Journey Of A Novel

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5th Draft

Sifting through mental word salad

Tanya V 19 February 2024

Part of the submission guidelines when I submitted my work for assessment was that only the first 50 pages were accepted. As a result I redrafted those pages, then redrafted again, and again until I was satisfied enough to send them off. I made it to seven redrafts in total. This covered the first three chapters. The rest of the manuscript remained at draft number three.

Now that I am moving ahead and refining drafts with regularity again I have worked through the first three chapters quickly. One major change I made was editing chapter one into two chapters, which has the follow on effect of renumbering all of the chapters. This means that retrospectively I have only redrafted what was chapter one and two. Chapter two is now chapter three... That leaves me at chapter four, which was chapter three and the final chapter in the submission. Once I have redrafted this chapter I will be stepping back into early draft territory.

Factoring in story, characters, setting, imagery, the list goes on, leaves me overwhelmed on top of keeping track of where I am at in the story, with editing and chapter number changes.

To keep moving forward I keep reminding myself that I don’t have to, I get to. That seems to be helpful.

It’s been a while since I’ve muddled through the collection of words that make up the story I am writing. I suspect that there’ll be a lot of work to do. I have put a lot of work into the early chapters – work being: doubt, second guessing, sifting through mental word salad, and navigating storytelling elements.

And so I have reached the next hurdle. It’s looming over my head. I will keep my head down though with my attention on what is before me and a blinkered view on the distraction that the enormity of the task presents.

A new way of being

Tanya V 12 February 2024

It has been months since my last post. I haven’t stopped writing in this time but I have failed to write regularly and with intention.

My progress has been hap hazard. I’ve felt lost after reaching a writing milestone for myself with having my work assessed. Life has travelled alongside my creative journey with an equal measure of unfamiliarity. I have settled into a new region, a new life, a new way of being and within that have worked at establishing connections to create some structure in my days that includes writing.

I joined a writer’s group, connected with a local writing organisation and started teaching creative writing again, and have created a rhythm in my day to day existence that includes time for writing. I have completed the 5th draft of some chapters and begun the 6th draft process. Part of this is rewriting, adding and deleting to improve the narrative; in doing this I have made chapter 1 into 2 chapters and finished redrafting chapter 3. I submitted the new draft of chapter 3 to my writer’s group for feedback today. We meet in March so I have to wait until then for their responses.

One thing that I have missed more than I expected to up to this point is journaling my journey. I have missed the solace of taking stock of where I am at, where I am going, and how far I have come. Before this practice and without this practice my creativity stalls in a frozen moment of uncertainty that seems to have more staying power than my creative ambitions.

The journey of my novel has become as valuable to me as the novel itself.

The peace of mind that I take from keeping up to date with my creativity in a structured way has inspired me to make it a project all it’s own and grow Journey of a Novel into it’s own website. To what end??? I don’t know, but it feels good. It feels right. Bottom line – It is another solid step towards commitment to my creative development.