Been playing the track Badge by the old 1960s band Cream on the sound system. I always do this time of the year – some kind of race-memory of mine dating back to my days at Leeds University about 500 years ago.

Now back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Leeds Uni's Student Union had a reputation for putting on some of the best gigs (although they were called hops in those days) in the country. Acts playing the university in my time included The Who (as in the Live at Leeds album), the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Family, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, Paul McCartney & Wings, Rod Stewart & The Faces, Emerson Lake & Palmer and on and on.

My least successful gig was Leonard Cohen – fantastic show but I didn't get the girl I was with. My most successful was the Edgar Broughton Band – terrible show but the drummer broke his sticks, tossed them into the audience, I caught them, gave them to the girl sitting next to me and she was seriously impressed (and grateful). However, the track I most associate with Leeds is Badge. Here's how it happened…

In the old coffee bar in the Union Building, there was a juke box and a bridge foursome. The bridge party was headed by Hugh Edwards – best known to the outside world for playing the character 'Piggy' in the 1963 movie version of William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies.

To my recollection, the bridge party lasted pretty much 18 hours a day for at least three years – rumour had it that Edwards even had bridge conventions (whatever they may be) named after him. More to the point, at least once every 15 minutes, one of that party played the track Badge – hence the fact (as I spent most of my university time drinking coffee in that coffee bar) the tune is burned into the cortex of my brain.

Now for the really obscure, trivial pursuits point. Badge was a joint composition by George Harrison and Eric Clapton (Ringo Starr contributed the line about the swans in the park). It was originally an untitled track but during the production transfer for the Cream album Goodbye, the original music sheet was used to produce the liner notes and track listing. The only discernible word on the page was 'Bridge' – a notation intended to identify the transitional moment in the song. Harrison's handwriting, however, was so bad that Eric Clapton looked at it and thought it said 'Badge' – so the band named it Badge.

All of which leaves me wondering: did the bridge party know the song title came from the annotation 'Bridge' and therefore provided a kind of ironic theme tune to their endless round of bridge rubbers? We'll never know – and, to be honest, we don't care.

First off formatting apologies? I'm posting from an Apple iPad and the browser does not support rich text – so it's this typeface and size or nothing. I'll fix it later.



So, progress report: three months into the project (I started on 1st August) I've just past the 82,000 words stage and am now on the home straight towards the conclusion of the novel – although that will still involve six key incidents/set piece scenes. And I'm also clear this is now going to be the first volume in a trilogy. Given the day job writing is currently going through a particularly manic phase, to be averaging just under 1000 words a day is particularly gratifying.




As for the actual writing and plotting… despite all the notes I'm writing to myself, it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of earlier parts of the novel. However, rather than keep cutting back to check and/or amend the manuscript, I'm just ploughing on. (This is a particular problem with the iPad where the WP app I'm using has a limited interface.) I'll worry about tying up some of the many loose ends when I've finished this draft but, like a mountaineer in site of the summit, although I can see the base camp is in shambles, I'm too near the prize now to turn back or be distracted by the inadequacies of the earlier parts.




The plan now is to finish this draft – possibly still a couple of months away. Then print it out in hard copy format – it's already reached the equivalent of 400 pages of A4 – for an edit and to identify the weaker parts. I can tell some of the characters are totally implausible in their actions and motivations. Likewise, I realise some of the early plotting and dialogue is clunky. Then I'll produce a rewritten second draft and worry then about what to do next.




What could possibly go wrong? Well I am worried that when I read it, I'll discover that I've become the Jack Nicholson character in the movie “The Shining” and that I've written 600 pages amounting to little more of “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

@%&$ – just encountered an historical event that is relevant to the timeline in my story < insert expletive here >. I thought this happened 12 months previously and was therefore totally irrelevant as far as my plot was concerned. Instead it happened two days before a key event in my story. Upon reflection, this is a 'good thing' as it actually provides my character with a rather better alibi than he would have previously have had. Hi ho, there are still silver linings to be found in dark clouds.

Now two-and-a-half months into the novel and the words are still flowing – but two nights in a row this week I've found myself lying awake at 3:30 in the morning thinking to myself “OMG, what if I am writing the biggest pile of deluded drivel in the history of the world ever – what if when I read it I discover it is humiliating rubbish?”

