Digging...

Yeeeeee Haw!

And we're off again. Draft 4. It's Monday morning and the Bangkok sun is trying to stab through the thick blanket of rain clouds and smog outside, while the cool purring of a fan keeps me company inside. It is September 2011 and approximately 6 years ago that bastard plot of Aelemental started bubbling up in my brain in a cold Galway house in Ireland. Now, finally, after three drafts and a slew of editorial comments by my lovely wife Nancy, I'm at the keyboard again sifting through 400 pages of young adult adventure.

It is therefor not ironic in the least that the prologue starts with a man and a boy searching through an intricate ruin left in the thick jungles of the Amazon. That's how I feel looking at this tome, which I now have to extract the treasure from in order to impress the world. Armed with my adjusted plot and character notes on the left (thank you Vogler and McKenna) and the bloody red comments on a draft 3 hard copy on my right (thank you my dearest wife) I am ready to tackle this beast.

Oh and I also have to thank my son, who seemed to read my mind this weekend and built his own ruin from Lego, armed with all sorts of trapped monsters and secret rooms inside (hence the picture).

I won't blog as much as I did last year when I was writing draft 2 and 3 - as stated it takes away from the actual creative process - but instead give you weekly updates of how I'm progressing. Right now I am looking at an easy first few chapters that have been edited so many times I see little room for change. With one exception: focus on characters instead of plot. That's why I call this draft the 'Love Draft'. It's all about smoothing and deepening the character aspects in order to make it a more emotional driven story rather than a plot driven one. Especially in the first chapter or two the author needs to fully 'sell' the main character to the reader. If I fail at this, then readers will simply quit. So I'm looking to establish Simon (the lead of Book 1) as the disenfranchised teenager, who struggles with the loss of his mother. While coping with his changed family dynamics he escapes more into his passion: drawing, which gets him into trouble at school, where he just started the new year. And bullies are on the prowl.

Thanks for sticking with me, everyone. To my family and friends especially. I know it's been a long ride, but now that my focus is clear (write a little bit each day and publish the book online) I feel confident the end is near. Your patience will be rewarded. 

Let's see if digging through this manuscript will reward me as well...

M.