Journey's End?

I wrapped up the first draft of Grand Union yesterday evening, with a grand total of 62,307 words, so officially that's a 'win' for NaNoWriMo purposes.  Result!

What I don't yet have is a novel, though do have a story written down in the order I want to tell it using at least some of the required words.  The plan for the rest of the month is to use the dark and wet parts of my days off and evenings to take the rough edges off this raw material and then produce a proof copy of the book - several copies in fact - for final checks and small tweaks.

But I mean it to remain the 'one month book' - no second or subsequent drafts, no nit-picking.  I want to retain the speed and spontaneity of the original and too much tinkering will undermine that.

I still have two major projects I need to complete.  The Limited Capability paperback needs the proof-reading team's final lists of recommendations and corrections put into place so it can be let loose on the unsuspecting non-Kindle using public.  Claimant Commitment (or whatever it finally gets called - though I think this will be it) needs finishing and systematically reworking with a view to serialising it in the spring, ahead of the General Election of course. 

Despite my previous resolution, I am already having doubts about this being the last outing for Solent Welfare Rights Project; I quite fancy writing a collection of short stories spanning a longer timescale, starting with Hilary's early days as an advice worker and ending... well, later: no spoilers!

As for Daphne - she'll be back too; next November if not before!

Progress

We're half way through National Novel Writing Month and I'm more than slightly proud to be more than half way through writing the first draft of my NaNoWriMo novel, and first attempt at a crime thriller, 'Grand Union'. 

I've reached my last lock and 50,084 words - the official NaNoWriMo target is 50,000, but I started with about 8,500 under my belt so my personal target has to be around 60,000.  In reality, I may need a few thousand more to finish the story and to allow for some loss of 'flab' during editing, though it's equally likely that will add the odd scene or sentence, as I found when I revisited the opening chapters.

Taking on an unfamiliar genre has been interesting.  I have to confess I haven't read a 'whodunit' for years (unless Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban counts - which it should).  I don't tend to get into modern crime-based films or serials either, most of which are far too bloody, grim and depressing for my taste, often with a unrealisticly high body count, disproportionately of women.  I could hand out a proper Daphnesque rant on the subject, but I'll leave her to redress the balance in her own words and her own way.  Suffice to say 'Grand Union' isn't entirely bloodless, but neither is it graphic or gratuitous when things turn nasty.

I'm hoping that the puzzle-solving element keeps the reader interested rather than morbid fascination, with gory death.  I'm having fun sprinkling 'red herrings' though I'll need to check carefully for consistency and continuity issues on the re-read and ideally lay out my Waterways map and move some model boats about on it to make sure nobody has made impossible progress for plot purposes.

I hope readers will also enjoy the central characters' curious relationship and their journey.  Although the sinister possibilities of canals play a role, for the most part the boating episodes inject light and landscape into our tale of crime and corruption.  

Talking of journeys, I must get back to the closing stages of Daphne's - there are only two weeks to go before we reach the finishing line!

First Person Singular

If I were a less honest person, I could claim to be half way to the 50,000 word target set by National Novel Writing Month (that's NaNoWriMo for fans of acronyms) for their novel-in-a-month challenge.  However, having publically declared 8464 words already written, I'm not quite at that point.  It's still not bad going for a week (including 3 working days) and as the word count seems to be keeping pace quite nicely with the actual journey at the heart of the story, I'm pleased with progress.

This little novel is a challenge in other ways too.  My previous stories have followed a large cast of characters and regularly swapped perspectives between them, so the reader (and author) often knows much more than any particular character, setting up situations akin to the 'look behind you!' scenario at a pantomime.  'Grand Union' is narrated solely by women's rights worker and narrowboater Daphne Randall, so the reader knows no more than she does - often less, actually, as she isn't always narrating a entirely coherent, chronological account.  From an author's perspective, this makes filling in the plot details tricky as you can't cut away to another scene to hear first hand from another character.

Daphne's actual voice is a challenge in itself.  Having cast her as a Geordie, it would be all too easy to lay the accent on with a trowel and make her a caricature.  But this unlikely lass has lived and worked well south of the Tyne for most of her life and, though often outspoken and sometimes a bit earthy, she's well-read and well-educated - she was at university in the company of plummy Hilary Carrington, no less - so the rough edges were knocked off some while ago.  So I'm adopting the 'Appleby approach' - as applied to the Severe Discomfort Presenting Officer of the same name - and aiming more for a pattern of speech, a rhythm and cadence suggestive of her native accent, with the occasional dialect word where she might lapse back to using it.
 
It feels right - as I've discovered myself, you don't tend to hear your own accent when you move away from home.  You 'speak proper' - it's everyone else that talks funny.  That's why her co-star's Potteries dialect is slightly more pronounced; Daphne hears the 'conners' and 'donners' and a double 'o' in the middle when he resorts to 'strong language', but is deaf to her own non-standard pronunciation.  We know she has an accent, however - not least because boat-restorer Peter Brassington thinks she's a Scot!

Still, that's enough blogging for today - I want to make the most of another very wet day to get to the 30,000 word milestone if I can - my real half-way mark.  Or Milton Keynes.

They should be in about the same place.

Casting off...

Is it cheating to start 'NaNoWriMo' with 8,262 words already written?  Not, I suggest, if by 30th November you have 58,262 words and a book.  That's the plan.

The plan does not involve spending the morning at the local Farmer's Market and pottering in the greenhouse because it's a shame to waste a sunny day sitting indoors, though that is what happened this morning.  It doesn't involve catching up on friends and fellow activists on Facebook and it doesn't involve blogging - much.  It does involve making maximum use of the fact that it has clouded over and Jon has gone off to watch Stoke City.

It does not involve regular checks on Southampton's game against Hull.  Only it has.

Here's the (first draft) blurb:

Grand Union

When Women’s Aid worker Daphne Randall stormed out of the Council Chamber on a soggy January evening, throwing her political career away in the process, she had absolutely no intention of giving veteran journalist Harry Biddulph an interview, let alone a bed for the night. 

Three months later and the pair are in mortal danger.  Helped by Daphne’s inside knowledge of local politics and welfare reform, Harry’s investigations into an apparent suicide have uncovered financial scandal, high-level corruption and possibly even murder. 

When a series of disturbing incidents suggest that the Potteries are no longer a safe place for either of them, Daphne and Harry decide to leave town.

Surprisingly slowly...

Grab your windlass, Daphne - we're off! 

Update:
Wordcount at 19.55 1/11/2014 = 9,414