The editing process

Earlier this week, Gary came to stay overnight so we could do some work on the book. This is what transpired:

13:40 Pick up Gary from train station

14:00 Sit down at kitchen table with a cup of coffee (Gary) and a cup of tea (me). Discuss our various partners, loinfruit, pets, work.

15:00 Read through the comments that our alpha readers have made.

15:10 Sit in silence wondering where to go from there
15:25 Sit in silence a bit longer contemplating the printed off version of the book lying on the kitchen table between us.

15:40 Decide to work through the feedback comments one by one.

15:41 Sit in silence not quite sure how to go about it

15:45 Eat 3 satsumas (me)

15.55 Eat 2 satsumas because they smell nice (Gary)

16:01 Decide to go to the pub

16:02 Promise Mr W we will ring him when we are done so he can join us for a drink

16:05 Are appalled at the cost of wine in the pub (£18 the cheapest bottle!)

16:06 Buy a bottle of shiraz, a pint of Tribute and a pot of pistachio nuts

16:07 Open our notebooks, get out the printed feedback comments, begin to discuss them

17:45 Buy another bottle of shiraz

17:50 Clap our hands to our foreheads when we realise we have forgotten Mr W

17:52 Buy a pint of cider for Mr W, a pot of pistachios and a pot of cashews

18:02 Mr W arrives

18:05 Mr W asks whether this is our second bottle of wine. We say no and are pretty sure we've got away with it

18:35 Mr W buys another pint. We refrain from buying another bottle of wine and congratulate each other on being so sensible

19:00 I announce there is no way I can cook supper. Gary suggests the Indian up the hill.

19:15 Arrive at the top of the hill, Mr W has to ask for the table because we can't talk

19:17 Gary decides he wants a different table

19:30 Gary orders a bottle of red wine and a beer for Mr W

19:31-21:30 Food comes. Another bottle of wine comes. Another beer for Mr W comes. Although possibly not in that order, I can't be sure

21:30 Gary and I fight about who is paying the bill. Gary wins. Gary pays the bill

21:35 Gary goes for a pee. In his absence I tell Mr W we should pay the bill. He tells me Gary has already done so. I don't believe him. He assures me that this is the case. I don't believe him but, in a triumph of self-restraint, I don't make an issue of it

21:40 Head home down the hill managing not to a) fall over or b) get run over

22:00 Offer Gary another bottle of wine which he declines in favour of a pint of water.

Sometime after 22:00 Go to bed.

General Feedback on First Draft

I gave our finished draft to four people for feedback. One is still reading, which is, I feel, its own feedback. Here's an overview of the rest.

An old friend came to stay last week and I gave him a copy to take on the train home with him. I was a bit worried, given that
(a) he's a bloke and the book is all about love and stuff.
(b) he's not easily impressed.

So it was fun to receive the following three facebook messages over the next 12 hours.

"I am fucking loving your book. It needs a tidy up here and there, but some of it is absolutely brilliant."

"54% through. Need to sleep, but your bloody book is too good to put down."

"Fanfuckingtastic. You and Karin should be very proud of yourselves. That book is brilliant."


He later gave me some incredibly useful specific feedback that helps me with Trip's back-story, something my next reader was scathing about. This is the person who edited my Shropshire book. She pulls no punches at all. Which is an impressive thing for a friend to be able to do. In my experience most people glide over their misgivings with polite platitudes. Instead, she said (and I pick out the starting-points of several pages of knife wounds):


"I have no mental picture of either Trip and Ruth and cannot imagine how I would feel about either of them if I met them..."
(I will come back to this in a future post because I have been thinking about it a lot.)

"I have a problem with Trip in that I don't really believe he can exist in this form..."

"Ruth is a bit bland at the moment..."

"Do get on and tidy it up as I think it could be really good."


And, finally, I gave it to my wife to read. Anne is an English Lit grad, so naturally I expected insightful critique and deep textual analysis. Her feedback in full:

"I never knew Neil Diamond wrote 'Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon.'"


Karin's experiences to follow...

Longdale Stiper

Photo of where Ruth grew up. (Photo taken Sunday 17th March 2013)

“And you were born and brought up, around here. Like, just down there?”

“Yep, in between where this hill...”

“Long Mynd?”

“The Long Mynd, yes, this hill – that stretches all the way into the distance – about 6 miles I think, in between here and that outcrop over there...”

“Which is called?”

“The Stiperstones. Yes, look,” she takes his arm, “look down there, those few houses. That’s where I lived.”

“Wow. And the valley, it's stunning. What's it called?”

“Umm, nothing.”

“Nothing? The valley doesn't have a name?” He is incredulous.

