My book journey…
Ever since I learned to read, I have devoured books—but I never once imagined I would write one. And even though my professional life has taken me down all sorts of paths — from music journalist to government speech writer — I still didn’t think that penning a book was something I could do.
After all, what on earth would I write about? Writing a novel was something other people did, not me. I read novels, not wrote them.
It wasn’t until I had enough experience under my belt that I began to think seriously about writing a book. But I still didn’t have anything to write about. Or at least something I could stretch into a novel. It took several more years before the beginnings of an idea began to form in my mind, the possibility of a story; a story I was willing to share with the world. And then I began to think: well maybe I should try and see where it takes me. And if it doesn’t take me anywhere, then at least I will have tried.
I have always been interested in the concept of family and what it means to different people: the joys and complexities; the feuds and rivalries; the sense of belonging, the loyalty (whether unconditional or not) and the feeling of displacement when families fall apart. I wanted to explore this through the trajectory of one man’s journey. And I wanted the journey to be epic—across the course of a century.
Once I had a title and an outline for my book, crafting those first sentences wasn’t as daunting as I’d imagined. As with all works in progress, my first paragraph went through many iterations, finally finding its home in the middle of my first chapter. I found that my words flowed easier if I wrote organically, rather than prescriptively. In fact, I ended up writing the middle of the book and elements of the end before I completed the first part rather than writing in a chronological manner. The best part was the sense of achievement I felt when I completed a chapter. And then another…and another…and so it went on. Once I finished my first draft, I knew I not only had to keep going but that there was no going back. I was determined to finish what I’d started.
Of course, it wasn’t as simple and straightforward as that. There were stops and starts, distractions, doubts and a good dollop of writers block in between. But once I had a daily writing routine in place, I gave myself a deadline in which to complete my first draft: one year. It seemed a reasonable enough deadline — neither unrealistic, certainly achievable — and it helped that I began my novel just as the pandemic unfolded. With the world in lockdown and nowhere to go, I really had no excuses. I read voraciously while working on my manuscript, including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Elizabeth Strout and Anne Enright and these authors and their wonderful stories helped to influence, inspire and shape my own writing style.
It wasn’t always easy to stay focused and disciplined, especially when I met an impasse and writers block reared its ugly head, but having a routine helped and a daily word count to aim for. So how many words did I actually manage to write each day? Well, when it was a good day (and this was always measured by the number of words I wrote) I exceeded my goal of 1000 words—sometimes reaching the heady heights of 1500 words. At the other end of the scale — the not so good days — I would barely reach 500 words. Whether it was a good day or a bad day, I tried not to beat myself up over it. It’s just the way it was.
It took two and a half years to finish my novel from beginning to end. This included approximately six drafts and the process of collating feedback from those who proved invaluable in helping to shape both my writing and my story. It was only when I had a completed manuscript — several drafts in — that I thought to myself: Maybe, just maybe, I might try and publish this.