The home straight by Keren David

There are many stages in the writing of a first draft. The initial excitement (‘This is going to be easy!’)  The baffling first steps (‘I’m not actually certain about anything’), the bit in the middle where you go round and round in circles adding in chapters, deleting others and feeling as though you are getting nowhere (‘Why, why, why did I want to write this book in the first place?’)

When I say ‘you’, obviously I mean ‘me’. There are people, I am sure -  I even know some of them -  who can write a book in a measured, sensible, step-by-step fashion. They are the sort of people who can run marathons or give up sugar or have super tidy houses. I yearn to be like them. I even kid myself that I could be like them. I started this book with an outline and a chapter plan. But it never quite works like that.

Suddenly  (at around chapter 19) I realise that I need a new character entirely, plus her family, to be introduced much earlier in the book. That done, I proceed cautiously, only to realise (around chapter 28) that the introduction of a chubby cat into the narrative in chapter 3…and thereon…would greatly aid the argument between two sisters a few hundred pages later. Should Mum (as I’d thought) be the one to take the kids on a certain journey…or would it be better if it were Dad? 

This process of circling back on myself feels like building a house, then constantly knocking it down and starting it again (and it reminds me that when we had a new kitchen put in a few years back I chose to have a new book shelf rather than a broom cupboard, a decision I curse every time I trip over the homeless vacuum cleaner, ie three times a day at least.

And of course there are the days when nothing much happens. When the characters hide from you. When anything...internet memes, long articles about Albania, football matches on TV....seem more fascinating than your work in process. And of course there is the Day Job, which often turns into the morning, evening and weekend job too. 

But the end! My favourite bit of the process. Light glimmers at the end of the tunnel (or at the edge of the forest, because tunnels are too straightforward for me). I have climbed a mountain and now I am running down the other side. The fog has cleared and I can see clearly. Everything fits into place. The chapters (vaguely similar to my original chapter plan) are writing themselves. Sound the church bells! Set off the fireworks!

This is the stage that I reached slightly earlier today. Forgive my euphoria. My book is nearly finished ( albeit months later than I had promised). Only four or five more chapters to go. I’m on the home straight, and I am loving it.

And the best bit? None of it is final. There's still the editing process to come.