Broken Records, Babylon, Blogs and a Darkening Venture

On Thursday, I finished the first draft of my book, The Broken Record. Anyone who has been following my sporadic blog posts (all three of you) will have read about the background to this project and why it is so important to me, so you’ll know that actually finishing it was a huge deal for me. This story or some version of it has existed in my head for five years now, and considering all the failed attempts at it I have made, part of me was sure I would get distracted and give up halfway through. The Broken Record would end up as another unfinished attempt clogging up space on my computer, and that would be the end of it.

But that did not happen. When I had trouble figuring out how to conclude it, I panicked, sure that this was the end, that all this work would be for nothing. But then, in an afternoon long writing session that yielded 5, 000 words, I finished it. Even then, though, I was worried. When I sat down to read the finished draft of my last attempt at a novel, Phoenix, I was disappointed with how clumsy it was. There were so many problems jumping out at me that I actually had difficulty finishing the read.

But that did not happen here. The Broken Record, in my obviously very bias opinion, is pretty good. In saying that, I mean I think it is exactly what I was aiming for; fast paced, funny, action packed and mysterious. Being a draft, there is a lot of work to do, but I am so excited for the future of this story. I have five books planned in the series, and while my intention was to take a break after The Broken Record and write another play, the story has dictated otherwise. The last few days I have been totally unable to stop thinking about the sequel, Darkening Ventures, and all the crazy plans I have for it. I’m even starting to think about book three, for god’s sake. All this and I don’t really know yet if anybody else even likes the damn book. But I’m feeling pretty confident. I started mapping out Darkening Ventures today, and I’m itching to get going on it.

But on top of that, even more exciting stuff is happening. As of last week we officially locked the cast for the first production of my script, Below Babylon. We have a read-through scheduled for Wednesday and rehearsals starting in November and already this is shaping up to be something really exciting. Even just watching the auditions I was taken aback by how much I could already see it coming together. Part of this is down to the incredibly talented people we had come along, who were able to even elevate some of my more rubbish dialogue into compelling moments. It’s pretty special to sit back and watch things like this unfold better than you’d ever hoped.

Below Babylon is a project fuelled by so much passion. The other night after work I was at the pub with the production team, and, after a toast to the project we ended up throwing all kinds of ideas around and getting so loud that even the bartender, who is well used to us by now, was giving us some very odd looks. But I walked out that night electrified, ready to start work on this play tomorrow. Sadly I have to wait, and patience has never been my strong suit, but I’m grinning just at the thought of how good this is going to be.

I’m more optimistic about where all this is going than I’ve ever been. I feel so damn driven right now, so ready to just keep doing this. Of course, it all could completely fail tomorrow, but I’m not thinking that way. I’m in a great position right now, and I have a feeling that things are only going to get bigger and more insane in the near future.

Which, by the way, is something I’m totally fine with.