Writing update for June. Almost there!

Detail of the frontispiece of the New Minster charter, England, c. 966: London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A VIII, f. 2v. from left to right: The Virgin Mary, King Edgar, and Saint Peter.

Instead of reposting information or creating an historical character profile, I thought I would write a more personal post this week.

I am currently trying to soldier through my line edits for the novel, The Northumbrian Saga. It’s something I thought I would have finished a week or two ago, but unfortunately I am at the point where I just cannot concentrate or think anymore. So I am here instead, trying to convince myself that it is not procrastinating if what I do instead is somehow related to the novel! So here I am 🙂

As I said, I am still line editing. Like many of you out there, I have a day job and this last month especially has proven very hectic. Actually draining is probably a more succinct way of putting it. Usually I can grab a few hours after work to do a little bit of writing but this time, not so much. Lately, just getting dinner ready and having a shower has taken up all my reserves. As a result I am a little behind schedule. But you get that sometimes don’t you. That is just life.

I can’t complain too much. I only have 5 chapters to go and for the majority, it looks as though it is mostly spelling and grammar. There are only a few sections where I have to resist pulling my hair out and thinking ‘What the hell was i drinking when I wrote that?’

Hopefully that will all be done in a few days time. Then it’s over to the beta readers. I had originally wanted to give them a month to read through it. Some I know will be able to devour it in a weekend but others who aren’t big readers anyway, or are just too busy having a life, will need longer to read through and make comments. Then once I get the comments back i will probably have to do another edit, and again I’m hoping there wont be too many. At this point I’m not overly stressed about this. It takes as long as it takes and if it means I have a good book at the end of the process then all the better.

Then it will be out on the World Wide Web for everyone to see. Something that is both exciting and horribly terrifying at the same time. I know a lot of people say this, but writing (even fiction writing where you can sometimes make everything up) is incredibly hard work and is also very personal. I think that is why it can be so rewarding at the same time. After all, nothing ventured is nothing gained.

So that is the state of the novel thus far. Nearly at the finish line but not quite.

Before I leave you all again though for another week, I’d really like to thank those of you who have been reading the articles and following my posts. Every time I log in and see that people have been visiting the site and looking around I get as excited as a kid in a candy store! It’s also great visiting other people’s blogs as well, especially by other authors and people with similar interests in the ‘Dark Ages’. The more sites out there with the correct information, the better aware the general public will be about this poorly labelled time period.

Enjoy your week everyone!

P.S. It is now the saturday before this post is to be published and I am very happy to say that thankfully, after alot of coffee, cutting and pasting and word gymnastics,  I only have 1 chapter left to edit! Hopefully by tomorrow I will either have finished editing (yay) or would have fallen pray to writers block from too much thinking today (not so good). Either way, i’ll be closer to my goal.

I have also (I think) narrowed down a rough prototype of my cover, so fingers crossed that this falls into place as well!

By A H Gray

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• Writing Update for July (ahgray.wordpress.com)