I can fill my lungs without doubling over in a fit of coughing, which can only be considered an improvement. I've run 40 miles in the last two weeks. Winter's grip still holds tight, and snow floated about in a lazy fashion this morning in West London. It's an early wake up call tomorrow; a trip to Manchester to show some folks some wine.
I decided out of the blue to restructure my book, Salt & Old Vines, this afternoon. I don't even remember how the idea came to me. I think I was choosing a playlist for getting started with writing and was thinking about some of the troubles I was having with some of the bits and not really knowing how to tell the whole story and then I had a moment of clarity. It startled me somewhat, because I wasn't really worried or thinking about structure at all. The structure seemed obvious from the beginning. And that's probably why it bored me.
So I dropped my publisher a line and was like, um, I'm changing the book structure.
And he asked: how?
And I told him and he was like, um, well, if it still works?
And I told him it would be better and so he didn't respond to that because obviously I had utterly reassured him.
With my deadline for a first draft March 6th (or 8th - it could be 8th… can it be 8th?), I'm mildly panicking. I finished the first draft of my novel on New Year's Eve 2006. I didn't want to go into 2007 still needing to finish it. An enormous party, great Champagne and friendly adulation accompanied it. Fireworks burst above a house in the middle of nowhere in Scotland and I went to bed drunk and knowing I'd written a whole book.
That book is sitting in a box at the moment, changed but still needing a rewrite.
This book won't have fireworks on completion, nor will there be '85 Dom Perignon to slurp in celebration of emailing it to the nice chaps at Unbound. I'll just hit send and set about rewriting what I know needs changed already. I might crack a beer or two while I edit. But getting it finished is just the beginning of something else. Something I'm not familiar with and quite looking forward to.
