Well the New Year isn't far away and I suppose it's time I started thinking up New Year resolutions. In past years I've made lists of things I want to do rather than things I want to give up - to be honest I don't have too many bad habits apart from being very untidy!
One year my list included silly things like build a sandcastle, eat candy floss, fly a kite and see a real hippopotamus. This year my list will include redraft Dr Midas and the Pirates, write more short stories and hopefully go to Madagascar (I've saved up but it all depends on my job situation!) I also want to visit more zoos for research and you can't beat a hot chocolate in the cafes while you're writing. Finally I'm going to try and attend more writing events, especially SCBWI critique groups.
I'm still spending lots of thinking time going over the points made in my Cornerstones report, one of the things the reader was unsure about was one of my main characters, Sniffer the robodog.
She felt he doesn't have enough personality (something I must have been subconsciously aware of because in the second book I made him able to talk.) If I'm honest he doesn't have a big role to play in the adventure and at one point I had to wtite a whole new sequence as he'd practically disappeared from the plot. The problem is I love him! Now as the reader rightly pointed out you have to 'kill your darlings' sometimes. So now I'm trying to decide if I can improve him, I could make him talk from the start but the problem is I already have two chatty Vasa parrots (soon to become one, Esther's name will live on as I'm giving in to the monikerless fossa.)
So I'm now thinking the unthinkable - replace him with a giant malagasy jumping rat! ( I'm still spending lots of thinking time going over the points made in my Cornerstones report, one of the things the reader was unsure about was one of my main characters, Sniffer the robodog.
She felt he doesn't have enough personality (something I must have been subconsciously aware of because in the second book I made him able to talk.) If I'm honest he doesn't have a big role to play in the adventure and at one point I had to wtite a whole new sequence as he'd practically disappeared from the plot. The problem is I love him! Now as the reader rightly pointed out you have to 'kill your darlings' sometimes. So now I'm trying to decide if I can improve him, perhaps by making him talk but the problem is I already have two chatty Vasa parrots (soon to become one) so I'm now thinking the unthinkable - replace him with a giant malagasy jumping rat! (I still hope to have Sniffer in the sequel though.)
I think I'll have to make a trip to Leeds to study the rats there, at least Tropical World is indoors. Other animals that need bigger parts to play are the fossa and the giant tortoise - I'm going to have fun thinking up ideas, and I want to include an aye-aye cameo.
Quite a few characters are getting culled or amalgamated in the redraft - I think it will be goodbye to Pots (I'm giving his background to Israel Hands who could do with being more rounded and farewell to Lucky the evil pirate (I'm probably going to give him role in the plot to Captain Tortuga who can more than handle it!)
I'm quite comfortable with all this and in fact one of the major things I changed with my Inca book was changing three bad conquistadors into two - as even I was getting confused by who was who.
What are your New Year resolutions? I'd love to know - why not leave a comment.
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