a rough start all worked out but the real meat of the plot remains a little hazy. I have a full storyline for some of the main characters but others I’m not so sure on. I’ve always found that I’m very aware of who my characters are and their place in the world I have created for them but at the moment their roles seem blurred. Out of seven point-of-view characters for the sequel, two of them have full plots worked out. The rest are still up in the air. When it comes to book two there is little I am certain of but for one detail; Choke Mortimer (anyone who has read my published first extract from A Better Crown will be familiar with him) will be at the centre of proceedings.

I’m hoping to publish another extract from A Better Crown before I begin sending it off to literary agents.

So that’s everything. In a nutshell; there are some short stories to come, albeit slowly but surely, A Better Crown is almost there and you can expect a second extract from the novel.

For now; I’m going to stop complaining and get on with writing.

Stay strong, keep reading, keep writing.