Since Harrogate, things have been going full steam ahead on the novel front. After my one on one sesh with Greg Mosse, I fiddled (stop laughing, you in the back there) with the plot and made the opening a little more dramatic. I then decided to hell with procrastination, I'm starting!
Since then, not too many weeks ago, I have almost written 100 pages. Not to say that the words are flying off the tips of my fingers with the utmost of ease; far from it. Some days writing feels like trying to grapple for the end of a strand of hair caught in the bath plug hole - quite difficult and gooey. Other days it just rains words, hallelujah, it's raining words.
Overall, though, the experience thus far has been good. Most of the time I feel like I am writing absolute bollocks, but there are days when I finish by 2 hour stint in the morning feeling pretty chippa about what I've put on the page. And the bits and pieces of the plot are fitting in nicely.
At this stage, the process of creating this novel involves me getting up at 6am every weekday and committing to 2 hours of non-stop writing (except for eating breaks and the breaks that involve the other end). I'm writing to a plot but only as a guide. Many changes have already been made, but none deviate too far away from the original idea. Weekends I try for 5 hours in total, bringing the weekly slog to 15 hours. I did that for the first time last week - hoorah!
As you can see on the left hand side, I've included a little page counter, indicating how many pages I have produced for my first draft so far. It's ticking away quite nicely, almost reaching 100, which is a great personal achievement, especially for someone who has spent a year thinking about writing a novel and who thought that actually sitting down and doing it may never happen (yep, those tyres seem to be at the right pressure).
As I reach 100 pages tomorrow, I will stand and raise my bat to the generous crowd who are on their feet, giving me a warm round of applause. I will then mark out my crease, take centre, scan the field and face the next ball.
Long way to go yet but at least I am enjoying it!!
2 comments:
Stumbled on your blog doing a blogsearch for "writing a novel." I just started writing a novel last week. Out of the blue. I never thought I would be someone who would write a novel, but here I am. I've only got about 14.5 pages so far, but it's something, right? Your words give me hope that maybe I can actually do this... I'll be checking back now and then to see how your progress is going! Good luck!
Getting started is one of the hardest things and keeping at it is the other. All the best with your novel and I hope to see you here again with an update!
Good luck and thanks for your encouragement.
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