Tuesday 20 August 2013

PHEW

Hello, my chickies! Happy Tuesday. I hope everyone had a restful weekend. I did, because *drumroll please* I finished Darkness Hidden edits on Friday!

Yippee!
Yes, I hesitated over pressing the send button, then womaned-up and pressed the 'Send' button, and did the gibbering over the fact that I had pressed the send button and the edits were gone and I couldn't get them back etc. etc. I expect to get at least one more round of edits back before we move into the copyediting stage (because I'm pessimistic like that) but I decided to have the weekend off to catch up on some reading, try out a few new recipes, and gibber a tiny bit more.

My job now is to get stuck into the first draft of The Name of the Blade Book #3 and get as much done as I possibly can before that next round of DH edits lands. Which is easier said than done. Nothing, but nothing, seems to mess me up more than forcing myself to stop in the middle of the white-hot creative phase of writing something new, in order to move into cool, analytical editing mode on a different book. It's so tough to shift back.

After spending a full day staring blankly at my screen yesterday, I've decided to do the same thing with my incomplete bk #3 as I did when I returned to the Darkness Hidden draft after stopping to do all the revisions on The Night Itself. Print the incomplete WIP out, re-read and revise it, and then go on from there. It seems like the best way to think myself back into the headspace of who the characters are now.

You can probably expect slightly shorter and less ranty posts from me for the next little while (stop cheering at the back), as all my brain juices go into trying to bring bk #3 back to life again. However, if anyone would like writing, publishing or reading questions answered on the blog, leave them in the comments and, as always, I'll try to answer them here as soon as possible.

In other news, I was delighted with the thoughtful, civil, intelligent discussion in the comments on Thursday's post. Thank you so much, everyone! Read you Thursday.

8 comments:

Astri said...

I have a wondering: do you ever plan to write some kind of fiction that is not fantasy? And if so, would you change publishers/agents/etc. or that isn't how it works? Also do you know what you would work on once you're done with the Name of the Blade books?

Zoë Marriott said...

Astri: Thanks for your questions! I'll probably answer these on the blog on Thursday :)

G.M. said...

Congrats for finishing the edits and my questions about your books are: Did any of your novel been translated to a foreign language and did you have a book event outside Great Britain? And Amanda Sun sends you an Hello from Toronto, Canada. Today I was at her event for her book "Ink" set in Japan, at the Japan foundation. We chatted briefly and I asked her if she knows Zoe who also wrote a novel set in Japan, and she she said Yes. Best wishes.

Zoë Marriott said...

Giora: Thank you! I'll add your questions to the list to be answered on the blog. And yes, I know Amanda on the internet - I've read and loved her book, too :)

Unknown said...

Hi Zoe,

I'm completely new to your blog but searched you out after reading The Swam Kingdom. I, too, feel that I've found my writing chops in YA fantasy. At 43, it's such fun to live out my days in fantasy land! Best job ever! Thanks for adding to my inspiration! Hope to join you on bestseller lists worldwide!

XOXO,
Gina~

Zoë Marriott said...

Gina: I'm really glad that you liked TSK and feel at home with YA. Stick around a while - this is where all the cool YA readers hang out :)

Phoenixgirl said...

Love the photo! Is that Finn?

Zoë Marriott said...

Phoenix: Nooo. Finn is black and white! Plus, I've never managed to catch him mid-jump. I just wanted a picture of a cute spaniel leaping for joy :)

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