starting from scratch

​Starting a new book is always a great feeling. It is so effortless as you ease into the first chapters, the word count creeping up and up and up, without it often seems, any effort at all. It happens rarely, unless you are the type to start and stop projects, or perhaps if you write short stories. For me it happens once, maybe twice a year, and it is a moment I always relish. Because the truth is that the process of writing this new book will never be easier than it is today.

The beginning is a time characterised by simplicity. The characters are two dimensional, easy going types, who don’t demand too much. I’m not one of those method writers who think of their characters as real people, but I’m also not averse to the odd conversation here and there which starts something along the lines of, ‘But what do you want to do now?’ or an exchange similarly of that nature. So I can move them around like pawns, creating the early landscape of the novel. They never fight back, and nothing ever feels wrong. Right now, whatever I decide is OK. The straightforward nature of a first draft in the earliest stages is, quite frankly, intoxicating.

At this stage it feels entirely possible to crack out close to 3000 words in a couple of hours and feel blissfully confident about what lies ahead. I make mental calculations, presuming a manuscript will be finished within the month, less than that if things go really well. The likelihood of that happening in reality is slim to non-existent, but at this point it feels not only entirely reasonable, but guaranteed. I make these same incorrect assumptions every time.

Writers are as a species, eternal optimists. It’s only possible to sit down and write these early chapters because of it. There are few jobs where one must work for months on end, sometimes under improbably uncomfortable conditions, where your physical and mental health declines and your diet becomes a concentrated mix of toast and cornflakes and coffee, without the promise of ever getting paid or selling a single copy. Perhaps the illusion of self-importance or relevance carries us through, the immovable belief that we are creating something that people will like, that will resonate months or years down the line when it comes to selling it to an editor. But then again it might just be the magic of this first draft, because there really is a certain kind of enchanted wonder as the world grows all around you, until one day you go from a quiet solitary office to spending your days in a world, surrounded by people, histories, and emotions entirely of your own creation. There is always a point in the road, close to completion, where things begin to get easier, but 90% of the journey from this point on is uphill.
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So soon enough this sense of wonderment will fade, around the same sort of time as the cornflakes intake grows exponentially. It will get harder. For me it usually hits somewhere between the 20,000 and 30,000 word mark. By my earlier estimations that should be by the end of the week, but it’ll be more likely late February. Until then, I’m just going to enjoy it.