I’m so sorry for being a bit quiet, but I’m writing like crazy at the moment. I completely love this story, and I think I’ve written about 14,000 words in the last 2 days! It’s so exciting bringing it altogether, and I’m having such fun with it. I’ve also had a lot of distractions – more mice (agh!) entailing a visit from the exterminator; some ill health – I might have a femoral hernia, a scan at the end of July will tell; and the sad death of an old business friend in a tragic accident.
So, that’s all kept me a little preoccupied, but I did want to do an update because Mcsheplet girl recently asked:
Come on Xanthe! Where is the next update? You are going to finish this novel and blow 50 Shades out of the water! We want a well-written story….humour, romance and a fair smattering of smut….We want a novel that does not see BDSM as aberrant….We do NOT want the resolution of someone being ‘saved’ from this lifestyle…We want submissive characters who are strong within themselves, who can hold down jobs, and live a succesful life….We want a strong plot, well-written which just happens to be filthy!..
And I can heartily promise ALL of those in my OC novel. You know I’d never sell out BDSM by writing it as something to be cured of. My submissive character is feisty, with quite a temper, and he’s brave and passionate too, if a little bit obsessed with trying to get everything right and be perfect. And my dom isn’t one of those know-it-all doms with money and power who stalks and bullies his chosen submissive into an unequal relationship. They’re just two people fumbling their way towards an understanding of themselves and each other, and they each have to go on a massive journey during the course of the novel.
So, the novel is now around 120,000 words long…and the home straight is in sight.
Which leads me onto…long stories. I know it’s turned into a bit of a joke, me always starting out thinking it’ll be short and it turning out long, but is it a flaw in my writing? I always just start out wanting to tell the story, and I go where the story takes me and let it be as long as it wants to be to tell it properly. But could they be shorter? How do you guys feel about me writing these epics? Does your attention flag? Do you think – ‘yeah, it’s nice and all, but we wish she’d stick to stories under 100,000 words’?
Maybe the writing could be tighter. I know I edit very well these days, so this one might go down in word count but not enough to be hugely significant in the overall scheme of things, I think. I put every scene in there because there’s a point to it, and I always tell it how it appears in my own head. I try and iron out all the clunkiness that exists in the first draft – the version I eventually post is always about the 8th draft frankly because I polish a lot. However, maybe my stories are too wordy? I don’t know.
What I love about writing this particular story is how much fun it is. There is a rich seam of angst to be mined, obviously, but because it’s set on a TV show, I am able to do some lighter stuff too, including quite a bit of meta that I know you guys will enjoy – and there are a few in-jokes just for us in there too. Those who’ve been following me for awhile, and read most of my stories, will get a kick out of them I think ;-).
Before I go, here’s a tiny morsel about the story itself: the main characters are called Rick and Matt. That’s it! LOL! They are so wonderfully flawed and so perfectly perfect for each other and yet so completely unable to see that. I’m having a blast playing with them, and I also just created a rather nasty bad guy for everyone to hate. I know the title of the novel, and will be announcing that soon. I just want to finish the actual writing and then I’ll do a teaser post, with some extracts.
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