Dying for a fag

After a trip to the highlands and too many months of fannying about and excuses, I have finally started this novel in earnest. I find myself with child and a much needed deadline to complete the first draft. I write 20,000 words I cut 5000 and so it goes, the number of words now needed each week being 3000. This is achievable I tell myself as I word count obsessively. The words come easily, it's finding the stretches of blissful uninterrupted time that evades me. I hate to admit it but Virginia woolf was right, that pram in the hallway does make it bloody difficult to get up those stairs to my Mac of make believe at the top.



And so every Tuesday I have an uninterrupted day to write and so far the words flow as intended. I don't have time to grimace and cringe at my own work and focus on the fact that Jon McGregor said it was 'all good stuff'. These little ego boosts are a lifeline when stuck in the attic room wondering if my time would be far better spent doing the washing up. The trouble with writing , and novel writing in particular, is that it is so bloody hard! You doubt your sanity. Why am I writing a story about a pensioner living in a Peabdy estate in Wandsworth? Its also technically very difficult, keeping track of what you've said, creating a consistent voice, remembering that it will be read as a whole and ensuring that the dramatic pace of the thing grips the reader. It's hellish but in a fantastic and exhilarating way. I have to keep remembering that lots of people could write a novel, they just don't. It is the doing that's the thing and I'm up to my neck in it now.



I am committed, I have invested time and have a room at the top. I have also diagnosed Lilian with a fatal lung disease and cannot simply leave her at the bus stop smoking a cigarette. I've mucked her about a bit too, her son died, he didn't die, she married, she didn't, she had sex with Frank then she didn't. I also have to write Burt for her, the geriatric Lothario with his Garibaldi biscuits. Lilian and Gwen will have such a giggle taking the mickey out of him whilst they eat their fish and chip supper and on that note I'd better ready the plates for mine....