Has anyone else been struck by a mid-term crisis of confidence and nerves? Oh yes, and I'm also realising my note taking sucks in that I haven't kept track of anywhere near enough details of plot developments, character profiles and relationships. Must take a deep breath and try harder.

Technical note: for the last couple of weeks I've been typing directly onto an Apple iPad, rather than my normal laptop, with backups being stored in the 'cloud' via the DropBox app.

OK, 10 weeks into the novel and I'm nudging the 70,000 words zone. Not a lot to say other than that as I write, I'm finding I need to keep jumping back to revise references which lay the groundwork for later sections – rather than risk the problem of suddenly springing some development on the reader, which leaves them calling out “Oi, that's a cheat, we didn't know he or she was genetically engineered”.

As previously mentioned, my notebook is still getting a double use, noting down ideas for future chapters as well as edits to earlier chapters. However, I'm also finding that I'm increasingly putting down notes for the next volume – there are plots within sub-plots unfolding all over the place – and I think I could be looking at a trilogy running to three x 100/120,000 words per volume.

And now for something different: my short stories. If you have read this blog over the last year or so, you'll know that I've also been writing flash fiction and short stories. These started life about four years ago on a creative writing course and since then I've been adding to the number – some have been published, some have not.

Earlier this year I spotted that a publisher whose work I admire – good quality books with high production values in their list – was moving into genre short fiction. So, I pitched them some ideas for a collection of short stories. Here's how the timeline went…

* 14th April 2010 – exchanged some FaceBook messages with MD of publishing company, he suggested I contact commissioning editor.

* 15th April 2010 – emailed pitch to commissioning editor.

* 22nd April 2010 – pitch acknowledged by commissioning editor.

* 25th April 2010 – emailed a couple of stories to commissioning editor.

* 27th April 2010 – stories acknowledged by commissioning editor.

* 7th June – having been advised by commissioning editor to 'nudge' her if I don't hear from her in 4 weeks, I email her a nudge.

* 24th June – she replies to say the sample stories are 'brilliant' and that she's like to see the full collection.

>> Slight panic ensues here as I realise some of my stories I've got on stock aren't very good + some are only half-finished or drafts + some need major edits + also get inspired to write a couple of totally new stories <<

* 29th July – I submit a collection of 14 short stories (mixture of flash + normal length shorts + one novelette).

* 2nd August – commissioning editor confirms receipt of stories.

* 25th August – I send commissioning editor another 'nudge'.

* 10th September – I send another nudge (I know, pushy sod aren't I ?)

* 27th September – commissioning editor says she'd love to publish the collection & will shortly be sending out a contract.

* 7th October – contract arrives (as email attachment).

* 8th October – I sign contract.

* Publication date scheduled for September 2011 – and I'll mention the name of the publisher as soon as I get back my copies of the contract.

Ha ha! (cackles inanely) I've hit the 60,000 words mark this weekend. Considering I'm now back into the post-summer day-job routine and I've just written/edited/published 2 issues of a newsletter + had a couple of days out of the office attending conferences, I'm particularly pleased I've clocked up 10,000 words over the past fortnight – which is way up on the 500 words minimum target I'd set myself.

Content-wise, I think I'm about at the half-way mark – most of the plot lines have been established, with one exception all the characters have been introduced – and I now have my chapter outlines to take me to the end of the book. About 60,000 words further on, that'll be.

Over the last week, I've been running into some heavy research requirements – nothing more galling to readers than encountering blatant anachronisms – particularly when dealing with only the recent. Hey, she couldn't have been a fan of Robbie Williams 20 years ago as he was still at school. Or you couldn't find that on Google because you are writing of a time two years before Google was invented. However there are also some more serious matters. For example, one character is a devout Muslim and although religion is not an issue in the novel, I don't want the character to appear either a caricature or display some glaring example of my ignorance, so the narrative sounds like something out of a 1930s British stiff-upper-lip movie: “I say, Johnny Dago over there worships some strange idols.”

And, yes, my notebook of who has already done what – as distinct from what happens next – continues to grow, as this week I discovered that two of the minor characters names were changing between chapters.

This coming week I've got a short business trip to New York, so I'll be interested to see (a) how long my Apple iPad lasts without a battery recharge and (b) how much work I can actually get done on the plane (as I've never yet mastered falling asleep en route).