{"id":3110,"date":"2025-11-01T15:27:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T15:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/?p=3110"},"modified":"2025-11-01T15:27:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T15:27:19","slug":"the-end-is-in-sight-or-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/?p=3110","title":{"rendered":"The end is in sight \u2013 or is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a crazy month. I finished the first draft of Shadow of the Sphinx about six weeks ago. It should have been a cause for celebration \u2013 another milestone reached \u2013 but it\u2019s left me pulling out my hair. As a pantser writer, I often end up changing my mind about the direction of the novel and need to shift scenes around. However, I\u2019d changed my mind so many times in this book, I had no idea which way was up or down. I put it to one side for a couple of weeks but when I tried reading it through again, I was so confused not knowing if I was repeating the same information or not. My trusty record of each scene as it\u2019s written was no help.<\/p>\n

I mentioned it to my \u2018alpha-reader\u2019 (not sure if there is such a thing but if you can have beta-readers, why not an alpha-reader?) who said send it to me. In the usual course of events, I\u2019d have been through the scriptat least four times \u2013 once for plot, another for character then setting, pace and tension etc.<\/p>\n

It meant that I could forget all about it for a bit and spent a pleasant couple of weeks reading. I had three or four really gripping books, I had difficulty putting down. My original plan was to put together a PowerPoint presentation for my next cruise speaker gig in December when I\u2019ll be off to the Baltic. I shall be talking about famous writers and as one of our ports is Copenhagen, I decided to give a lecture on Hans Christian Andersen. I managed to drag myself away from reading to eventually complete my presentation. Time is rushing past and I still have one more talk to prepare. It takes a good 40 hours plus to do the research, find the illustrations for 70 odd slides and write the wording. Though I have made a start on \u2013 Nordic Noir and Stieg Larsson \u2013 I can\u2019t afford to put it at the bottom of my to-do list.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I have had a few thoughts about the front cover of the new book. I like this though I may end up having to change it. A week or so ago my script came back, and I did start working on it. My earlier hopes of publishing Shadow of the Sphinx before the end of the year are now firmly dashed. Other things need to take priority. I have another talk to give to a local Probus Group on Agatha Christie and there\u2019s a book fair in a couple of weeeks which I need to sort out, getting books ordered, bookmarks printed etc.<\/p>\n

Do let me know what you think of the cover in the comments box below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a crazy month. I finished the first draft of Shadow of the Sphinx about six weeks ago. It should have been a cause for celebration \u2013 another milestone reached \u2013 but it\u2019s left me pulling out my hair. As a pantser writer, I often end up changing my mind about the direction of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[197,148,216],"tags":[241,239,240],"class_list":{"0":"post-3110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-book-fair","7":"category-cover-reveal","8":"category-reading","9":"tag-alpha-reader","10":"tag-first-draft","11":"tag-shadow-of-the-sphinx","12":"entry","13":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3110"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3118,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3110\/revisions\/3118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}