However I have listened to them too much and allowed them to ramble on, as people do in real life. Repetition. We all do it. I must have let them influence me into allowing them to recount the same anecdotes more than twice and once too many. I told my publisher that the novel has 177,500 words. He says that that equates to 680 to 690 pages in a normal paperback format. That creates physical problems with binding, never mind the sheer slog for anyone reading it. I had thought this one was shorter than the last which came out at 537 pages . So I have a severe editing project ahead of me. There is a limit to the amount you can cut. I suspect it will still be a lengthy read.
Because I have some distractions at home, being part time househusband for many years, cooking, washing, shopping, gardening, window cleaning etc, all OK with me, though now my lovely wife has retired, I no longer (in theory) have to have her dinner on the table when she gets home, but I do most days otherwise she crowds me in my little kitchen (designed by her but mainly operated by me.) I know that sounds mean but it isn't meant to be and I'm not. I just enjoy looking after her.
A couple of weeks ago I escaped. I rented a caravan for a week to try to finish the novel with no distractions. It was at Winchelsea Beach in Sussex, on the very bleak Pett Level between Hastings and Rye, last bus to anywhere 5.30 pm, so remote, and quiet in October, just what I needed. Anybody interested in trains? I went from St Pancras on a Hitachi Japanese bullet train to Ashford (39 minutes). It did St Pancras to Stratford International in 6 minutes. Then an ordinary little old fashioned stopping train to Rye, then a bus.
Caravans are brilliant, little boxes fully furnished with everything you need to a high standard and although you are cheek by jowl with lots of other caravans you need never see them or interact with them, and anyway half of them are unoccupied in October. This particular caravan site is next to open fields so open to wildlife. First night I met a fox on my way back from the pub. The next morning I was woken by loud clucking of ducks. I looked out of my front door and there was a duck and a drake and six ducklings gathered round the bottom of my steps clearly expecting to be fed. I fed them. The seagulls took half the bread, driving the ducks to retreat. Of course being a hundred yards from the sea I was not surpised to find we were also plagued with seagulls, but what did surprise me was the rabbits, wild rabbits unafraid of humans. They waited just outside the circle of ducks and ducklings. They also were used to being fed. Later I saw a notice which said "On open ground on this site, beware rabbit holes."
A caravan is a metal box which means it gets very cold at night in October, but it also has lots of windows and if the sun shines, it gets pretty hot in the daytime in October.
I took my laptop and tapped away several hours a day with no distraction other than a cheese sandwich for lunch. And there was no internet, no way I could see whether anybody had emptied my bank account or booked two flights to Hungary using my wife's debit card, whch happened once when she left her handbag unzipped in a shop. I just got on with it. It was lovely.
The internet is a mammoth distraction. I found mysef working at my novel at 9 am. At home it is often nearly 11 am before I have finished checking my emails, looking at my bank account, seeing what everyone is doing on Facebook. Having none of that compulsion I just got on with the writing. It was bliss.
So it is finished, but of course it is not finished at all. I cannot allow it to be 600 pages long. That is ridiculous. Somehow I have to edit 50,000 words out of it. So I have printed it and am editing it, not on screen but on paper, crossing out unnecessary verbiage with a red pen. I got rid of 150 words on page one, so it may be possible to get it down to a reasonable size.
I have now laid it aside for a week while we have our living room decorated. The decoration includes a certain amount of plastering and sanding down, so life is full of dust. I don't do breathing dust if possible, so I have spent some time walking the Thames Path - of which more another day.