“No, don't think so, no, definitely not.”

“You were born in a valley with no name? That's amazing. Ha, no wonder you're so chippy about it. You were literally born nowhere, in the middle of nowhere. Seems unfair though. For it not to have a name. It should have a name. Everything should have a name. What was that rock called again? The Stiperstones? Let me see. The Stiper? No. The Stiper Mynd. The Long Stiper. Stiperdale.”

“Stiperdale, I like that.”

“No, got it. Call off the search. The Longdale Stiper! The Longdale Stiper. Brilliant. Big. Grand. Sweeping.”

“It sounds like a breed of dog.”

“Of course. Shropshire's finest. The Longdale Stiper. A hunting dog, obviously. Broad of back and long of leg. Bred to fight injustice and bring joy to all whom sail in her, or something. Here Benj, I hereby anoint you the first and finest of the breed. Next time anyone calls you a mere Staffy, or Staffy cross, or Heinz or mongrel or whatever, I shall say, ‘no, you're quite wrong’. I shall draw myself up to my full height and say: ‘For your information, this here's a Longdale Stiper; a Shropshire Longdale Stiper, have you not heard of them? A fine breed. A very fine breed indeed.’

First Draft Completed

Karin and I have finished the first draft of our novel, which seems to have changed title from 'Wish You Were' to 'Farewell Trip'.

Naturally we are delighted and have spent the weekend celebrating – albeit separately, a hundred miles apart.

Finishing a novel seems a momentous task. I've certainly never managed it before, and have half a dozen false starts in a box upstairs. And I wouldn't have completed this one either if I hadn't have been writing it with someone else. And with someone capable of putting their head down and pumping out 10000 words of narrative, whilst I dick about with a couple of pages of dialogue.

In reality though, finishing a first draft is barely over the start line when it comes to the process of getting it published. It's over two years ago that I finished the first draft of my Shropshire book and it's probably further away from being published now than it was then!

Next step, we're giving it to:
a) Our respective partners. (Eek)
b) A handful of people who said nice things about the first chapter. (Aah)
c) The person who licked my Shropshire book into shape, and who pulls no punches. (Ouch)


Then we'll see what we've got and have another bash.

Car insurance as inspiration

It's endlessly fascinating to notice how what happens in life, the littlest things, get lodged in my brain and end up on a page.

Like the other day when Mr W changed the car insurance for the first time in a million years. Car insurance has always been something I deal with - only because I worked for an insurance company for a while so, of course, insurance became my specialist subject. Anyway, Mr W changed the insurance and it stuck in my mind. Then it popped out when Ruth was talking to Trip about the things she's had to learn to do since he died; bank statements, electricity bills, that sort of thing. Little things that are not difficult in themselves but had never been her job, so seemed like a big deal. She was proud of herself for sorting out the car insurance and I was proud of her too.

A facebook exchange Gary and I had this week is another example of how ideas build on each other and turn up in the novel. It started when Gary posted the photo of magic mushroom mountain that's in the post below on my facebook page. When the book's published you'll have to look out for the references...

Gary Twynam This is magic mountain, Lampeter...where a bit of Trip lives...

Karin Dixon there's a man on magic mushroom mountain!

Gary Twynam Yeah- just a sawdust student jape though...

Karin Dixon they should have made his willy bigger

Gary Twynam Probably got worn off from all the people shagging on it...

Karin Dixon did ruth & trip shag on mmm?

Gary Twynam God no - (well Ruth may have). Trip's never been up there.

Karin Dixon this photo should go on the blog really

Gary Twynam Yes - will do. Was thinking about when they have alfresco sex in the park - could possibly reference it in conversation.

Gary Twynam I was also thinking - and if I remember it correctly, the farmer, or someone of a censorius mind, got rid of the willy.

Karin Dixon oh yes, that could go in. in fact, one of ruth's feminist friends went up one moonlit night and removed it, replacing it with anatomically correct women's parts including vagina, fallopian tubes and uterus. the farmer, who hadn't been bothered by a massive cock, was out the next day with a tractor.

Trip's Ashes (1) - Lampeter.

This photo is of a hill overlooking Lampeter University. It was taken in the early eighties. Which is the same time as Ruth and Trip were there. The identities of the people responsible for the creation of the giant man with the small penis remains a closely-guarded secret. You don't suppose Ruth or Trip could have been involved, do you?

Either way, Ruth scatters some of Trip's ashes on the top of that hill, at the end of Chapter 1. I fully expect, once the book wins the Conti's Coffee prize, for fans to go on pilgrimages around the world collecting pictures of the scattering sites. To Shropshire even! Here's number 1.