Author: Richard Holliday

My name's Richard, and I write stuff! I also run richardholliday.co.uk, who woulda thunk... anyway, I hope you enjoy my stuff and feel free to leave feedback! :-)

Editing The Thaw – Second Draft Success!

~ Richard Holliday ~ Leave a comment

A while back I discussed where I was at with the editing process with my post-apocalyptic novel The Thaw. Basically, just starting off on the wonderful journey! During that time, I happened to take a meandering, very-much-procrastinating wander onto my Twitter. I found this:

Well, I’m delighted to be able to say that, two years after I started writing the book at all (and about a year after finishing that), I now have a fully line-edited second draft in my possession! I even managed to print it out and it looks mightily impressive!

IMG_0249
A very proud author with his printed second draft in sunny Kingston-upon-Thames! 😎

Safe to say, I am thrilled and proud of myself for making it this far.  The Thaw is easily the longest single work I’ve written and I’m more proud of myself for being disciplined and making it through the edit. It’s been a tough process – it took about two months, with around 70 hours work, to get from cover to cover.

That’s longer than I’d anticipated but, in a way, unsurprising given how rough and heat-of-the-moment the initial draft was. What I’ve learned through this process is a lot – I’m certainly able to handle a work of this length, and more importantly, I’ve learned some important lessons about self-editing and how a novel evolves as a piece through successive drafts. With The Thaw I already feel the work is a lot stronger, a lot clearer and a lot more engaging than it was in its initial form.

20180706_140550186_iOS

Ultimately, thinking back, I’m extremely proud of the core idea and story at the heart of my book, and I do genuinely think it’s something I’m going to pursue publication of. It’s a good story – yes, not perfect, but making measurable steps toward – and I think it’d fit right in the marketplace.

Now, while it’s easy to bask in my own self-adulation (and the heartfelt congratulations of friends and colleagues, all of whom have helped me massively) at completing this substantive edit… it’s not the final stage. So what do I plan to do now?

  • Take some time away from the new draft. One of the key lessons I learned (and ignored in a way) from On Writing is to let a draft breathe after completion. As a writer, having that objective distance from your work, so it’s not so fresh in your mind to cloud your creative vision, is paramount I’ve found. It helps ease the inevitable self-doubt that will creep in. The Thaw, even in its roughest form, is a good book. In its new form, it’ll be a better book. But it’ll still take effort to make it a great book.

    “With six weeks’ worth of recuperation time, you’ll also be able to see any glaring holes in the plot or character development. And listen–if you spot a few of these big holes, you are forbidden to feel depressed about them or to beat up on yourself. Screw-ups happen to the best of us.”

  • Read it as a reader, than as a writer. I need to let the new draft, when the time comes, soak back in. For the first draft I did partially read over it but I found note-taking at the same time as that initial readthrough was erroneous. So when I re-read the book toward the end of July I will give it a reader’s pass before reading it again and asking myself questions how to improve it.
  • Enlist beta-readers. I’ve approached a few trusted writer friends to read the new draft and I’m designing a feedback questionnaire. I realise the book is a lot for people to mark-up inline comments on, especially to those with day jobs and family lives. But it’s important to me to get help and guidance, to help spot errors I wouldn’t on my own.

    “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it.”

  • Explore professional editorial advice. My friend Gary Thomas has been working on his autobiography for a while. He brought to my attention an organisation called The Literary Consultancy who offer manuscript evaluation and other editorial services. I’m going to get in contact with them once a third draft is complete in August about what services they’d suggest for The Thaw – as I previously stated, I feel it’s worthy of publication and deserves the critical eye of a professional editor. Yes, it’ll be expensive but money well spent in my opinion!

As a learning process, though… there’s been some invaluable and harsh lessons I’ve learned in retrospect. Yes, I am a little regretful that The Thaw has taken so long, but I hope it’s worth it. My confidence as an author – a proper one at that! – just, at this stage, feels so very buoyed and I am excited to get started on the next phase of getting this book in front of people who could make some exciting decisions!

Plus, relief – I can breathe and relax. Enjoy video games and books (hobbies which have suffered as I’ve edited; time management skills there but I’ll go into that later).

Overall though I can’t really express how proud I am of myself for making it this far with The Thaw and I hope to be able to share some more of it soon! If you have any advice, comments or things you think I should know as I enter the next phase of this project then please feel free to send them my way.

Advertisements

Book Review: Dark Matter

~ Richard Holliday ~ Leave a comment

Dark_MatterDark Matter was one of those books I saw trending on Goodreads that piqued my interest… not for any specific reason but I just liked the sound of it. I finally saw it in Waterstones recently and took the plunge.

I’m glad I did – Dark Matter hooked me from the first chapter! The scenes of normalcy it built up – Jason Dessen, a physics lecturer, popping out for an errand, leaving his perfect, happy family, only for this normalcy to be breathlessly subverted as he is abducted on the way home. It hooked me quickly, wanting to know quite what happened leading up to this moment – what made Jason Dessen special – and how the narrative goes from there. It’s an intoxicating, intriguing opening that really hooks you in; certainly did for me!

