It was my birthday on Friday. I turned thirty-six.
I’ve briefly flicked back and read a few birthday posts from years past. If I was a good blogger this would be where I link to these and chuckle over their joy (or melancholy – I tend to oscillate between the two at the thought of another year gone), but I’m not going to do that because I haven’t been a very good blogger lately. I’ve been writing.
You see, the above photo was taken on Saturday, the day after my birthday, and is actually why I’ve made the time to sit down today and write this post. I’ve been re-reading and re-writing the manuscript for a novel I completed over ten years ago. It has been many years since I pulled it out and I wanted to look at it with fresh eyes, and this is what I’ve been working on in recent months.
I’m a much different writer than I was a decade ago – back then, I was happy for people to read rough drafts of my work. (I never, ever do this now.) Anyway, at the time, I printed out the manuscript for a family member to read and give feedback on. What I didn’t know, thankfully, and not until much later, was that this manuscript was passed around to certain members in my extended family who also wanted to check it out. This story came up again when Crying in the Car had its NSW launch in Newcastle last year. I might have even mentioned here, how one of my aunts asked me, “When is that fantasy book coming out? We liked that one”. The emphasis on the ‘liked’ is my own, but the truth is, I liked it too. It’s been in my head for so long, I wanted to use this time to be truly honest with its prospects. If it was beyond salvage, then at least I had made sure and wouldn’t need to wonder anymore.
So on Saturday, when Adam and the kids were out canoeing on the river, even after visitors arrived, I excused myself, sat in bed with the cat at my feet, and finished the book. Nothing had been this important to me for a while, especially considering I was a week behind my self-set deadline.
And here’s the thing: I still like it.
There’s lots of work left to do. I took out 9,000 words, but many more need to go back in. I wanted to see how the plot held up, whether the energy of the narrative was be enough to carry through another two books (it’s the first in a trilogy), whether the characters were plausible, where I had been lazy, what needed fixing – and what was good. I needed that too!
I was still on the bed when the kids returned and asked Riley to take this shot just after I finished. What I see on my face, under the smile, is the satisfaction that many writers will recognise: the satisfaction of having finished another stage in a big project. When I’m writing a novel, I feel like I’m handling that sort of goop you can make in science experiments: you punch it hard and it becomes tough and unworkable, but treat it too soft and it runs out from between your fingers as a mess.
I’m somewhere between toughness and mess – and it feels exciting.
Just the way I’d hoped thirty-six would begin. Let’s hope it continues!
