Biog - progress report, November 2005

It is with some surprise that I see that it is more than a year since I last gave you a report on where I am with the third book. I suppose I had been waiting until I reached some substantial milestone - specifically the end of the first draft - but this business of waiting can become, as we all know, endless.....

Why is the book still not finished? I could talk about the fire, about difficulties with my family, but these things are part of life and it is my life that is the spring from which my work flows. Besides, the Stone Dance, and the third book in particular, were always going to take a long time to complete. It was my lack of understanding and, to some extent, denial of what I was attempting that led me to agree to unrealistic deadlines. It was not that I was misleading anyone, but that I was myself misled. The Stone Dance dances to a rhythm all of its own. Not understanding this I made promises that the books were not going to let me keep.

One of the (many) things that I have worried about over the years was that, because of the more than 10 years over which it was written, I would be unable to maintain a consistent style across the three books. Once, I even considered delaying the publication of the books until all three were finished... That was characteristic of the control freakery which the Stone Dance has helped and is helping me to escape from. It characterizes the first book, The Chosen, not only in the way that I worked - calculating the movement of shadows during a scene, for example - but also the content of the work... the restrictive life of a Master from which Carnelian attempts to escape with such terrible consequences. I have come to understand that the Stone Dance is a process that needs to continue growing, evolving - in story, technique - everything. To do otherwise is to submit to keeping it always a 'child', as the Wise do their homunculi.

The evolution in my technique goes hand in hand with my own as a human being. One aspect of this - a natural consequence of the time I have been at this - is that my ability to manage ever more demanding challenges has increased. Another is that I have gradually begun to trust my subconscious... without which it was always going to be difficult to finish the Stone Dance as it needs to be finished.

What this means is that the skills I had when I wrote the first book [B1] would not have been sufficient to allow me to write the second [B2]. Similarly, I have had to develop to be capable of writing the third book [B3]. Because my method has also been constantly evolving, it has always been difficult for me to look ahead: previous experience is not enough to judge future progress. This is a lesson I REALLY have to learn!

Enough waffle! Let's get down to the nitty-gritty. Where have I got to? First, B3 is going to be quite a bit longer than the previous two books. Those were approximately 200 000 words long whereas, at the moment, I believe B3 is going to be something like 260 000 words. Almost certainly, it is going to have 32 chapters like the others, but whereas they were, on average, 16 pages each, in B3 the average chapter is currently 19 pages long. Now, if you consider that, besides being quite a bit more complex and involved than the previous two books, it also contains what was originally going to have been the last third of B2, then perhaps you get some feeling as to why it has been necessary for my technique to improve.

The decision to terminate B2 two-thirds of the way in had partially to do with a desire to get B2 finished for a reasonable publication date. But perhaps more importantly, if I had not done this, B2 might well have ended up being 300 000 words long... which my publishers and perhaps you, would not have thanked me for. Critically, it also became apparent to me that this new place at which I intended to end B2 was in fact the best place, dramatically and artistically.

I have just completed Chapter 24. It took me 11 weeks of solid work. Until I hit this monster, I had been managing to write a chapter a month. Chapter 24 is bound to be the biggest in the whole of the Stone Dance and required not only a mass of research and design, but also much emotional turmoil. I am sure you will see why when you read it. I don't expect that subsequent chapters are going to be so hard to write... but who knows. It would be foolish of me not to expect more surprises.

So, not counting a chapter that I am confident is going to be necessarily very short, this leaves 7 to be written before I complete the first draft. After that I imagine that I will be doing at least 4 rewriting passes. These will become progressively faster: the last one taking perhaps 2 weeks. At that stage I will keep you in the loop more frequently as the pace picks up towards completion.

All this said, the 1st rewrite is likely to be a pretty major undertaking. At the moment, though the main threads are strong, many of the subsidiary ones are weak, patchy and fragmented. However, I am hoping not to be confronted with the shocking state of affairs I discovered on completion of the first draft of B2. Then, I found that some even of the major threads were merely a few stitches through the text: some characters disappearing from the story for chapters at a time. This required the rewriting of large sections of the text. In B3, the effort I put into the 'tapestry' will, I am confident, avoid that.

I will probably complete the 3rd and 4th rewrites while B3 is being edited by Transworld. Then, when it goes into production, I will implement my launch strategy. So as not to spoil the impact of B3, I have been holding back a deluge of material which I shall get ready for putting on the website. By the time of publication, I hope to have this site ready as a comprehensive companion to the completed Stone Dance. If I can clear it with my various publishers, I also intend to put up the 1st chapter of B3 online. It and the 1st chapter of B2 are the hinges that hold together the three panels of the Stone Dance triptych. I also hope to be able to provide you with detailed synopses of B1 and B2 so that you will not be forced to reread B1 and B2 before tackling B3. Of course, I have an ulterior motive *grin* I am hoping that once you finish B3 you will desire to reread B1 and B2 with the fresh perspective that B3 will surely give you.

Once the books are published I intend to do my best to promote them - the usual raft of interviews and any readings I can get etc. I have notions to visit the various countries in which the books are published... but we shall have to see if that turns out to be possible. If it does, you will be the first to know...

So there it is - my plan. We might all wish for this to happen sooner than it is going to, but that can't be helped. Meanwhile, you can rest assured that I will continue to work indefatigably and with increasing enthusiasm and excitement as the time approaches when I can put the final part of the Stone Dance in your hand...

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