I can’t say I wasn’t a little concerned with the science-fiction aspects. Dark Matter is billed a “mindbending” and deals with the theory of multiple universes coexisting with our own. I was a little sceptical – this concept can be quite high and dry indeed. I was worried as I advanced through the book as to whether this science-fiction aspect would not hit the mark with me and leave the plot out in the cold.

Fortunately, this was not the case. The multiverse theory is dealt with quite deftly I thought – Jason’s abductor is revealed to be Jason from another universe where life turned out very differently. This Jason – Jason2 – is the inventor of a strange box that allows him to travel with ease between the multiverses.

This development later on in the book explains some of the mystery surrounding the first third of the book and it sets up some satisfying twists. Crucially, Dark Matter doesn’t hammer home the multiverse theory at its root too hard; it’s easy to wrap oneself up in the theory. I’ve recently been reading the Long Earth series by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett; those books deal with a similar idea to Dark Matter but I found that as the “space” in which the story can take place – multiple worlds, or multiple “instances” of Earth – increases, the narrative pacing just dilutes out to fill that space. It collapses like a souffle.

Thankfully, this fate does not befall Dark Matter. Instead the scientific principle at the root of the story doesn’t weigh it down – the story provides a great, and thankfully finite, context with which to explain a complicated theory. That’s what, I feel, Dark Matter did so right – it focussed on the characters it proposes for a thrilling mystery. It also explores the multiverse theory, the idea that “things are the same but a little bit different” through the lens of massive macro changes to the world as a result but it better focusses through Jason’s micro perspective – his wife and son.

Now I can’t really comment on the accuracy (or lack of) in how Dark Matter portrays the multiverse theory; it’s a bit beyond me. However, the projection of the theory that Dark Matter presents fits the story nicely and doesn’t overpower the narrative. It fits the mood and the tone of the story. Dark Matter has the breathless, pacey feel of a movie (an adaptation of the novel is planned)… I’d rate it highly along Lee Child’s work, with a twist of Michael Crichton and Andy Weir. It’s just the sort of book I like to read!

All of this is wrapped up in crisp, tight prose that was a joy to read – it definitely propelled me through the story and made Dark Matter a brisk, enjoyable read! The strong characterisation throughout, and toward the end as the mystery unravels, was aided by the strong writing. The complex theory behind the narrative was kept in check where it could’ve easily tied itself in knots.

Overall I can say with confidence that Dark Matter proved a thrilling, engaging and absolutely enjoyable read, and definitely only the first of Blake Crouch’s work I’ll be sampling on the strength of the effort!

Book Review: The Girl on the Train

~ Richard Holliday ~ Leave a comment

The_Girl_On_The_TrainI recently read this after getting a little bogged down with a more clunky read I do hope to finish but needed a breezy thrill to grease the cogs. I picked up The Girl on the Train recently; I’d seen it a lot out and about and I almost wondered in the back of my mind if it was too commercial a thriller to enjoy. But I let my preconceptions slide and bought the book.

The Girl on the Train, while not the perfect thriller, certainly held my attention enough for it to be enjoyed like a thriller. I credit this to several aspects: crisp prose with a strong storytelling style and at the root of it an engaging plot thread.

The prose, as I said, is crisp and well-constructed. The chapters shift point-of-view from one of the three women protagonists around whom the story is hung. It reads a lot like diary entries; each chapter interspersed with either morning or evening sections. As a storytelling mechanic this was different enough and a novel enough approach to propel me through

This I felt complimented the story; normal prose detailing the domestic minutiae of the protagonists day-to-day would’ve been unengaging; instead the prose was filleted right down to what mattered to the story. That’s not to say the prose was unengaging; it was, but neither was it meandering. It’s definitely the style of writing I appreciate more, and it’s a trait in thriller writing I expressly appreciate too; less so the purple, overwritten prose so emblematic to other genres.

The plot behind The Girl on the Train dug its claws in – I wanted to see the mystery solved, and it did, as thrillers do, neatly wrap itself up in threads in the first two thirds of the book for these threads to unwind in the final third. I was gripped and immersed enough to want to know what was happening. The payoff at the end, with the final confrontation, was satisfying and smacked me right in the face a little – an of course! moment neatly subverted until the climax.

But what struck me as a criticism of the book was the characters – three women, Rachel, Anna and Megan – that it revolves around are steeped in suburban melodrama. Rachel, the primary protagonist, is an unreliable narrator in the sense that she’s always drunk but that’s only a surface illusion. The book plays on the reader’s expectations about a narrator who is quickly characterised as an alcoholic and twists it around. That distrust of Rachel as an unreliable narrator (which becomes a key point in the climax) is another reason to stick at it; the story may seem mundane, but an undertone of suspicion and not-quite-right-ness kept up the intrigue. It helps because the crisp prose and initially-melodramatic characters, who can come across as pastiches of suburban living could so easily grate the book to a halt.

