Thursday 9 October 2008

It's been an enjoyable day


at the keyboard, working on my second western novel. I enjoy the editing after the breakneck pace of writing the first draft and although I've had to pull a lot of reference works from my shelves to get certain facts right, I find this part of the process that much easier than the initial draft. I am often delighted at a turn of phrase or a well structured sentence, an expertly built paragraph when I read over the draft. Mind you, the flip side is that I more often find clumsily put together sections and sometimes have to delete whole pages, even an entire chapter as was the case with my first novel.

I hope to submit the work to my publisher by the start of November so I've still got plenty of work ahead of me. As well as that I'm hoping to get an interview with Ray of The Broken Trails Blog about his own excellent westerns novels. So Ray if you're reading this the questions we spoke about will be with you shortly. At the moment I'm having to deal with a tribe made up of several thousand indians and an English gambler and gun-slinger who won't do what the plot demands and seems to have his own idea for the rest of the novel. And that's not to mention the pompous army captain, the ornery Lisa Gables and the man called Arkansas Smith.

8 comments:

Chris said...

You should be proud of the name Arkansas Smith. Well done.

If you need a good "bad guy" name, you can use one I came up with: Joshua Retch.

Chris said...

Oh, the mp3s of "The Bogeyman" didn't work because my ISP won't let me send files that big!

Still have the Police Squad thing on the backburner, though. I'll get it to you sometime.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

Yeah look forward to Police Squad - I've got the DVD too so I'll work it into a double review.

Ray said...

Sounds like you're on a roll.
I have to admit that I like it when my characters wander off with ideas of their own - concentrates the attention.
With a bit of luck you'll have two books out next year.

David Cranmer said...

What are some good e-zines or print detective/western mags in the UK that take submissions that we may not be familliar with in the States?

Charles Gramlich said...

Congrats on your progress. It's a great feeling when you're rolling.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

RE dAVID - I'm not sure there are any UK magazines that publish westerns. In fact, I'm not 100% sure, but I think Hale/Black Horse are the only UK company that accepts westerns.

Ray said...

Sadly, Gary, newsagents shelves are bereft of any kind of short story magazines and seems to have been that way for some years.

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