Mumble.

My current manuscript for the sequel to Queen of the World is at 51,000 words. I’ve been writing pretty much every day. I’m proud of the amount of work I’ve done – the writing began about four weeks ago – but I still sometimes wonder if I could do more. Being honest I probably could, but even now my brain is fried and my imagination comes in dribs and drabs. Writing is still fantastic, of course. There’s still that kick of falling into a scene and letting the words spill out. I guess as time goes on it’ll be easier and I’ll fall into a rhythm without as much effort. But that 51,000 seems like it should be another five figures on top. Which is nuts, really. I have some people on my Twitter page who are able to write ten thousand words a day. I managed that once. To finish the first draft of Queen of the World I wrote 12,000 words from 10am to 2am. When I’d finished I felt like I was drunk.

Stress is a factor for me, more than I perhaps realised early on. I’m trying to juggle various things in my life – I want to move back to Norway instead of sitting in my old bedroom in Essex, I want to get a job which allows me to live with my fiancée, I want to have a plan so that I can actually feel stable for once instead of living from a month-by-month basis – and it all impacts on my work. If I’m in a good mood I can hammer out four thousand words in an afternoon and then happily spend the rest of it watching films and playing games. Sometimes if I’m tired, or worrying about something, then it’s a crawl to even make a few hundred. It sounds a bit lame, like the struggling artist perception of needing to be in the zone, and I’m aware of that. If I was working as a plumber or in a warehouse I couldn’t phone in sick on the basis that I had things on my mind. I’d get laughed into unemployment. But since writing is technically a self-employed job, sometimes you have to kick your own arse and say ‘C’mon. Just get to work and stop being a dick.’

Thankfully, I find editing much easier. I received another section of revision from my editor, Sara, which I read in one sitting and applied the basics of into the Queen of the World draft. The comments and suggestions were just as helpful as before, and I’m starting to get a clear picture of my strengths and flaws as a fiction writer. One section involving a supporting character was absolutely mauled, but instead of upsetting me I actually got inspired and sat up in my chair thinking ‘Ok, so how can I fix this? Do I need to edit or rewrite? Is it even necessary?’

To my delight, when I sent out the final(ish) draft to some friends and peers, all of the critiques were very positive in their praise and any suggestions for change were pretty minor. Character names, uses of words, descriptions and the like. It was a hell of a morale boost and I did get a lot of useful information about the story, but I’d never experienced what it was like to having something directly pointed out as not being as good as it could be. So for my editor to pull out a part and say ‘This really isn’t as strong as the preceding chapters’ was like a jolt to the system, and one I really enjoyed. Getting my arse kicked is going to help much more than it’ll harm. (Though please don’t savage the rest of the book, Sara!)

That’s about it for now, really. I’m paying a visit to Norway on Friday which with a bit of luck will become permanent, so I’m passing the time with writing, drinking coffee and listening to Pearl Jam. I’ll update again in a few days with an article-thing I’ve been toying with.