Don't Mention the E-Word: Enormous, de-Energising Edits.

Or: Revisions are hard, I offer up art to the writing gods instead.

Re-writes? I hardly knew her.

I’m sure that most of you have been forced to drag your way through revisions. This is my first time finishing a draft, so, subsequently, this is my first time doing big edits. No one told me how utterly soul destroying they can be.

Now, I’ll say that I know I’m making my writing better; if not only because I’m re-writing most of the nitty gritty lines of Daughters of Boudicca, realising that what I’d originally put down can be improved upon. Big tick, gold star, A+ for having become a better writer since November of last year. However, I’m in that weird middle space where I’m unsure if what I’m doing is better than what I had before, and I also know that it’s not as good as it could be. Cue anxiety.

For anyone that had the misfortune of beta reading my first draft, you’ll know that Senna, one of my POVs, is a bit of a mess. She feels as if she has no control in life, stemming from her puppet-and-master-like relationship with her godly father and her sister ending up embroiled in the very quest she’s been given; she lives beneath the shadow of her mother, Boudicca’s, triumph and death, while feeling as if she’s not living up to her legacy and her father’s expectations. In draft two, I wanted to expand that by making Senna genuinely a little unlikeable; she’s an adult trapped in the body of a teenager, though she has no “adult” emotional growth. She’s childish, impatient, stabby, angry and kind of a bitch. She pushes away her only friend, and the two people there to try and help her find her sister, for a multitude of reasons. Mostly, because she’s terrified of them both seeing the monster she believes herself to be, and because she can’t lose anyone she cares about again.

Betas, on the whole, really liked Senna. She’s a major part of the story and she’s somewhat of a “typical” snarky, sassy, stabby YA protagonist. Except, I don’t want her to be. She fucks up, she fails, she wants to be soft, and gentle, and kind, but she can’t. Because, she’s too damn angry. Senna is an example of what happens if you let your anger control you.

So, I wanted to make her even worse in draft two. Remorseless, unkind, pushy, a murderer. She’s her sister’s foil, the cold, hard bitch to Lucile’s more open, strategising, thoughtful POV. It’s a hard task, and one I know I haven’t succeeded with yet. Needless to say, it’s been bugging me. I want the book to be where I know it can, but it’s stuck; the prose is okay? But, the story, the character arcs… they’re just not there.

I’m in a sticky situation where I’m desperate for the help of friends, but I feel like I’m bugging them all the time about this book. I know that’s mostly in my head, I’ve been informed by certain friends that they want to help; but that little imposter syndrome voice keeps telling me I’m asking for too much.

Instead, we commission…

As promised in my last newsletter, I’ll show off some art that I commissioned earlier in the year after finishing my first draft of Daughters of Boudicca. I never posted it on Twitter or Instagram and, honestly, I don’t know why. I kind of wanted to keep it in case I ever got an agent deal announcement in the future; plus I want to get a companion piece for Lucile and her POV, so I would’ve shown them together.

I currently have this art as my desktop wallpaper and sometimes I look at it to remind myself why I’m slogging through this second draft. I love these characters with my whole heart; I don’t think I’ve loved any characters as much as I do Senna, Ria, Caractacus, Lucile, Antonia and, I guess, Marcus too. I think they’re the best characters I’ve written and I can’t wait to keep telling their story, making them better, and introducing them to more people who will, hopefully, fall in love with them just as much as I have.

art by @iacediai on twitter; (from left to right) caractacus, senna, marcus and ria.

Here, the group stand in the Otherworld; Senna’s father’s domain. They spend a good portion of the start of the novel here and it was really fun to imagine this place having been corrupted as the gods began to disappear due to Roman influence in Britain.

Hopefully I can do them justice. I want to give them the story that they deserve; I guess I just have to work a bit harder to finish it.

DILF of the Month

With the announcement of the Stranger Things house for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, I had to include one of my favourite DILFs of all time (and the man that, I would argue, brought the dad bod back into the public consciousness), Jim Hopper.

hopper is the god of dilfs in the 2010s

This man walked so Joel from The Last of Us and Wolverine could run. He injected the “sad, grumpy dad adopts feral daughter” into our bloodstreams and we’ve not been able to crave anything else since. I will admit that I’m less of a fan of Hopper in season 4, but there’s a lot of things about season 4 I’m less of a fan of. While season 2 has its quirks, the burgeoning relationship between Hopper and Eleven throughout was a thing of beauty. I read countless hours of fanfic after I’d finished that season, begging for more; while what they gave us didn’t live up to the fabulous fictional worlds I’d digested, I’m fully on board with Hopper’s big, angry man phase in season 3.

How could I not including Hopper in my DILF of the month section at some point? The man exudes DILF; the real kind, not the Chris Evans or the Henry Cavills, the overly muscular, relatively young guys that are definitely not in the same category. Here, we’re only talking about the actual DILFs. The ones that’ll make you think twice about having kids, yourself.

And, Jim Hopper’s 100% out here succeeding with that.

Read Kamilah’s Book 😊

Rather than my recommendations for three different things I’ve consumed this month, I’m just going to shout out So Let Them Burn, the debut novel of my dear friend Kamilah Cole. While the book’s not actually going to be out for another six months, I’ve been graciously given an ARC and I am devouring it. Y’all aren’t ready for this story, it’s gonna knock your socks off, I swear.

‘let them bur’ by kamilah co

Not only is the cover absolutely gorgeous, but the words inside are pretty good, too. As I’m reading it while revising my own book, I’m realising that this is what I want my stories to be. Well-written characters, rich worldbuilding, deep dissections into issues that plague our world IRL, intrigue, mystery, diversity, queerness, dragons! It’s the full package. There are also real, published, cool authors shouting this book out, so if you don’t believe me, at least listen to them!

Closing Remarks

Hopefully you enjoyed me complaining about revisions this issue. I’d love to hear your thoughts about editing and how you contemplate the book you want to write vs. the thing that you’re currently editing. Do you get disheartened when your work isn’t where you want it to be, or are you excited to make it better? I really want to hear your advice, your thoughts and your complaints!

‘Til next time, don’t forget that I’m mostly on Instagram at the moment. I have Threads (@prosebforebros), but I’m not using it too much. And, alas, I’m back on Twitter a little, too.