A story is not a story when it's just words on a page. This was clear to me when I first started writing my first novel. I say my first - I'm still working on it but I have many others in the pipeline of my mind (and hard drive of my laptop) that I call it my first. However, it became particularly clear to me that I had to work more on the storyline, thread in some back story and elements that would tie the story together. I had, naively, started years ago by simply typing various ideas and "scenarios" at my computer thinking "I am writing, I am therefore a writer". And although that may have been true, I was not being a good writer, which is ultimately what I aspire to be. Not necessarily a great one, just good, I'd be happy with good.
After some time, I clocked up a good word count and felt I had finished my novel. I started to telling close friends that I had written a novel, all of whom were impressed. But it was they started asking what it was about and if they could read it that I realised that it was far from finished. I was not ready for anyone else to read it, not yet. Only, I had been working on it for so long that I did not know where to begin on the second draft. I felt totally overwhelmed at the prospect of having to work through the bulky A4 now bound manuscript that I put it off and put it off until I signed up to an evening class of "How to write a novel." A going back to basics of how to structure the story and important elements to keep in mind at all times such "Character Questions", beginnings, spacing, plot points etc I devoured the information and ordered the recommended books (which were huge in themselves). I did all the exercises and felt renewed in my own quest to really finish the book.
It still took me time to start on the second draft. Lots of "thinking" went on and I actually let two friends which I trusted implicitly to read the first draft, the awful first draft. I also eventually let my mother read it, drip feeding her chapters at a time (she read English at University, is a travel journalist and is a stickler for good writing - very nerve wrecking!). They confirmed what I had feared and hoped not to be true. There was a lot of work still to be done. But along with the "constructive" criticism were glimmers of hope that they liked the characters and settings and where the story was going. And that was the main issue, which I sort of new myself but until then could not fully admit to myself after the amount of time and amount of pages worked on, that the story still had to get somewhere.
Having spent a lot of time on my "thinking" - and yes, time had to be set aside for this - I sat down and re-wrote sections, pages and chapters. I deleted whole parts and characters that were just filling up the pages. I was weeding out all the gumf and replacing it with what I hoped was more concise and clear descriptions along side plotting the story more accurately.
More time has passed since I let my mother read those first sections of the first draft so I was actually eager for her to read the re-worked version. I could tell that she wasn't all that excited though. Probably thinking that although she was glad I had gone on the course that it had been a long time ago and that writing well is a skill you are born with and can't necessarily learn. I sent over the first few chapters to her for some general feedback...waiting and waiting...days and a couple of weeks went by without a word about it. We had spoken on the phone a few times and emailed about other things but neither of us mentioned "the book". But one day I grew impatient and even if it was going to be worse than the first draft I just needed to know. So I took the plunge and asked her what she thought. "Oh yes, very good. Much better." That was all I needed to know. I was on the right track and I am determined to stay on it. That was at the beginning of the year and I am now sending my mother some of the chapters of the first draft that she hadn't read before (and that I'm still re-working).
I often worry that I simply don't have time to write or think about the things I want to write and yet I have so much I want to put down on paper or on screen. The truth is, I just need to be more organised about my time and if I wake up a bit earlier on a Sunday morning, before the rest of the house, I should creep downstairs and write. Which is what I have done today.
The others are now stirring - so the writing must stop, for now.
