A change is as good as...

...well you know the rest.

By which I mean I am currently visiting my friends C&R down in ooh-aaar-Devon en-route to a couple of interviews in the Big Smoke. But Devon isn't en-route to London from Dublin, you all exclaim in angry letters to the Times. Well I may have taken the slightly more scenic route, and, at the risk of sounding like a valley-girl - Oh. My. God. Devon is fabulous, villages plucked straight out of The Shire (apologies to the 2 people in the world who haven't seen Lord Of the Rings), pubs serving cider with bits of twig floating in it and people stopping you in the middle of the street to ask who you are...okay, that didn't happen to me but I gather it does.

And has it inspired me to write (re-write?) chapter after chapter of The Tome? Lets just say some forward-progress has been made and leave it at that, shall we? Basically, I'm going through the structure and writing a synopsis of each chapter in as few words as possible. This is facilitating the simplifing and streamlining of the story so I don't get bogged down in over-telling when I get down to writing the actual chapters.

This probably sounds like I'm taking procrastination to a whole new level by doing anything to avoid actually writing the book. Let me assure you, for the purpose of my own sanity and the ultimate quality of the writing, it is soooo necessary.

And on that note...back to looking at the lambs gamboling in the shire.

Slap on the wrist for Paul...

Well I did deserve it, in fairness.

I started the re-write of Burning Matches last week and, in my usual over-criticism of myself, I pretty much rewrote the entire first chapter....from scratch.

Bold, Paul, bold!

As was pointed out to me at my writers' meeting on Thursday, the chapter was perfectly good as it was (the ever-honest M even thought it was better) before I tore it apart and rebuilt it, and the only required improvements were those suggested by my two learned readers last year. This, in fact applies to the book in general, so you will be delighted to know that I've given myself a good talking to over the weekend (while I was a few hundred miles away from the ms) and I am, as from today, adopting a much more sensible and realistic approach to the rewrite project.

Step one, put the kettle on.

The rewrite starts in earnest...again.

This time I mean it. No, really.

Well I do have certain incentive now that Literary-Agent-Extraordinaire has agreed to read the book. I told her it would be done in six weeks - that seems aaaaages away but experience tells me that will fly by (especially as two of those weeks I'll be holidaying in France...what better place to write than on a sun-kissed patio in the south of France?).

Right, enough writing about writing, it's time to get writing.

God's representative on earth.

Well that's how Claudia Carroll refers to her and, shur, who am I to argue.

I am, of course, referring to the Literary-Agent-Extraordinaire, who I was fortunate to meet the other night at the launch-party of Claudia's new book 'Personally, I Blame My Fairy Godmother' (yes, shameless plug there Claudia, payment for making the aforementioned introduction).
I'm delighted to report that said agent has offered to read 'Burning Matches' when it's finished.
Right so, no more procrastination, and all other projects on hold (sorry Thomas...and Claire...and Ann-Marie), time to get this book done-and-dusted once and for all.