I am back to editing the novel at last! I’m seeing it afresh again after a break. I even made changes to the first page which surprised me. Soon I will be back to where I left it some weeks back and I hope very much to power on from then until I am done.
So how will I know when I’m finished? For the answer to this question there is no better place to look than Walter Mosley’s – This Year You Write Your Novel – possibly the best book ever on writing. In his opinion the novel can never be perfect, no matter how much editing you do, there is always something which at a later date you will feel could have been better. So the decision to stop is made not when everything is perfect but when you reach the point (after a number of edits/drafts) where you are happy and you can no longer improve what you have beyond fiddling at the margins. If you find yourself fiddling in this way or trying to fix problems and making them worse – STOP. You are finished. Trust your instincts on this one, don’t worry too much, and besides if you have edited it well and it stands up to scrutiny by agents or editors and they take you on – then they will want to help you edit it further.
Mosely also suggests you make a recording of yourself reading the novel aloud. Playing this back will let you hear your characters and their world afresh and help you notice the problems, omissions, mistakes etc. I must admit I have never done this but I do read out loud in an attempt to experience what I’ve written in a new way.
So good luck if you are editing and pat yourself on the back when you reach the end.
IMPORTANT REMINDER – TUESDAY evening at 6pm in Studio 1 Gala Theatre Durham – as part of The Durham Book Fest – myself and others including Wendy Robertson will be talking about writing in prison, what it means to the women of HMP Low Newton – we hope there will be plenty of questions – there will certainly be readings from the prisoners’ work and we will be retiring to the bar afterwards to continue our discussions! Its a FREE event and we hope that people will come not for our sakes but to hear about these invisible women and about the effect writing can have on their lives .
Hope to see you there!
