One thing I learned from my first Cracked pitch is that they are absolute demons for accuracy and sources. So currently I am going through my pitch researching it pretty much paragraph by paragraph. The fun of this is that the sources have to be online so they can be verified, and have to be snappy enough that they can be quoted. It’s a lot of fun though – I really enjoy digging these things out.

Today I added another couple of bumpers to the chapters, and I also corrected an error I had made in an earlier chapter. Turns out that in almost all commonwealth countries, the Vice Chancellor of a university is the actual head, while in the USA the Chancellor is usually the actual head. I had thought that the Vice Chancellor being in charge at my old university was a unique peculiarity. Good to know.

So I’ve decided to rename my novel, and to update the structure of it slightly to try to create a theme. This consists, so far, of adding “bumpers” to the beginning of each of the chapters. I’m doing this for the 14 chapters I’ve rewritten so far (not counting the one I dismembered and spread around), and have done five of them, with ideas for three or four of the upcoming chapters as well.

Today I finished up the basic writing for my second Cracked pitch. One thing I learned from the first one was that they are absolute demons for you getting your sources and citations right, so I still have to get that utterly nailed down before I submit it. (I’ll also wait to see what happens with the first one, so I can apply the lessons to this one.) Huge fun writing this stuff though, so regardless I’ll be finishing it off and doing something with it.

Today I started on my second pitch for Cracked. I was working most of the day so I started it late, but I’ve got the intro paragraph and the six summaries written up. Need to add sources and write one of them out as a sample, then it’s good to go.

Today was going back over the other chapter I’d totally rewritten and checking it. A few tweaks and fixes, but nothing major. Next up is a run through to add bumpers and some consistency work, then back into the second half!

Went back and checked over the whole of chapter 10 this evening – I’d rewritten it almost from the ground up a couple of weeks ago, so I decided it needed another look over. I need to do that with Chapter 11 as well, then I dig out some nice bumper quotes for the chapters, then I get stuck into the second half. Which is probably going to be more work than the first half, since that’s where the plot needs tweaking. Still, should be good fun.

Well – 50% of the way through the final draft of this. End is in sight! Although I am now circling back to sort out chapters 10 and 11 a bit further, and to add some bumper quotes to the start of each of the chapters. Still, at this rate I might be done by the end of March – scary thought!

Still slogging through chapter 15. Nearly done. Also starting to think of other ways to generally update the novel. Gimmickiness ahoy!

Back into the novel, and straight into some of the hardest rewriting in the book. Sadly I’ve had to accept that most of chapter 15 was me struggling to find something to write. Thank goodness I had one person left to kill at the end of it to kick the novel back into gear. Giant scalpel of trimming crap is deployed…