Do you want to know how you can tell that I’ve finally finished (I mean edits and all) my fourth novel after *winces* eighteen months? Besides a 107,000 word manuscript and a bad back?
If you were a psychologist studying the habits of (some, i.e. me i.e. crap-at multi-tasking)-authors from behind a glass screen) you would know simply by observing that this week – and it’s only Wednesday – I have done the following:
- Clean my bedroom
- Clean my office (which is also my bedroom) hoovering weeks’ worth of toast crumbs from under my swivel chair and removing manky old tea mugs, of which two had the beginnings of a whole new universe in them they’d been there so long.
- Clean my car, a full inside and out Gold valet! (There was an actual mushroom growing in the boot)
- Shaved my armpits
- Done some exercise
- Dyed my hair
- Had a guilt-free coffee with a friend
- Written this blog!
And so…. the end-of-book clean up effort begins
It’s like this at the end of every book I’ve written so far. At the beginning of the book, your life is still fairly balanced (i.e. you do many other things apart from write the book; like socialize (as opposed to attend events and tip wine down your throat) be a proper parent, attend to personal hygiene, pay bills, answer emails. You may even have an exercise programme or take your make-up off before you go to sleep). The deeper into the book you go, the more life becomes weighted towards writing (and away from most other things) until the deadline is upon you and life is not just weighted towards writing the book, but that’s ALL your life consists of. Your car turns into a rubbish dump, your body turns to lard, your child is as sick of your book as you are and your house, well your house (if you still have one and haven’t been repossessed or eaten by Alsatians) is not fit for public viewing.
So, how lovely it feels to have mental space for something other than writing, to resume one’s life, to not bite the head off anyone within a five mile radius, or burst into tears because the toothpaste has run out; to feel like you can be a half-decent mother again and actually play Lego if son so desires rather than stare into middle distance whilst pretending to play Lego, until you just see a face milimetres from yours and a voice shouting MUM. HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING AT ALL??
Ah (sighs contentedly, thinking fondly of how lovely my car outside looks after I was able to remove the rotting wood and the mushroom and the sour-milk-filled Costa cup and give it a once over with the Henry Hoover.)
It’s funny, last weekend I met several other authors for afternoon tea at The Soho Hotel. (Here we are)! 
(because we do that sort of thing ALL the time, honest) and I can’t tell you how much fun it was, but also how heartening it was to realize that I am not alone in my post-book-finishing madness, or the subsequent clean up effort and grandiose big ideas about how life will be WHEN I’ve finished the novel (given, I have to start the next one next week, so really there’s only a window of a few days)
“Oh yes, I spend ages fantasizing about what I’ll do when I finish” said one lovely author, “all the manicures I’ll have, how I’ll get fit, go shopping, write short stories, a comedy, a crime novel, do a triathlon …” (she didn’t actually say that last bit but I KNOW it will have crossed her mind!) It’s like you think you were emerge from this book a superhuman, a different person, someone who is suddenly able to take on the world.
Some of us (including me) at the tea had just delivered a book or finished edits and it was obvious who these writers were, by their slightly sweaty pallor (result of weeks of caffeine dependency and never going outside), and tangential ramblings / general over-excitement at talking to so many other actual human beings rather than imagined ones.
One writer friend said she was worried that she had over-shared or chosen inappropriate conversation for an afternoon tea but I assure you, I didn’t notice, or else I was doing exactly the same, because when you spend so much time alone, in your head, your gauge as to what is reasonable and appropriate gets lost, very quickly. In fact I think the first thing I said when I arrived, before even ‘hello’ was “does anyone have any sort of emollient on them?” (One’s skin can also get very dry after weeks spent in a heater-blasted attic room writing.)
Then there were those who had delivered a little time ago, or were only at the beginning of their new book. These were perfectly relaxed, still in the ‘I have hot water and lemon on awakening and then run 10K and write solidly with no social media activity until 3pm’ zone, which occurs at the beginning stages when you still have all your faculties some control over your life.
I came away thinking that the life of the writer is basically an ongoing New Year’s Resolution-making-and-breaking cycle. You start off all guns blazing “I will never get that stressed / write a novel like that again. Ever!! It’ll kill me! I shall never do sixteen hours straight in bed, let the weight creep on, ignore my children, get in debt, never!” Only several months down the line to find yourself in the same sweaty heap.
Let’s hope this time, I really have learnt my lesson, which brings me onto my next bit: It’s still January and therefore I feel that this post should have some New Year’s Rejuvenation-type theme to it.
I thought I might share with you my New Year’s resolutions, until I realized I don’t have any (I can’t even remember which ones I’ve made, let alone keep them up) and that the only resolutions I did make, were writing ones. So, here they are. Lets’ see how long I go before I fall off the wagon.
Writing Resolutions 2014
- Stop, or at least reduce the use of words and phrases such as: ‘slightly’ ‘basically’ ‘kind of’ and ‘sort of’ (as in “she felt sort of deflated”) when writing. It either is, or it isn’t right? Have more confidence.
- Continue to work on more original ways of expressing fear and panic: “her heart beat furiously inside her” and “she felt her neck run icy cold” are fine, but used too often.
- Start to keep a log book of funny / interesting anecdotes and happenings. You could put these into categories if you were really organized (ways people have met, interesting jobs, embarrassing / comic moments – things like that). Sounds a bit writing-by-numbers but I’ve found that sometimes, especially near the end of the book when you’re exhaustedyou’re your imagination just isn’t cutting it anymore, if you could just look into your special book, ‘steal, like an artist’ as Austin Kleon says, in his brilliant little book! It would be a life saver.
- Stop refreshing, refreshing, refreshing Facebook. Either you’re on it or you’re not: Keep writing in that library with no Internet access.
- PLAN YOUR NOVEL before setting pen to paper do not ‘blind write’ No, no. no. “Working organically” (someone shoot me), is SO last year.
- Try not to write a book about something you know absolutely nothing about. You will have to do research and that will take a lot of time (especially if it’s about several things you know nothing about).
- Do not write at the expense of everything else you do in your life because you will have to pay for it later (double the parking fine, because you didn’t pay the first one within a week, for example…)
- Go to bed earlier. Your writing will thank you for it.
Follow me @katyreganwrites
Like me on Facebook
HOW WE MET, my latest novel is out now
KATY REGAN 