Update.

The most boring title for a substack article but i can't be bothered to think of a better one

Somehow it’s August. Somehow I’ve still not finished my first draft.

I’m not even going to mention the benign neglect of my little Substack. Can’t we go back to the days of the blog? I miss that word, that simple word, that time machine to the era of blogspot and the clunky visitor counter at the top of the page, a rando weird advert in the sidebar. Sidebar! Remember those? I fear I’m going to get all Don Draper nostalgia-in-Greek-is-pain-from-an-old-wound on you about sidebars, so I’ll shipwreck this subject before it properly sets off, or we’ll be here all night and you’ll start sending me private messages asking if I’m alright. The jury’s out, tbh.

I’m writing this in a quiet little inn in the Cotswolds, where I’m staying for the night before I appear on a panel at Wilderness festival tomorrow to talk California Gold. ‘Quiet little inn’ - possibly my three favourite words? Occasionally there’s an interruption from a group of very posh twenty-somethings with very posh long names, all hammered, the women in linen and the men in very tight pink shirts, all begging for bottles of Provence or regaling each other loudly with how they just can’t do vodka, that they don’t want to see them on a Bloody Mary, that they would f***ing take them the f*** out!!! Truth be told, it’s quite amusing. And annoying. Like the half shit/half glorious state of life.

It’s four months since California Gold came out. Hopefully you’ve all bought or borrowed it from a library, and if not, here’s a link for you and your summer. I’ve had some great events, including a biggie at Penguin HQ, a small and ultra lovely one at The Ned hosted by the ace Freya Bromley, and future ones at Wilderness, Bury lit fest, and even a gig at my local library (heart emoji). I’m going to write more on these events (I will), because they have been so eye-opening and interesting, hearing how these fictional people feel so real in other people’s minds.

As well as failing to write this substack, I’ve been failing to write my next book (i have however read a lot of books…). I began it with gusto in January, and managed two months of writing before I decided to take a break. California Gold was coming out the following month and I had a ton of prep to do - plus I always find the launch of a book hugely emotional - so I felt the need to take a step back from my next one to see off the one heading out to sea. (Sorry for the sailing metaphors; clearly I was an admiral in a previous life. Or, more likely, a pirate.)

I found when I went back to it that I…couldn’t. I just could not get my foot in the door. Couldn’t find the meat of it, the bit between my teeth. There was no land ahoy! (Sorry)

This has never happened before. Some books take serious work (California Gold) whereas others (my first two but esp Oh, Sister) end up remarkably close to how they started out. But what I never have trouble with is First Draft. I love a first draft. I live for a first draft. I almost kiss the keys. It always comes pouring out, that desire to create, the story longing to be born. No epidural needed here.

This one though. Nurse, the forceps. I envisioned this as a shorter novel, sub 200 pages (the dream), a slim wisp of a book. Hahahahahahaha. As if I could ever write a short novel. Just shy of 400 pages seems to be where I always rest my quill.

California Gold came out and I tried to go back to it. But I couldn’t connect.

The main character has felt far off from me. Perhaps this is because the subject of the book is so far from my real life that I’ve found it hard to crawl inside. But isn’t that the purpose of fiction? To be far removed from life? Only stupid people think this. Only dumbos think fiction isn’t real. CS Lewis was recreating the world in Narnia, his Jesus as an Aslan. It was all coming from what was real to him, which perhaps was/is fiction to others. We can grow a whole new tree, but first we need a seed.

My books always need something real from me. There has to be a question, a yearning, a wanting of some kind of touch. I’m spending at least a year in this world and with these people. There needs to be a mirroring. A shimmering. A baton passed from me to the page, from my insides, even the parts I’m scared to confront, so that when the book is done, so too is the thing. It’s had its way with me, and I can finally put it down.

So it has been with all my books, and so I need to find the thing in book 4 that can flick that switch. That can bring it, and me, to life.

*posting this as soon as i’ve written it so i don’t have time to edit and rewrite and delete the whole thing, these days i’m in a delete sorta mood