Writing

Work in progress. Slow progress.

Writing a novel is surely making me a better reviewer. And a kinder one.

This process is hard. Without the time luxury to write in large chunks, I fit in hours or two when I can. Which has produced not quite 20,000 words in just under a year. Already I am sick of the thing: the plot, the places. Some of the characters. I can see from here the dead wood that will have to go later, the tangled vines I am writing just so they will get hauled down again.

Oh well.

2 thoughts on “Work in progress. Slow progress.

  1. If it’s any consolation, the 20,000 word mark of draft one has regularly been the ugliest part of the entire process for me. For at least my first four novels (of 12 to date) it was the point where I thought the whole thing was laboured, false, turgid and doomed. So then I took an afternoon off and the next day it looked less dreadful (it couldn’t have looked more dreadful) and I found my way back in, did some fixing and some new writing and, in the end, no one’s ever said those novels fell in an unfixable hole at the 20,000 word mark.

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