If I'm remembering everything correctly, I'm on my third attempt at a second draft of When We Were the Kids. How is that possible? I think it's when tinkering leads to more tinkering at a later date.
I'm happy there have been no overhauls where entire plotlines and characters get zapped. Chapters that were lean now have more meat in them. There are still many, many speaking parts and I don't plan to change this. If you read a quote from someone that either sounds like someone you knew in high school (or was you), then I've made a connection.
Spending a few days in the suburb this is kind-of based on was great. Things came into my head driving around looking at Christmas lights and businesses that are still there. I aim not to mock the suburbs; I'd rather look at the good and the bad.
What also helped was playing guitar through my new amp. Since all of these bands in the book are fictional, I've often wondered what their sound might be like. Reminded of a scene in Hype! where Leighton Beezer dissects the difference between punk riffs and grunge riffs, I came up with a few ideas. One band sounds like this while the other, using the same chords, sounds like something else.
Not to lie in bed with pessimism, but things are looking more and more like this will be another self-publishing affair. I don't mind, but there are pluses and negatives to self-publishing. This will be a harder sell than POST mainly because it's fiction. Yet this is what I've wanted to do, odds be damned.
Still no timetable as to when this puppy will be ready to unleash. I'll update this here blog once it is.
I'm happy there have been no overhauls where entire plotlines and characters get zapped. Chapters that were lean now have more meat in them. There are still many, many speaking parts and I don't plan to change this. If you read a quote from someone that either sounds like someone you knew in high school (or was you), then I've made a connection.
Spending a few days in the suburb this is kind-of based on was great. Things came into my head driving around looking at Christmas lights and businesses that are still there. I aim not to mock the suburbs; I'd rather look at the good and the bad.
What also helped was playing guitar through my new amp. Since all of these bands in the book are fictional, I've often wondered what their sound might be like. Reminded of a scene in Hype! where Leighton Beezer dissects the difference between punk riffs and grunge riffs, I came up with a few ideas. One band sounds like this while the other, using the same chords, sounds like something else.
Not to lie in bed with pessimism, but things are looking more and more like this will be another self-publishing affair. I don't mind, but there are pluses and negatives to self-publishing. This will be a harder sell than POST mainly because it's fiction. Yet this is what I've wanted to do, odds be damned.
Still no timetable as to when this puppy will be ready to unleash. I'll update this here blog once it is.
Comments