The Sea Garden: proofs

 

A quiet week, once again immersed in The Sea Garden. The US proofs arrived, the final stage before the manuscript becomes a bound book to be published next year. The copy edited version is now laid out as the pages will appear for the reader. This is the last chance to spot mistakes - of plot inconsistencies, fact, spelling and punctuation - and rectify any infelicities.

 

Only the small things, mind. We've gone far beyond the stage of wholesale re-writes. Any great new ideas will have to remain missed opportunities. I find proofreading quite nervewracking precisely because of these constraints: this is more-or-less it, and the fear is that you will sit down in front of these pages with your red pen and cup of tea, and despair at what you read. The words aren't perfect, and it never will be as perfect as they were in your head. 

 

The danger is also a terrible kind of word-blindness. As a writer, you've gone over the same words so many times that the story can seem dull. Obviously there are no surprises, but even the phrases that seemed good enough to survive this far seem lacklustre through familiarity. A few can be struck out, but you don't want to be completely ruthless or there'd be nothing left.

 

 

I find it most relaxing to sit on the floor, leaning back against a sofa, with the pages in piles on the carpet around me, anywhere but at my desk where I feel too much like the person who wrote them. As much as possible, I want to feel like a reader of the book. A very critical reader. Those pages where I mark some alteration are put in one pile, to be sent back to the publishers. The clean pages go in another.

 

Sometimes I realise that I ought just to run upstairs and check a fact, either in my research books or on the internet, and return relieved that I'm in time to change something. Just as well I had mental alarm bells when I came to the part set in wartime London and saw I had my characters walking past the statue of Eros in Piccadilly; it took five minutes to ascertain that Eros was packed away in storage during the course of both world wars. Pity, that was one of the better descriptions that had to be red-penned! 

 

But obviously, there's excitement and a certain pride in reaching this stage. The steps in the process by which writing turns from a private endeavour to a public one are gathering speed. I never forget to feel hugely grateful that anyone wants to publish me at all, and that top-notch editors and agents in New York and London have devoted their time and expertise to my efforts.

I wrote here a while back about the section of the book that is set in Provence (you have to scroll to the end of the post - note the change of the overall title, though not of this part). Well, here it is, and if I say so myself, I think it looks great on the page:

The Sea Garden will be published in summer 2014 by HarperCollins in the US and by Orion in the UK.

On completing a first draft

 

I’m there. A solid effort since September and I have a pile of paper filled with words for my end-of-March deadline. So how does it feel finally to send off a first draft? Nerve-wracking, that’s how. All those days, weeks and months at the desk trying to piece together a coherent story, trying to find original ways of expressing recognisable emotions and capturing landscapes, having moments of inspiration but mostly just pushing on, and now the result has to be revealed to the first readers.

Though some parts are better than I dared hope, there is also an uneasy feeling that there remain ideas in my head that never quite translated to words on the page. Private battles have yet to be revealed, but will remain unspoken so as not to prejudice a first reaction. The moment of truth will arrive with an email or phone call from my literary agents, whose job is to be brutally honest. I may not agree with all facets of their verdicts, but I know that this honesty is crucial, and also that it will come with the finest of motives: to make my novel the best it can be.

So, for a while, I feel free – like the first days of a long summer holiday when you relish the sense of not having to do anything – but then the ominous space between the date the manuscript was sent and the silence and empty in-box of the present begins to weigh heavier. The story starts to seem ridiculous, clunky, inept. The mind prepares for bad news: any criticism will already be pre-empted; I have already ripped my own work into a thousand shreds and will be able to say that I quite understand, I’d been thinking very much the same thing myself.

I read lots of writers’ blogs, most of which stream in through my Facebook page since I joined a site that puts writers in touch with writers. Many of these writers are young, more than most are American, and the confidence that blares from these pages is quite astounding to me. Good luck to them - I wish I had their self-belief. Older, wider (all that sitting down at the desk…) and bloody-well British about it all, I prefer to keep my trumpet firmly in the back of cupboard until I know there’s a reason to blow it.


At the writing desk

 

Perfect timing. As I sit resolutely at the desk this week, I am delighted to be able to direct you over to Cornflower Books, where I have been in discussion about the process: At the writing desk with...Deborah Lawrenson.

 

If you love book blogs and haven't yet discovered Cornflower, you are in for a treat. She always has an sumptuous array of books under discussion, new and old, as well as a home, craft and cookery blog illustrated with gorgeous photography. There's a great series of posts about Books and Cakes, in which she bakes to accompany her reading - very clever and inspiring. See for yourself! 

 

PS. In the interview, Cornflower asked for my advice to aspiring writers. "Never give up. Don't eat that cake," I offered. Clearly this is aspirational only. A real life interpretation is: "Don't eat that cake. Oops. Too late."  

Much life concealed

 

 

Shutters closed. An upstairs window open in shadow. No sign of life. I have an awful feeling this is what a writer's life looks like to the world outside. Certainly mine does while I'm working steadily on a new book. (And my shop window, this blog, is looking a little neglected and tired in the display area, with slow turnover of goods.) 

 

It can't be helped, I'm afraid. There are times when writers have to write and for me the most enjoyably productive way to do it is by retreating into my study and losing myself in the work for weeks on end. Hours vanish into days as the story takes shape and the search becomes all-engrossing for the right words to tell it, to build a compelling characters and atmosphere. Behind the closed front, there is much life concealed.