I’ve just finished the first draft of The Loving Kind – so I’m taking a day off! Yeah.

It was a lovely book to write once I got into it – which took a little while – playing around with ideas in my head, jotting things down in a notebook and finally putting those ideas down on paper. It started off in the 3rd person, then moved to the 1st and after that was much easier to write. 1st person just seemed right – it’s now mainly Libby’s story – my main character. But one of the characters, Lulabelle (ex-Miss Ireland and reality show darling)  still has her own 3rd person bits too – it worked best this way. And it meant I could tell Lulabelle’s  story from a closer viewpoint.

I know it needs a good few tweaks – I’ve printed the whole manuscript out and when I’m back from my holidays I’ll take a red pen and an A4 notebook and delete bits, add bits and change bits. I like to do this on paper first – and then I input all the changes into my laptop. I concentrate on the plot and the dailogue, leaving further refined tweaks to the writing until later. I also delete anything that isn’t strictly necessary - until there’s not a word in it I don’t need to tell the story.

Then I print it all out again and repeat the above. And keep repeating until I am happy with it. It usually takes 3 to 4 goes – sometimes more, depending on the book.

This time I think 3 should do it as I’m confident that the characters and the plot are almost there.

Re-writing is a vital part of the writing process. I always think it should be taught in school, along with creative writing. Creative re-writing is just as important!

Happy re-writing.

And have a happy and peaceful Easter break.

Sarah X