... on the very first day of writing the novel I've been writing sporadically since I was 19. It's always hard: that collision between expectation - 1500 words in the morning - and reality - 925 hard-fought words by 2 pm.
I've been both excited and daunted by sitting down with the novel again, especially after so long (first thing: remembering to sub "tongue sandwiches" for "lamingtons" in one Case History). I stopped writing in August 2006, when I handed in the excerpts for my thesis - my computer was stolen in the middle of a backup in September and I lost pretty much everything.
Then, a week after Leela was born, when I'd been contacted by a (my now) UK agent, and scrambled to write something in time for June or July, when I was planning on returning to London for my graduation (and to meet said agent).
I somehow managed about 5 000 words in a couple of weeks, writing when I could between teaching, finishing a 50 000 word ghost-written book, and feeds. But what I did manage to write was better than I'd expected - almost as I'd imagined it might be when I first started writing at 19.
Since then, it seems life's been so busy, I've neither had time to write the novel nor to write this blog. Even this year, with its early share of intrigue and heartache, has already passed two weeks before knowing it.
I'd originally thought I'd start writing in December, but the swathe of trips and loose-end-tying over November ran into the holidays. I did a lot - I had to. I'm the kind of writer who will rush to clean the lintels or repack teachests if there's any possibility they'll postpone the writing for a little while. So I bought a filing cabinet, starting culling all the clippings I'd shoved into boxes these past six years, tidied up iTunes, sorted out my photos, sold my Temptation prizes on ebay, organised myself as much as I could before the next impending start day of 14 January 2008.
Today is that day - and the clippings remain unfiled (though the folders are labelled). I'd had a strange, unsettling experience yesterday, almost walking right into my step-sister, whom I haven't spoken to or seen for nearly three years. All night my dreams curdled by unpleasant memories, stirred up after so long. But partly anxiety about today - starting something I'd never thought I'd ever be able to do. I'd always said I could only write when I didn't have to worry about money. Of course, being an unemployed, unpublished writer, that was an easy way out. Now, with money in the bank, I have no excuse: I just have to write. I know that - and despite being in a beautiful home, with a supportive partner and a set-up I never thought I'd ever have, it isn't any easier than when we had nothing. I still have to write.
I exaggerate (hey, I am a writer!). The first day's always hard: trying to work out where to make the first cut, re-exploring an imaginative topography that's become alien in your absence. Like returning to the garden of a fondly remembered home, finding the weeds have spattered shadows everywhere, and discovering all the tools in the shed at the bottom fence are rusty and blunt. Of course, as you get "into the swing of it", your arms become limberer, your back stops aching so much, the shears and shovels lose their splinters, become sharp with use, the weeds fall away, corners blossom with light.
But that first, aching, back-breaking day!
Today, I re-read the parts I wrote in back in March last year. They still seem to work, though of course there's a layer of first draft repetition and aimlessness that needs to be trimmed. It paces well, though I'm also unsure of the direction I want to take with the characters and the plot for each section. I have a figure of about 20 - 30 000 per main narrative, with a further 25 000 for the case histories and possibly about 15 000 for the framers. I'd need to be concise and quick: I want the story to develop as Chatwin or Garcia Marquez might: distilling a bildungsroman into 5 or 10 000 words, leaving the last ten thousand for the common plot. I also need to work out whether I keep the Australian parts magic-realist and the Indian parts realist - I'm inclined to this, though the Australian sections at this point seem too realistic: his mother Martha coming across equally charming and criminal, with none of the guilessness about her I liked in earlier (and less thought-out) drafts.
I've been doing lots of preparatory reading and research, especially about criminals and eccentrics in Sydney. I have a clearer idea about who I want Argyle Andrews to be, even if he may appear inchoate in the narrative (as he should be). However, there's a streak of nastiness in every criminal - how do I resolve that mendaciousness and ruthlessness in Argyle and his mother? I'll keep writing to 10 000 then review, I suppose, aiming for a review every two weeks as I go, not going too far ahead without editing and cutting back.
Today, though, I managed to write those painful 925 words after re-reading the Argyle section (5 000 words) - another Case History, which I know is too easy to do, but got me going, especially in the voice of the father. But I also realise now that the best CH's are the short ones: I'll aim for no more than 1 500 each to keep to the anticipated length of 25 000, a couple of hundred each here and there.
So tired now! I kept telling myself I'd try and exercise - Philip Roth walks four miles a day to keep fit - but I don't know when I'd manage it. I was up at my desk at 8 am, but didn't actually write anything till 10.30. And with Leela waking up at 3 lately, when would I get to go?
Excuses, I know. But now, I don't want to walk or run. I just want to sleep. A tidy pile of clippings lying, waiting.
Word Count: 927
