Write and Write Again

I’m just about to start the third draft of my novel. It’s around 65,000 words long at the moment and I know there are still quite a few changes to be made. Some minor characters are irrelevant and could be merged together to make one, much more interesting, supporting player. Some plot points are loose and could fall apart at the slightest inquisition. And, while most chapters are approximately the same length, there are a couple that are about three times the size of the smallest ones. None of these problems are insurmountable and I’m still quite confident of hitting my publishing deadline. But I keep asking myself the same question.

Will it ever be good enough?

Some days I look at the manuscript and think it’s a great big bag of steaming dogbob (without the bag). Other days I think it’s not half bad. But what do I know? I’m like the beaming mum at the school gates who believes that her child is the brainiest, cleanest, fastest kid in the class despite any lack of evidence. I’m far too close to my literary baby to look at it objectively.

But you know what? I've completed 65,000 words of my novel. Many writers never get that far. Some have manuscript in a shoe box on top of the wardrobe that they've been working on for years and, deep in their hearts, they know that they’ll never finish. I've written a beginning, a middle and an end of a book in which the story hangs together, the characters act and speak pretty naturally and the world that they inhabit seems quite real to them and to me. Overall I'm quite pleased with it.

For right now at least, that'll do.