Celebrate

My novel is a year old!

Photo by Lan Gao on Unsplash

A year ago this month, I started writing my novel.

You can read about me thinking about writing it HERE

I had done months of research before that — local history, the Crimean War, Victorian women, archives, graveyards, Russia, Suffolk, family trees. In some ways, all of that was easier than beginning.

Beginning felt huge.

Then I started, and within a few weeks I was completely obsessed.

I gave myself the deadline of finishing Draft One by my birthday and somehow wrote around 100,000 words in about ten weeks. It was messy and overlong and exciting and completely consuming. I thought about the book when I woke up and when I went to sleep. I went for walks and came back with scenes. I thought I’d research for “for five minutes” and resurfaced two hours later.

Then came the strange shock of reading it back.

The first draft that had felt brilliant while I was writing it suddenly had holes in it. Whole characters needed more depth. Chapters were in the wrong place. Important things were missing. Some scenes went on too long; others ended too quickly.

Since then, it has been draft after draft after draft.

Each one has taught me something different.

I have learned that I love the early stages — the research, the plotting, the character work, the feeling of discovering what the story might become.

I have learned that I love writing a first draft because it is all energy and instinct and momentum.

And I have learned that editing is much slower and much harder than I expected. It can make me doubt myself daily. It can feel as though I am making things worse instead of better.

But then I reach the end of another draft and realise the book really is getting stronger.

This week I finished Draft Five.

I thought I was nearly done. Instead, I realised I need a Draft Six too. And a seven after that.

Apparently, this is how novels work. You think you are polishing, and then you suddenly decide to rewrite Chapter One.

Still — a year in, I have a book. Much better than an idea for a book!

I described writing the first sentence HERE. It’s changed over the drafts, but in my mind, it will always be the first sentence. The words that got me started.

That feels worth celebrating.

My Novel Year

I’m a novelist and somatic life coach, working with writers, creatives, and anyone wanting to bring more creativity into their lives.

If you’d like to follow my progress through My Novel Year – as I work on Kezzia, my dual-timeline novel set between Victorian Britain and present-day Suffolk – please subscribe.