Tag: novel

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 1 Comment

Taking a break from the writing, we went to see the Swedish film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. A wonderful and engaging piece of film making. I love the atmosphere of Scandinavian films – the long shots of cars traversing lonely desolate highways and how the locale a climate become almost a character in the film. We saw Jar City, from Iceland, on DVD a few weeks back and in many ways it’s a similar film – a mystery, with great twists and turns. Both remind me in some ways of The Sweet Hereafter, a film which startled me when I saw it, and which lingers in my mind.

Novel update – it’s about 8.15pm here, so there’s three and three quarter hours until the end of the year. Will I make it? I think there’s still a couple of thousand words to go … so I’m not out partying

Novel update

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Okay, another 1500 words in the last 24 hours. It seems slow, but I feel like I’m threading a dozen needles here as I bring all the threads together in a finish that will make sense. It has diverged so much from my original outline (for the better, I think) that there are many more aspects to manage than I’d first expected. Perhaps another 3000 to finish it off? Mood, excited, tense, despondent, elated.

Novel progresses

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 1 Comment

Quick post here, in between busy-ness. I’ve moved the novel ahead by around 1000 words since my last post, and I’ll get some more done right now. It is a little slower now as I try to make sure things are really tight as they tie up.

Quiet times

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

No posts for a few days – I have my head down, trying to complete my novel before the new year. I’m about five or six thousand words out, but with family stuff and holidays it’s actually hard to find concentrated time work on it. December 31st feels like such a psychological point – new year, for new writing and it’s good to work to a target.

The novel is an expansion of my flash fiction story The Rotated, as published on Infinite Windows. Incisive editor Mr Tannenbaum asked me why I’d written the story as flash fiction – there seemed to be so much more to it – the concept, their relationship, why do the invaders come, etc. Sure enough, there was so much more to explore. The story is sitting at around 60,000 words right now, so it is on the shortish side for a print novel, but the plan, if the editor likes it (current signs are good) then it will be serialized on Infinite Windows. I will be making the story nicely Gordian, I hope, in the next few days. Then of course, will be spending coming months on revisions and re-writes. I just need to get the draft done by the 31st … I may not post here for a few days as I try to keep my online time to a minimum.