A brief update on my book (or why 45,000 is my new unlucky number)

Over the years I’ve read a lot of bad books. Books with bad plots. Bad characters. Full of bad clichés and just plain old bad writing. I’m sure all of you have read a few of them too. You know the ones, the type that you put down when you finish the last page (if you manage to get that far) and say ‘God, I could write a better book than that!’. This is of course announced by that same voice in your head that says:

• ‘I could paint that!’ when you see some abstract art in the art gallery (even though you haven’t picked up a paint brush since high school art class), or
• ‘I could make that!’ when confronted with a $200 unlined-cotton skirt (even though you can barely sew on a button . That voice usually appears for me when I’m shopping with Mum, who can sew very well. I keep hoping she’ll take the hint.)

I actually listened to the painting voice once. It was quite unfortunate, particularly for Mum and my good friend Kriso who were both gifted the outcomes. I can only say sorry, and please accept this as a public apology.

Despite the bad experience with my ‘I could paint that!’ voice, eight months ago my ‘God, I could write a better book than that’ voice was getting quite loud and overbearing. So loud that I decided the only thing to do to make it shut up was actually write a book.

Let’s just say that that voice is now more of a quiet murmur, even a whisper really, and is saying something more along the lines of ‘I bow down and worship at the feet of anyone who has actually ever managed to finish writing a book.’ I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. But I don’t think I had any real idea of how hard it was going to be either. And it is. Really hard. Some days I think I would prefer to be in training for the world gymnastics championships than sitting at my computer trying to work out how to fix plot holes that may just challenge the Kola Superdeep Borehole for the title of deepest hole in the world.  And considering I can barely bend over to touch my toes, let alone attempt a triple back flip on the high beam, that’s saying quite a lot.

Do you want to know how the book is coming along? I’ll say it in one word for those of you who are perhaps more pressed for time, and then expand on it with a couple of hundred more for anyone who is interested in the daily tribulations of an aspiring author who is starting to develop a major ding in her forehead from beating it against the keyboard.

Crap.

That’s the one word.

If you’d asked me last week, I would have said ‘really good’ or maybe a less committal ‘ticking along’. But not this week. This week the whole things seems like the biggest load of crap since Charlie Sheen took to the stage in Detroit (I read the reviews…it did not sound good).

I’ve never really believed in having lucky or unlucky numbers. But I have officially decided that 45,000 is my new unlucky number (which is not going to do me much good when it comes to lotto, horse racing etc) because this is the approximate word count I got to with the first version before I realised it was crap, spent a week trying to fix it, and then decided just to start at page one again. And now here I am again, on the new and improved version two, with 45,000 words down, and a very loud voice in my head once again saying ‘This is CRAP.’ (I realise that I'm talking a lot about voices in my head in the same blog post that I've mentioned Charlie Sheen. Please don’t be too alarmed. My voices are relatively friendly, and definitely not of the ‘Winning’ variety.)

All of a sudden I have a far greater appreciation for the skills of all those writers whose books I have so flippantly tossed aside in the past with a shake of my head and a disparaging remark. Perhaps this is karma at work. After all, I’ve always believed in karma, only usually only when it relates to bad things happening to people other than me. I preferred it that way.

Anyway, I’m sure this is just a phase I am going through, one that will pass in due course. Like smoking Marlboro Reds (a phase that lasted for six months when I was 15) or eating only bananas for breakfast (lasted for four days when I was about 23). Hopefully this belief that my writing is total crap will be just another short lived phase. If it could end, say, next week, please, that would be particularly handy.

Until then, I’m off to Barcelona for three nights with Lizzie to eat copious amounts of tapas and drink gallons of sangria. Because if a bucket load of sangria doesn’t get the creative juices flowing, God only knows what will.