Hello Everyone,
As you may have noticed if you’ve been following me on Facebook or Twitter, I finished the first draft of Colin Pearce’s second adventure, “The Cabo Contract” at about 2am last Thursday morning. Now comes the most difficult part of writing, in my opinion, the read-through and revision process.
For me, writing a story is a dynamic process. While I start a novel with a vision of how it will end, I let the characters tell me who they are and I also let them decide what they’re going to do. This can result in some significant surprises. Very often, as the author, I’ll be typing along quite merrily and suddenly I’ll realize that something is going to happen that I didn’t anticipate. Or, I can have a specific idea for the manner in which a scene will play out in my mind and then when I get to the actual “creation” phase, it will go in an entirely different direction. When I’m all finished with the writing though, I have to go back and make sure the “set up” for all the characters and events matches the outcome. In order to avoid continuity errors, something that readers hate, I have to be very anal about the details.
At this point, I’m about halfway through the revision process and I’m fine tuning conversations, CIA emails and words here and there to make things flow. I’m also looking hard about what this story will say about Colin Pearce and ensure it’s consistent both with who I know him to be and who the readers expect him to be.
I’m predicting that I’ll have the first revision completed by Christmas. After that comes the read through and some final tightening up, and then it’s off to my “test readers” for their input. Once I get their input back, I’m sure additional changes will be in order and then it will be off to the publisher, probably some time in late January.
In this latest adventure, the reader will learn more about Colin Pearce’s dark side as well as his sense of duty and his dedication to someone he feels very strongly about. There are also not one, but two villains and a plot that hopefully will draw the reader in and not let go until he or she is finished reading.
More updates to come!
