The revision is upon me...

Blood in the sand has been sitting on a back burner while I tackled numerous short stories and started another novel. It has been about three months since I wrote the final scenes of the first Guardian novel, and completed the first draft.

But now I am back. I have some time off work, and I am going to work my way through the novel, rewriting one major plot point and generally revising as I go. Once this is done, it will be off to the editor for his turn. This is a process that I have been looking forward to for a long time, and it feels good to be finally getting to a point where the novel can be said to be 'finished.'

After this week's revision process it will be at the second draft stage, and hopefully one step nearer to a readable, full length novel. At around one hundred thousand words it is a decent enough length. Now the aim is to ensure that it is a decent enough quality.

Here is a teaser. The very first line:

"The naked woman with hair like a cascade of spun copper caressed the young man’s face gently, her fingers light against his skin, the knife pressing into his neck held firm."

I wanted to start the novel with a bang (It does. There is a terrifically big bang. I take things literally.) and at the same time I wanted to create a certain atmosphere. Here, we see our main protagonists struggling physically, which demonstrates the tone of their entire relationship. They are continually at odds with one another, a situation that culminates ultimately in murder.

Without wishing to give too much away, the novel unfolds as a flashback from that moment. And then interweaves a story within a story. The novel starts at the end, then we jump back to the beginning to see how we got there.

Like much of what I write, it concerns the meaning of death and contains metaphysical themes as well as such themes as sacrifice and duty.

But now I am eager to start work. Revision is calling.