Sunday 3 May 2020

How NOT to be a writer

It has been a long time since my last post.  Seven years, to be exact.  Much has changed in my life since the previous post, such as a stable teaching job and home ownership with associating interests like cooking.  One thing has not changed: I'm still no closer to achieving my dream to be a published author.

The progress over the silent years can be summarised through a series of snippets from letters of introduction that I write for new school groups each year:

September 2014: "I was busy writing a new story in the summer, and managed to reach 19,000 words. That might sound like a lot but it’s barely a quarter of the novel!"

September 2015: "This summer, I managed to write about 18,000 words of a children’s fantasy novel, taking it to about 37,000 words."

September 2016: "This summer, I managed to write about 24,000 words of a children’s fantasy novel, taking it to about 61,000 words."

September 2017: "This summer, I managed to write about 28,000 words of a children’s fantasy novel, taking it to about 89,000 words."

At this point, I should note, I am starting to worry about the length, as shown in a follow-up clause: "...but it's only about three-quarters complete!"

September 2018: "This summer, I managed to write 37,000 words, in order to complete a children’s fantasy novel that I’ve been working on for five years. The entire book is a bit too long right now (126,000 words), which is longer than the third Harry Potter book, so now I need to edit it to make it shorter!"

September 2019: "This summer, I have been editing one of my books, because I need to make it shorter before I send it to publishers. It’s a fantasy story called Spirit Bound and the first draft was longer than the third Harry Potter book. So far, I’ve edited the first fifth of the novel and have cut 4,500 words, so there’s still a lot of work to do!

This final letter doesn't truly reflect the level of despair I felt at the beginning of that summer when I realised, on reading the entire novel, how much significant structural work needed to be done in order to make the book more akin to its "true" conception.  A decision was made in 2014 to introduce an antagonist, which resurrected this novel and allowed me to keep working on it to the end of the completed draft.  In that sense, it was a good decision.  But even as I wrote it, I knew the antagonist came across as superficial and would need to be removed.  The bloating of the word count simply solidified this conviction (for those of you not familiar with the YA market, the upper word count for first time writers is 90K).

It was incredibly demoralising to reach the end of the summer holidays in 2019 and to know that I was only a fifth of the way.  To know that it was likely to take me, if I continued at that rate, another four years before I had a draft I might feel happy to present for micro-editing.

I tried to commit more time to my novel.  In the autumn term, I determined to free up at least one day a week to my writing.  I succeeded, to a certain extent, and managed to rewrite another 20,000 words.  However, as the spring term arrived, the precarious balancing act started to tip.  I dedicated too much time to writing in the Christmas holiday and, as a result, struggled to keep on top of the neglected planning for the spring term.  I abandoned the Sunday of writing but even this didn't free up enough time to feel 'on top' of things again.  I began to grow sick, from stress and insomnia.

Then something strange happened.

Coronavirus.

In a matter of weeks, as death tolls around the world began to creep up, the UK government took the decision to close schools and ask teachers to work remotely.  Overnight, my work load more than halved.  To explain, you should understand how the work can be divided into three main areas: planning lessons, delivering lessons and marking work.  With delivery gone and marking (sadly) dramatically reduced (as few students were submitting work for feedback), I could actually finish the school day at the normal time, rather than working into the evening and all weekend on planning, which for me, has always taken almost as long as delivery.

Suddenly, I could rewrite about 1000 words a day.  By the end of that first week of lockdown, the rewrite had reached 51,000 words.  I believed the final count would be somewhere between 90-100,000, and so, unlike most people, who anxiously watched the news wondering when the lockdown might ease, I watched for the opposite reason, knowing that if it could just last for about seven weeks, I would have enough time to finish the rewrite.

The associated guilt, I should add, was huge (and still is), to know that I was benefiting from something so terrible, which was (and still is) causing so much loss and grief to so many people, whereas I was feeling more well than I had for this entire year, simply because I could breathe.

This brings us to the present moment.  We are now at the end of the sixth week of the lockdown and I have completed the novel rewrite at 101,000 words.  It is still too long, but I feel the new version fixes the structural problems of the first draft.  I also believe there is room to cut 10% when the prose is sharpened, which will hopefully take it to nearer the upper YA limit.

Steven King wrote in his memoir about how he abandoned his teaching career because it was incompatible with his writing needs.  I can understand this.

All I ever need is time.  The last six weeks (in spite of the guilt) have been idyllic: long periods of creative energy punctuated with walks into the countryside (around our surprisingly rural home).

Moving into the next phase might be more manageable, even when the lockdown does ease.  Editing is a less intensive process, and easier to compartmentalise.  As the restrictions start to lift, I might be able to manage to dedicate an hour a day to the editing process (which involves renewing my membership at the online writing circle Critique Circle).

One day I will resolve this tension between earning money and writing.  For now, this is definitely not how to be a writer.