Back in September 2023, just as I was about to embark on turning the first draft of Novel Number 6 (N6) into a completely rewritten second draft, I wrote this in my blog:
I have set myself an ambitious target – to produce one chapter per week, starting now, with the aim of finishing at the beginning of March 2024.
In my New Year post, I wrote that I was making such excellent progress on that target that I didn’t feel the need to make it a New Year’s Resolution, because it was something I was definitely going to achieve.
But now the beginning of March has been and gone, and with that deadline well and truly passed, it’s time to address the issue – did I make it?
Well, yes, I did. In fact, my Plan of Action table was completed by 11.02.24, well ahead of schedule. Woohoo!!! But then I decided that the first three chapters (the dreaded first three chapters!) weren’t working, so I went back and rewrote them again. This added a few extra weeks when I couldn’t say it was completely done, but as this was extra work, I will take the credit of finishing on target. And of course, there were still tweaks and additions that I wanted to make. Editing never finishes. If one is not careful, it could go on forever. A second draft is still far from being the final draft. However, the point of this exercise was to get the novel to a state that I was happy to share with other people, which certainly wasn’t the case for the first draft.
The second draft isn’t perfect, but it is much better, and definitely something I would like people to read. The original 31chapters have been reduced to 25, and every single chapter has undergone some rewriting, whether that was just some minor fixing and adjustments or some major new invention. I have slashed pages and pages of waffle and unnecessary backstory, which is always sad to lose, but is now my private knowledge. I made everything much tighter and more coherent, but also built on the themes I wanted to emphasize. I am really pleased with the results, but after so many months of intense work, I have completely lost the ability to judge it from a neutral perspective. Which means one thing – I need to step away and take a complete break from it. Any changes now which might be essential will have to be jotted down in a notebook for future reference. But as of this weekend, I am no longer working on N6.
So now its over to the Beta Readers – ie, my children. After all, I did write it for them. I am actually really excited to think that soon, I won’t be the only one to have read it. After all these years of work, it is finally coming to life. I really don’t know what they’re going to make of it, but that’s out of my hands. Either it works, or it doesn’t. I will need to wait for the feedback before I get a sense of that. And the trouble with young people is that they have very busy lives, with not a lot of time for reading. So I guess I’m going to have to be patient.
In the meantime, I have lots of books to read. I’ve been so disciplined with the writing that I haven’t read very much at all since last summer. Sebastian Barry published a new novel while I was working on N6 and I haven’t read that yet – that and all the other novels sitting on my shelves waiting to be read. And now that spring is making itself known, I might go for some nice long walks and enjoy my countryside home. Plus, it will be nice to spend more time with my family – I don’t set out to deliberately ignore them, but when I get at my desk and start writing, the time just flies by and before I know it, a whole afternoon had gone by. Today, we are going to the cinema to watch Dune 2 – it’s nearly 3 hours long, but I shan’t feel any guilt in giving up so much time for something that is not writing. Today, I shall relax and enjoy doing something different. Well, once this blog is written and posted.
M J Schofield 