It is this suburban melodrama that ultimately drives the story to its ugly twist. The characters, all bored and depressed wives at their core, were melodramatic and the source of their squabble was succinctly suburban. These characters ultimately are all defined by their husbands or their children. I do feel we could’ve seen more into the characters beside those attributes, to get a deeper understanding of them as I feel the characters had so much more to give beside the narrow viewpoint of their husbands (and feeling towards) and children but alas that was what the plot demanded we focus on. These characters are petty, petulant and, strangely enough, that seems not all-to-farfetched in the nebulous world of boring suburbia.

This seemed two-dimensional but on reflection this two-dimensionality fitted the remit of the book. The Girl on the Train tells the story of what happens behind closed doors in sleepy suburbia. Ultimately the image of suburbia is cast aside and the unsettling truth behind it is revealed. Ultimately though suburbia is not a subject area I am particularly interested in exploring but the book held my interest to the very end.

I wavered a little on the rating but ultimately had to settle down to a 3. It’s not a bad book at all things considered and I quite liked it for what it was! There’s enough here to hold my interest and keep me intrigued through a journey through the underbelly of “perfect” suburbia.

Weight Loss Journey: The Sixteen Week Hitch

~ Richard Holliday ~ Leave a comment

356055

I last wrote about my weight loss journey back in late February. I’m very pleased to report that I’ve made some great progress: from 117Kg in early February I’m now down to around 105Kg which is a real achievement to me!

The whole process of Weight Watchers has now fully ingrained into my psyche in a positive way – my whole perception of food as a whole has really shifted. I’m now a lot more conscious of what I’m eating; before I was less so, and even when I attempted a simple calorie count, that’s not the big picture at all!

20180405_183416474_iOS

I’m a convert to the Weight Watchers SmartPoints system – it’s a scientific approach to consolidating a lot of confusing and complicated nutritional stats into a system that can be understood a lot more at-a-glance! I’ve noticed it’s not foolproof (more on that later) but the results can be surprising and I’m finding it motivating.

I’ve noticed a lot of my go-to foods that seemed insignificant, like a McDonalds milkshake, or even a simple supermarket sandwich, are packed full of unnecessary, empty points and this is definitely an area I feel I was letting myself down with before. Less so now!

Overall though I’m feeling fantastic – others have noticed an appreciable difference in my physical appearance which is endearing and motivating, especially as I have no self-esteem when it comes to my appearance generally, so noticing I’m able to fit into older clothes again, and my current clothes are feeling and looking baggier is a happy result of my effort so far. One of the things I’m really having mixed feelings about, and have for a long time, is how to receive and handle praise but I’m doing my best to channel it into positive energy and it’s driving me forward!

However, it’s not been plain sailing. I’ve recently had a bit of a bump or plateau where I’ve not been losing (much) weight; indeed, I’ve actually put on a pound or two! This has been more a disappointment than anything.

Weight_chart

The important lesson I’ve learned from this recent wobble is firstly: not to panic. Some weeks are good, some are bad. That’s normal, that’s life. I’ve taken a few days to mull over my progress so far, which overall has still been encouraging. Firstly, what are the circumstances around my recent wobble? Easy:

  • Complacency: It’s so easy, even when strenuously trying to avoid it, to fall into the “I’ve lost so I can…” mindset. I’m certain in the last few weeks I have done this to a minor point, saying “my weekly points [intended as a buffer zone] can take it”. I need to be a lot more disciplined.
  • Lack of focus: The last few weeks I’ve both had to content with the mental struggles of my final year university deadlines and some time off work afterward. I hold my hands up to being less than completely focussed during that time on my weight loss goals and more on my immediate challenges and goals.
  • Time away: I also had a week off after my final deadlines which culminated in a pleasant, if not a bit undisciplined weekend away to see a friend. Honestly, that week I simply took my hands off the wheel.
  • Restrictive SmartPoints budget: This is an emergent challenge – as my weight decreases the suggested SmartPoints I should look to consume has shrunk also. This has been a challenge recently as my new target, 30, is remarkably easy to “blow” with an unwise, impulse-led food choice.

However I’ve taken this into account and I’ve given myself time to mull over where I’m potentially going wrong and, more positively, steps to take to rebuild my momentum:

  • 20180520_224022617_iOS
    View from a sunny walk in Sutton

    Getting active: This is a step that I initially tried last summer; now the long winter has ended and there’s some glorious weather I can finally get out for fitness walks. I do feel I do better to do multiple short-ish walks throughout the week – aiming for at least three 1.5 mile walks a week – than a few long ones for motivational reasons. They’re also great for starting the day and helping with my mental health!

  • Cutting out problem foods: I’ve decided that a go-to snack for me – pitta bread with houmous – has to go as I’m eating it to excess which negates the health and weight loss benefit. Because I know myself, it’s not enough to just say “no” internally; I’m just not having it in the house for a while.
  • Focusing my attitude: Ultimately I need to take this seriously again to get down to my personal goal weight of 95Kg; I’ve made good progress and I need to just carry on that momentum. Part of this was thinking I’d plateau’d but I don’t genuinely think this is the case and my mental focus just needs to be sharpened to the weaknesses I’ve identified.

So that’s my plan for the summer! I hope to be able to report more encouraging news next time!