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Friday 24 August 2012

Number Three and Dickens

Number Three is all but finished.  Arrived at that magical moment yesterday - that point where you realise the words are in place, the story's been told, and anything else will be too much. 


I'll leave it for a while now, maybe a few weeks, before casting a fresh, critical eye over it, to see what can be pared down or sharpened up.  Will get a couple of reports from critical readers too.  

In the meantime, and before I start grappling with Number Four, there's a short story or ten, I'd like to write, and I have to finish redesigning the website.  Maybe a bit of painting can be fitted in as well.  Ooh, so much to do.

By the by, I didn't realise it was the bicentenary of Charles Dickens' birth this year.  Apparently there's a global program of events under the banner Dickens 2012.  I was lucky enough to hear a lecture by Adrian Wootton (chief executive of Film London), at Melbourne's Wheeler Centre last week on the Life of Dickens.


While I'm not a huge fan of Dickens' novels - have read quite a few, but have grown weary of the style - I must say that Adrian Wootton's presentation reinvigorated my interest, and I may well return to reading one or two more before long.  Maybe I'll revisit Great Expectations, which was always my favourite.  The last one I read was The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which, as I discovered at the end, was a mystery because Dickens inconveniently died before he finished writing the thing.

5 comments:

Saph said...

Yeah ! Excellent news - can't wait for it to do a forward roll through the publishing process and land on my door mat with a whoop.

Paul Burman said...

Not sure about the 'whoop', but you might want to have a fire extinguisher handy. This one comes with its own box of matches.

Netty said...

It all sounds very exciting Paul and positively exhausting. Look forward to reading the book and seeing some of your artwork. Annette x

Gary said...

Great feeling getting to the end of writing a book, another monumental achievement ! Congratualtions, Paul :)

Paul Burman said...

Cheers, Netty. Cheers, Gary. Writing's a pleasant addiction so not very exhausting. The struggle lies in trying to find the time to write and earn a living too. :-)