Month: March 2018

Why is Writing the First Draft of a Novel So Hard?

/ FionaMoMitchell / 2 Comments

Gazing out of the window. Eating cheese. Star jumps. Looking at pictures of cute dogs. These are just some of the things I’ve been doing to avoid my first draft.

I’ve got high hopes for my third book. I want to create loveable, three-dimensional characters that are completely different to the ones that have appeared in my first two novels.

But so far it’s been like chiselling a channel through rock while wearing a pair of steamed-up glasses; it’s hard graft, slow-going and I can’t see all that far. I’ve armed myself with a plan because that works best for me, but who the hell is my main character? I know what she looks like and I’ve got a list of her traits, but how does she speak? How does she feel? What kind of deodorant does she wear, if, in fact, she wears any at all?

Just to remind myself I can do it (so can you), I looked back at the first draft of my second novel called The Swap which I’ve polished to a sheen and is now in the hands of my editor at Hodder. What a relief it was to see that the first draft was rough, clunky and uncertain.

One of the characters was having an affair with a male nurse, but by the final draft wasn’t. There was an entire subplot that I was chest-puffingly proud of until I realised it made no sense whatsoever. The tenses were jumbled, and it’s clear one of my main characters remained a stranger to me for quite some time. She started life as a Victoria, had a stint as a Kate, then transformed into a Tess, and a Tess she has stayed.

So I’m clinging to the hope, – no, let’s be bold, the belief! – that although the 7,000 words I’ve written so far are all in the wrong order, I will end up with something good. I’ve just got to let go and write, not stultify myself by thinking this has to be brilliant. First drafts are meant to be crap after all. So I’ll push on my steamed-up glasses again and keep writing through the labour pains. I’ll just have another quick look at Twitter first.

 

Holding pic by Hermes Rivera@hermez777 via Unsplash

The Best Thing about Being Published

/ FionaMoMitchell / 3 Comments

The very best thing about being published is seeing my book in libraries across the world. I’ve glimpsed it on library shelves in Australia and South Africa, and this latest picture comes from a reader in South Devon who loved The Maid’s Room so much she donated it to her local library.kfZ_FxWt.jpg-large

It’s a fantastic feeling knowing my book will be borrowed by people who might love it, and if they don’t – they can simply return it and borrow something else.

I’ve written lots about where the idea for The Maid’s Room came from, the anger that made me write, but its true beginnings came from going to libraries. My mum and dad took me to our local library regularly when I was a child. It was a place to be free, sitting in the alcoves reading, and selecting dozens of books to take home. It was here that I caught not just the reading bug, but the writing one too – if Jilly Cooper could do it, if Judy Blume could, maybe I could too. I buried my head inside books and when I emerged, I’d scribble poems, diary entries, plays.

I kept on going back to the library for more. I found ideas, information, glorious escapism, the belief that things could be different. I cried, I fell in love; I found empathy, nuance, and kindness.

When I left home, the vast library at Sussex University became my frequent haunt – struggling through literary theory, becoming addicted to Toni Morrison, smoking in the basement cafe.

After university, my library visits stopped altogether. I didn’t have that much money, so I didn’t buy that all that many books. No surprises then that my early twenties were an unhappy time in my life – I read little, and as a result stopped looking outwards so much; I became self-obsessed.

Things changed when I became a journalist – writing almost every day and journeys to work filled by reading. When my daughter was born, I joined a library again, helping to build her imagination and keeping mine alive.  It was good, essential even, to get out of the house and be among books and people.

When I moved to Singapore in 2009, and decided that this was it, no more messing around, I really was going to write a book, Queenstown Public Library gave me wings. I put so many empty slots into that creative writing shelf on the second floor. I checked them all out – Writing a Novel and Getting Published for Dummies;  90 days to Your Novel – (hell, it took me a lot longer than that).

After years of false dawns and endless perseverance, Hodder & Stoughton published my book in November last year. My childhood library – Barham Park – gets a mention in my acknowledgements. Like so many libraries, the council closed it down, but thanks to a group of a determined campaigners, another library has opened nearby, albeit one run by volunteers.

When I saw The Maid’s Room in my local library for the first time recently – cover facing outwards, not just the spine – I was giddy with excitement. People might actually borrow it, I thought; they might experience disgust, empathy, love, the idea that things can change. I stood there for a while just staring at my book. And when I returned a few days later, someone had taken it out. To see my book in the library was wonderful, but to see it gone better still.