It's been a while since I updated the blog, mainly because I've knuckled down and applied myself to the rewrite of my novel manuscript, The Hidden Daughter. It's going well, but like all things that are worth it in the end, it took a while to apply what I needed to do to the story to make it work. No prizes for guessing what makes it work in the end is character. It's all to easy to get a bit of a god complex- I'm writing it, so I'll get them to do that, because that's what makes a good cliffhanger, and so on. When I looked back at the first draft, I realised that where I'd gone off the track was when I didn't focus on the characters and how they would act, and react to the circumstances and lives around them.
It's made the rewrites tricky (a whole plotline has changed because Cate wouldn't dream of taking Greg to her careworn home above the shop where her mother Penny works) but as I've reached the other side of that, the story returns to it's heart - what parents will sacrifice for their kids under the yoke of their responsibilities. And how that isn't always the wisest move, however well intended it is. And how the past catches up with you faster than the future. Mostly.
Anyway back to rewrites - chapter seven awaits - I'll get in touch when I come up for air again.
