This is my first good news post for the year.

Remember how, at the very start of the year, I stated that I wasn’t going to set myself any writing goals for the year. Well, I’m proud to announce that I have officially achieved one of those non-existent goals.

Here we go. He’s spouting random nonsense, again. No, I insist, it all makes perfect sense. Let me try and explain.

When I didn’t set any goals, it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do anything. On the contrary, I was hoping this would give me more freedom to choose the best way to allocate my (painfully small) writing time. And I reckon it’s already bearing fruit.

One of the projects I always knew I wanted to get back to was my novel (the fantasy/adventure/comedy/romance/satire) which has been lying, inactive, for well over 18 months now. Trouble was, figuring out how to make a start on that. The story is much more complex than anything else I’ve ever attempted, not just because of the mixture of genres, but also as I’m trying to combine interweaving narratives.

Achieving a first draft felt great, but I always knew this first attempt fell a long way short. Besides the regular failings of a first draft, I knew I hadn’t nailed the two narratives. The pacing wasn’t right and they just didn’t bounce off each other the way they needed to. Certainly not something I could fix by just jumping into a second draft. I needed to spend some time plotting and planning.

So that’s what I’ve been doing.

It hasn’t been easy – a bit like trying to weave two cords together, when they’re just not the right length or shape, and every time you get one bit together, a bunch of other bits fall apart. At times it felt like the two hemispheres of my brain were bashing together.

But you know what? After several attempts over several days, I got it. I’ve managed to remap the story in a way that makes much better sense. I’ve put the little pieces together so they fit quite nicely. The strands are now well aligned, effectively driving each other along.

The work probably isn’t complete. I suspect as I continue with the story, I’ll find a few bits still don’t quite fit and some further remapping will be required. But it feels like a big step.

Now on with the rewriting. I’ve got more non-goals to achieve.