The secret is out: 10 thoughts on nearly finishing a long-haul novel

It’s been a long journey. Five years ago, I started my novel Ever Rest. Fifteen drafts, and I now have the manuscript in a state where it’s fit to show to another person.

For the first time ever.

A curious feeling.

Like unveiling a massive secret

I never talk much about a work in progress (I’ve got a post about that here). I have never workshopped this novel or discussed it with a critique group, though I did base it on a short story I workshopped many years ago.

When I began in 2014, I brainstormed the concept with Husband Dave, but the book is now as far from those original thoughts as a wineglass is from sand.

I have shared tiny morsels of the plot with experts for research. Thank you, pathologists, musicians, priests, media lawyers, artists, expeditioners and mountaineers who answered my questions.

But the whole thing, I have kept to myself, done entirely alone.

Words in, words out

To begin with, I worried it would never get big enough. I had to change from short-form to long-form thinking (here’s a post about that).

For a while, I was pleased any time the wordcount went up. In the late drafts, once I knew what it was, I was relieved to see it drop again.

Under a crazy spell

In these finishing months, I have been a diligent writer and a negligent author-publisher. I’ve kept up with news about ways to stay visible and leads to pursue. I’ve made to-do lists. And I have not done them.  The book needed my undivided attention and I could not imagine doing that other stuff, or how I had ever done it before.

But now it’s like a craze is passing. A sense of other priorities is returning.

It’s been like beginner dating

In the beginning, I was eager for comparison titles. Who were the readers who might get it? I looked for comparisons, according to themes, locations, inciting incidents. They were most unsuitable.  Very well, it would be a misfit, so I wrote in a state of defiance, like a bolshy teenager. Now it’s become a recognisable shape after all, different from my expectations. I know where it might find friends.

I can break my reading diet

A developing book is fly paper. Any idea, style, mood might stick to it, and particularly from other books. See here for my detailed post about what I read while I’m writing.

Now, I can choose books for pure interest.

More to come

It’s not finished. There will be much to refine. but compared with what I’ve already done, the remaining work will be small. Details will change. Technicalities, repetitions. unclarities. plot goofs, realities I need to make more real. Layers that need more sparkle – or less. emphases that need to be adjusted. But it is now what it is. All changes will help it do that better.

Making new humans

There are people who compare the writing of a book to motherhood. I’m not a mother so I won’t appropriate that comparison,  but I find I relate to the singleminded purpose that develops through a pregnancy. In this way, making a novel seems like making a new human. except I have made at least seven with hearts to inhabit, and several more who will test them. No wonder it’s been intense.

Empty nest

I am missing those characters. They are not completely lost to me, of course. I may have to adjust them. Later, the production phases will require that I read and reread anyway. But I miss that I might have no more to discover about them, no more to give or take away from them, because that was one of the pleasures of knowing them. Perhaps it’s good that I am not a parent. (There’s more about how to parent your characters here.)

Heart in mouth

Now it’s ready to be tested. A tightrope moment. Best not to look down.

It’s not over yet.

But it feels like it is.

Thanks for the pic Gusaap on Pixabay

PS There’s loads about organising a rewrite (or several) in my workbook

PPS More on editing fast, editing slow… here’s what’s been happening in my creative world this month