The end is in sight ... sort of

Sometimes when I hit a bit of a low point, like today, I need to think about how good the end is going to be. I can't wait until I've finished the first draft - it will be so satisfying to have the book there, complete, in black and white, all ready to be painstakingly picked over (and probably significantly changed, but still).

I'm also looking forward to seeing it published. I try not to think about it too much - again, my superstitious fear of jinxing - but I am excited about seeing it in proper book form, out in the world.

So, I'm going to go away and try and visualise some of these things (and not eat Creme Eggs, which is how I dealt with feeling overwhelmed the other day). Even on the days when it feels like I'm wading through a swamp, I'm making progress. I know I am. And when it's finished, it's going to be great.

Let them eat cake

Today I have done very little actual writing. Perhaps five hundred words. I have, however, done a lot more plotting out of future chapters. It feels like a big tangly mess at the moment, but I know it will get better (that's what I'm telling myself). I feel like I need to take a bit of time to look at where I am, read over what I have so far and smooth it out. I made a cake this afternoon (which turned out burnt, but that's another story), and while I was creaming the sugar and flour and eggs together I was thinking about how I need to do the same thing with the novel - smooth all the bits and pieces and different chapters together so I have a good, even mixture before I (metaphorically speaking) pop it into the oven and turn it into a proper cake. This is where the metaphor falls apart a bit, because the real cake was great in the middle but charred around the outside, and I really don't want my novel to be like that. If it's even possible for a novel to be charred around the edges. I can't see how that would be a good metaphor for anything.

On jinxing

I don't talk much about the actual content of the book I'm writing, because I'm highly superstitious and feel that to give away any details would be to jinx the whole project. I don't even talk about it to my husband in any detail. The only person who has read any of it and knows what it's about is my advisor, and I'd like to keep it that way.

There are a few things that I'd like to elaborate on, though. It is a novel based on my childhood in Zimbabwe. It's not autobiographical exactly, but a lot of autobiographical stuff does creep in because, well, I grew up there and the protagonist's path is very similar to my own. It is by no means a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (woman) though. The narrator almost disappears into the story, and I haven't even given her a name. It is more important to me to record the country I grew up in at the time I grew up in it. It is a place that does not exist any longer, sadly ... as you will know if you follow the Zimbabwean news at all.

So there you go.

I have published one book before - a fantasy novel for children. I intended it to be a trilogy, and completed the second book (and a significant portion of the third) before the political troubles got dramatically worse and the dollar devalued. This was horrible for everyone in Zimbabwe, but one side effect was that the cost of producing books skyrocketed, as did their price. I don't know how well the book would have done if the situation had remained stable, but as it was book sales dropped hugely and the publisher wasn't really able to put a lot of energy and money into promoting it. Last time I checked, copies of the book were selling for Z$80,000, but that was quite a while ago. A frozen chicken costs almost three million dollars at the moment, I think, so I'm assuming the book price will be even more ridiculous now. Hey, at least I'm a millionaire somewhere.

Anyway, after that I finished a couple of fantasy novels. There was one that teetered on the brink of publication for a while, and got some good comments, but in the end that didn't come to anything. I'm glad it didn't, now, because I've improved a lot since then and I would really like the book I'm working on to be the first one published under my name (in the first world!).

Speaking of which, I'd like to squeeze in a few more minutes of work before making dinner.