If you are too busy to blog then you really are too busy!

If you are too busy to blog then you are too busy. Having said that I love to blog and I have honestly been busy. Actually, I find it relaxing putting down my thoughts, particularly on writing, and seeing where it goes.  So what have I been doing that has kept me from this oh, so enjoyable blogging?.
     No prizes for guessing. Writing, writing, writing. Some  years ago, quite a few actually, I started writing a follow up book to my first airline novel 'Up Up and Away' which was all about the loves and lives of pilots and air hostesses in an Irish airline, Celtic Airways. When it was finished it was quite a big  book and the two sub-plots turned out to be books in their own right.  But I didn't realise straightaway what I should do.
     Instead I tried rewriting the book and cutting it drastically. Fortunately, I had first copied the original so nothing was lost as I worked on the copy. I still remember the day it struck me this was not the answer. Instead what I needed to do was to take out the two sub-plots, completely remove them..
      I was on a car journey at the time and for three hours I barely opened my mouth, my brain teeming with ideas, selecting and rejecting, agonising over what seemed like a terrible murdering waste, before I realised that I didn't have to lose them, I could actually use them. At this point, I accepted that what I had was one big novel, dramatic enough to stand on its own without the inclusion of the two sub-plots. Besides which, I had the potential for another two  novels and once I  saw where I was going it became an exciting challenge.
     After much thought I set about extracting the two smaller books from the main story. The mechanics of it were simple enough - first make three copies of the original and then remove anything from each book that  wasn't necessary to the story.  After that I edited the main book which I called 'Holding Pattern'.  In places, it took a bit of jigging and realignment of characters, the heroine's best friend needed to play a slightly less dramatic role in the revised version. I saved her earlier story for the second book 'Out of Airspace' putting the heroine of this book,  another air hostess, in the wrong place at the wrong time. On her her last flight before her wedding she obliges her flatmate by swapping on to the Cork/Paris  flight which tragically crashes into the sea soon after take-off with few survivors, of which she is one, badly injured and confined to a wheelchair. .
      I'm happy to say the first two books are finished in so far as a  book is finished when the author hands it over to  be read by an agent. The third book is on the computer and is next on the agenda..So not a lot of time for blogging, eh?  Between now and Christmas I want to make up for that. So here's hoping. . Anyway, it's nice to be back!