‘Put It In the Drawer’……Ness Exhibition Film - Plus…..
by Bernie Bell - 09:06 on 09 June 2025
Put it in the drawer
Good advice, hard to follow
Jun 5
It’s good practice to rest your manuscript for a few days. Pop it in the drawer, and walk away. Almost a week ago, I sent my 3rd draft to a couple of pals, one of whom is Richard Beard, who is acting as my editor. Since then, I’ve not had even so much as a crafty peek.
I heard back from Richard this morning. He is mighty pleased, and is coming up on Saturday to talk me through the changes he thinks need doing. ‘About a day, a day and a half’s work’ he reckons. So, another 48 hours in the drawer before I get back to it, and then a few days of rewriting. As Ursula Le Guin said, there’s no such thing as writing, only re-writing. To arrive at a third draft has already meant many pleasant hours of re-writing, of course.
It’s been really hard to keep the drawer closed, but crazy to open it until you’ve listened to your editor. So I’ve been laying the ground for the next stages of the process, when a copy-editor, a proof reader and a book designer will help prepare the text for publication.
Because of the state of my health, I’m publishing a limited hardback edition myself, hopefully in the autumn. There’s a launch event booked in Presteigne’s Assembly Rooms for 21st of September, and with luck, I’ll be there.
Why not, I hear you ask, leave it all to agents/publishers etc, as has always been the case before? Because their wheels grind mighty slow. Hopefully, a paperback and Kindle will eventually be published via the traditional route.
In the meantime, I’m doing it this way because of a personal peculiarity, which is that I always read my books. Lots of authors don’t, because they are exhausted by the process. But, for me, the process isn’t over till I sit in my favourite chair, and read the thing through, not as an MS, or a PDF, but as the physical book I had in mind when I started the process.
There are obstacles to navigate - how to set up a pre-order thing? How to set up online payments/delivery deets etc? Julian ‘Moonshake’ Dicken, cover artist for ‘Hero’, and illustrator of ‘One Fine Day’ is coming up with exciting ideas - such as Breaking Wave merch. Even when the book comes out of the drawer, and even when it is done, there will be much work to keep me busy, but it will be the work of a small publisher. It’s exciting, and fun; but, very soon, my writing career will be done, after more than 25 years in print. I’m really looking forward to opening the drawer, one last time.
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Ness Exhibition Film….
https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/ppf-film/
And my own guided tour!....
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=16998
Plus…..
Videos from the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Archaeological Research in Progress 2025 conference in Edinburgh, May 3 2025. …..
https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/arp-2025-blomuir/
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