{"id":3497,"date":"2013-06-16T07:53:13","date_gmt":"2013-06-16T06:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=3497"},"modified":"2013-06-16T07:53:13","modified_gmt":"2013-06-16T06:53:13","slug":"starting-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=3497","title":{"rendered":"Starting Over\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Looking back through my research<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, I lost a book.<\/p>\n

Not an actual physical book \u2013 I take very good care of those \u2013 but rather, I lost a book I was writing.<\/p>\n

I’d written about 30,000 words\u00a0 (31,486 to be exact) and I stopped writing it.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t the book’s fault \u2013 life just got in the way and for a year or more I didn’t write anything.<\/p>\n

When I came back to my writing desk, I started something new\u2026<\/p>\n

That ‘something new’ blossomed into a really exciting book (Flight to Coorah Creek) – which I hope you will enjoy when it’s published next year.<\/p>\n

Then I sat down to ask the question \u2013 what will I write next. I have a couple of ideas bubbling away\u2026\u00a0 but then the unfinished book came up in conversation. I decided to take another look at it.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, I was back in that story again. It’s a good story. Bits of it made me laugh. Bits of it threatened to bring a tear to my eye. And now I am writing it again, because I want to finish telling that story.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t an easy decision to do make. There are a few bad personal memories associated with this book. But having decided to do it… here’s how I went about it.<\/p>\n

First \u2013 I read the manuscript \u2013 right from page one to the rather abrupt halt in the middle of chapter 13. I read it as a reader \u2013 not as a writer.\u00a0 I wanted to see if there really was a good book in there\u2026 and the answer was a resounding yes!<\/p>\n

So \u2013 I read it again \u2013 this time armed with a red pencil and some coloured post-it notes (coloured stationary is important to my writing). With these I started editing it. I’ve written another book since I last touched this, which means I have learned just a little bit more about being a good writer. I had improvements to make.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
No spoilers - but here's just a hint about the book<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then \u2013 I looked at my notes and my research to remind myself of the time and place where the book is set.<\/p>\n

Then I re-read my character sketches.<\/p>\n

When I am writing a book, I always make notes about each character. The amount detail in those notes depends on how important the character is. For my hero and heroine \u2013 reading those notes was like getting back together with an old friend after a long absence.<\/p>\n

Then \u2013 I started writing. The words are flowing pretty well, which is a good sign.<\/p>\n

And this time I’m not going to stop until the story is told.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A couple of years ago, I lost a book. Not an actual physical book \u2013 I take very good care of those \u2013 but rather, I lost a book I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7g6jm-Up","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}