The accidental novel
I’ve just finished a novel (#17 if anyone is keeping count). I didn’t mean to. Not the finishing bit, that was a given. But the novel part of that equation was not intentional. In November last year I finished the first draft of my second Caborn & Reeves novel which came in at a ridiculous 145K. I had a whole host of pieces I needed to edit, but I had an itch which needed to be scratched. A novella. A quick, fun story about statues randomly appearing in a Leicestershire field. No one knows why. No one knows what they’re for. I had an idea of the ending. It was a story which was begging me to write it, It was supposed to be quick. Thirty thousand words. Over by Christmas and then in January I’d get back to my substantial editing backlog. But I got bogged down with the day job and so I didn’t get as much writing done as I wanted. By the start of December I was on 23K but only added 2,000 during the whole month. Still, I was due to go on holiday in February and that seemed a good target to aim for. Clear the decks. Start editing when I returned from Northumberland. February was not a good month for writing: I’d only added 8,000 words by the time I was due to go away. That pushed me over my 30K target, but something weird was happening. That quick thirty thousand novella stretched and stretched. March was a complete blowout – novel/novella wise. Not a single word added. Some of that was due to the publicity requirements for my new novella: “One of the Dead.” In April and May I buckled back down and pushed through to the end. But my little 30K distraction had mushroomed into a 70K novel. Now the first draft is done, I can add it to that editing backlog which has not got any smaller during the time it’s been neglected. But I have my list of my priorities for the rest of the year. Edit! Edit! Edit! This morning I was thinking about creating a file on my laptop which pops up a message as soon as I log in: You may not create any new fiction until you have… (insert targets here!) Except. This morning. I had an idea for a story. It’s only a little thing. Just a few thousand words. I mean. What harm could that be?
