Turning it over

Yesterday afternoon after a marathon session--and it was a marathon session with no interruptions permitted and the imbibing of lots of cups of rich, fragrant Puerto Rican coffee, no switching over to the internet at the flick of a button (the peril of having high speed) to check pinging emails or surf fav' sites--I finished the first draft of what is still called America and Me:The first two years.

(I've decided the title stays until I come up with something I feel is the publication title, which will in all probability be in the US first as it's set mostly here. I know. I know what you're thinking. Publishers acquiring the work change working titles all the time. However, I lucked out with A Son Called Gabriel because my US publisher loved it and didn't consider anything else. My second novel, Unusual Steps, will also get to keep its title, but more about what's been happening when I have something concrete to relay.)

It really is so satisfying to enter that final period (full-stop elsewhere) on a manuscript and gaze at the screen and say 'I've finished the first draft.'. It came in at 87,872 words; 31 Chapters and 313 pages. It's also split into three sections--the first and tiniest dealing with London followed by New York and Pennsylvania in a more or less equal split. I'm pleased with it, but know from my experience of working on 'Gabriel' that scenes will be added and deleted. The difference is that I have lots of material to work with.

I am now turning the project over to my subconscious--which'll work behind the scene as I focus my attention on other things--editing, chopping, analyzing and rewriting so that when I take it out again I'll be able to start writing immediately. It took me a while to trust that this is a necessary part of the creative process. I look forward to it, though I'm sometimes accused of being too distracted or 'far away', not enjoying living in the present because my mind is indeed working out issues, toying with alternative words and improving descriptions,etc. and can tune out. One thing I do know is that, during the rewrite, I will give the chapters titles rather than plain old numbers, something I've never before done.

It's been a tremendously positive experience writing about how I came to America and my first two years here. I highly recommend writing about your past to everyone. Life moves so rapidly today, I think we forget to take stock and see where we've been and how people coming into our lives and experience has affected us. I'd forgotten so many of the downright whacky and funny things that have happened to me here and the struggle to assimilate and it's shown me how American I've become.

A word about 75,000 words

Yesterday I reached a critical point in the writing of my first work of nonfiction, the one about my coming to live in America, and have been toying with the idea of publishing an excerpt on the blog.

Anyway, I reached a critical point yesterday and passed the 75,000 word mark. I don't exactly know why 75,000 thousand words is so important, but suspect it's because it would be a pleasingly thick book, a book with heft, if it were to be published tomorrow--the sort of heft that asserts 'I have 270 ragged-edged pages inside for you to feel and I am well worth the $24.95 you'll fork out for me in hardcover.' ($24.95 is a sort of median price for hardcovers here in the US.)

I also know the ending now--the final scene ran in my head yesterday like the speeding ticker tape at the ABC TV studios in Times Square--and the manuscript will come in at around 80,000 words in its rough form.

Of course, word content doth not a quality book make. I know that. That takes good writing and an interesting story, which requires a great deal of drafting and redrafting until one is sick of the manuscript so one doesn't ever want to see the manuscript again, hates and loves and hates and loves the manuscript, sometimes wants to hurl it into a blazing fire because it makes one think one is a shite writer. Oh, and a great book requires a great editor.

But, to get to the love-hate-love stage I must have words, at least 75,000 words. Because then I know I have written a book and I can slash and add and edit with impunity. I can because I do not have to fear facing a blank screen page that cries to be filled. I need to have that knowledge. It's my security blanket.

Now to think up an interesting title because I don't think America and Me cuts it for me any longer.