I was intending to put me book down for a couple of weeks, step back from it, take a break, before I started the edit. But yesterday I just... I just felt like doing it. I'm learning to actually listen to myself when I feel like doing something, so I picked up a pencil and started to read my own words. My gods does it need work. The prose is quite. . .to be polite to myself, quite clunky. It's the sort of book I'd discard as aeroplane reading- good enough to read in transit, but if you leave it in the seat pocket in front of you that's no great loss. This is going to take more than one edit. one thing I do seem to be getting the hang of, though, is cutting parts. I've always been told that as a writer you can get enamoured of sentences, dialogue, etc., and not want to cut them. I haven't found that to be the case yet. Two chapters in, and I'm doing battlefield surgery with my pencil.

Now, in m defense, and because I have to say something to convince myself it's not all bad, I think my writing progressed as I wrote. The first couple of chapters I was feeling my way, but it seemed to come much easier the further I got into the story. I haven't read the whole thing yet, so maybe I should read it all first and then make the changes, but the ending is so fresh (most of it was done last week, altho the last chapter was done in September) I don't feel like I need to read it just yet.

Either way, I suppose it's a good way to start the New Year. I was certainly happy, and I don't think I'm alone in this, to see the end of last year. 2009 was a. . .bizarre. . .year. So many ups and downs, most real but some perceived. I got a promotion without a raise, reached 5 years with Cirque/MGM, met some of the kids of my Salzburg group, ran up my credit card, went to a friend's wedding I never thought would get married, bought a new suit, had the worst hangover I've had in years- with my father-, went diving with sharks, wrote the first draft of a novel, churned out a couple of short stories, two short screenplays, started on two full-length screenplays, broke 100,000 miles with my car, fell in smitten, fell in smitten again (okay, so that was more or les a monthly occurrence), argued about politics and religion, argued about politics and religion again(okay, so that was more or less a daily occurrence), started to twitter, re-started to blog (and one day I might just transfer all the old ones over here. I feel dirty with them on MySpace). I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but I leave it to you to work out which were the ups, which were the downs, and which were perceived to be either by me.

As to this year? I feel good about it. Despite not being able to stick to one of my resolutions for more than six minutes, and breaking a couple more a few hours later, it's going to be a good one. I've got to finish book one completely, I want to finish the first draft of book two, and the screenpl. . .you know what? This year is about finishing. I've always been good at starting things, so I'm going to work on seeing them through this year. Which is why I'm going to get up now, fix myself something to eat, and then sit down with my draft and keep slicing away at it.

Maybe this year I should work on editing my blogs before I post them too? Or at least re-reading them to see if I've made more of an arse out of myself as usual. . .