Epilogue

So here we are.

365 days on from the moment I recklessly committed myself to write a crime novel in one year.

And what a year it’s been.

While I always hoped I would make it, now I’m here with 500 sheets of A4 paper next to me, I can’t quite believe I’ve written a novel. It’s not been easy; in fact, it’s been very, very hard.

So how have I managed it?

The invaluable advice of Kate Mosse’s 52 tips for writers has unerringly come to my rescue http://www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk/advice/intro.asp. My thanks to Greg and Kate Mosse for their permission to use their year’s worth of tips.

Scrivener http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html. Simply the best writing software on the planet. It helps you write by not getting in the way. Full screen mode had been my home for much of the last 12 months.

Calow Classics http://www.calowclassics.net/ for providing the soundtrack to my year.

Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook http://www.writersandartists.co.uk/. Their blog competition kept me writing when I most needed it.

Everyone (except that really weird woman from Denmark) who has taken the trouble and time to email me. I have been quite amazed by the reception my blog has generated; something that is a testament to how many people are in a similar situation, chiselling away at the coal face of words.

...and of course my wife & friends (the circle - you know who you are).

...and finally.

As promised, the title of my book. Hopefully this time next year, Amazon, Waterstone’s, Blackwells and the rest will have a new title on their shelves.

Death’s Disciple.

But for now I’m having a week off.

As I lovingly caress a pint of beer in some remote village pub, I will think about the last twelve months. I will think about how hard it’s been, how much fun it’s been and how amazed I am that I have made it this far.

But most of all I will think about the sheer unmitigated joy, 52 weeks on, of typing those two final words.

The End.

Week 52 - The End (of the Beginning)

This has been a bad week. In fact, it’s been a terrible week. If this week had been a record, it would be a Celine Dion album on which she is backed by Kenny G.

But it’s also been a good week. In fact it’s been a wonderful week. If this week had been a record, it would the Beatles’ Revolver; Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks or Jacqueline du Pre playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto.

This has been week 52.

Throughout the last seven days I have worked a number of hours that would make a junior doctor think it had been a long week. I have burned the candle at both ends, in the middle and now am just left with a sad lump of wax.

Nine days ago, I was far behind where I should have been. It called for drastic measures - and that is what it got.

In all my life I don’t think I have ever yawned as much as I did this morning (obviously excepting sitting through Powerpoint presentations and “O” Level maths).

I have subbed my final draft, I have re-written parts, I have changed sections. Sometimes just a word, sometimes whole paragraphs, once an entire page. I have worked in the morning, I have worked when I should have been doing something else (no change there), I have worked in the evening and I have worked in the wee small hours as my wife lay in the next room dreaming of Manolo Blahnik shoes and Colin Firth (hopefully separately).

And has it been worth it?

(insert drum roll).

Yes.

With a day and seven hours until my deadline, it looks like I’m going to make it. Bar a few changes tonight and a name change tomorrow (to avoid the law courts), I am finished.

52 weeks, 365 days, 94,000 words.

A novel.

Tomorrow - on day 365 itself - I will post my final blog. On it, I’ll let you know the title of my book and also what I plan to do next. Because, shocking as this is right now, writing the thing is only the first half of the journey...

Week 51 - Building Blocks of Success

Do you remember when you were a small child and you had one of those brightly coloured toys that was made up of different shaped holes? You had square blocks, round ones and so on and you had to fit the right shaped blocks into the right shaped holes.

Early learning at its best. Except even then I wasn’t overly fond of playing by the rules and I can vividly remember trying to hammer a round peg into a square whole.

How about that for a sign of things to come?

For the past eight days that’s what I’ve been doing. With the exception of a brief reprieve on Saturday to pick up some CDs from Calow Classics, all I have done this week is work.

If my name was Jack, I would be a very dull boy right now.

It must be said that there is a sense of the fate about it all. As inevitable as a Thomas Hardy heroine’s bad luck, I have too much work to fit in the available time. With just a week and a day to go, I am drowning in final draft pages, notes and those little scarps of paper I always meant to type up but now litter my desk like confetti from a Royal wedding.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Why? Because if you have no deadlines, if you can carry on and on like an Oscar acceptance speech, if there’s always more time then chances are you will never finish anything. Which means you’ll never be in with a chance of publishing anything...

Let’s be clear. It’s incredibly tough, I have bags under my eyes that would probably exceed an airline’s carry on quota and the last time I took time off Gladstone and Disraeli where squaring up to one another; but I can’t think of a better way to spend my time.

Unless I get my Fisher-Price garage down from the loft...

Week 50 - Sweet Sixteen?

It’s not just time that is running away faster than the Prime Minister from his Chancellor; it’s my thoughts.

As my total of weeks slams into the fifties, I am trying my level best not to think about that week 53. The week beyond the year. But like taxes, death and my wife’s ever-expanding shoe collection, there’s a sense of inevitability about it all.

Suddenly, now that the finish line is in sight, I am starting to think about the next stage. Selling the thing.

...but not yet. As of today, I still have 16 days left. Sixteen days to finish the final draft and open that bottle of something special that has been waiting patiently for the last year.

But how close am I? Well - as ever - I am behind where I need to be. There’s certainly more than 16 days’ worth of work to fit into those few remaining hours.

It was, of course, ever thus. Where would be the fun if it all went to plan?

So for the next two and a bit weeks, it’s time for caffeine-fuelled, bleary-eyed, hermit-like work madness.

By this time next week (Blog 51), we’ll probably know if I’m going to make it. The following week (52) we’ll know for sure.

And then...on 20th September as the clock chimes the end of my year-long odyssey, I’ll let you know the title.

Week 49 - Notes from a Greek Island

The days have winged heels, Homer said (the Greek fellow, not the yellow one).

This week has been one of jet lag without the benefit of actually going abroad. The jet lag was caused by a Bank Holiday here in the UK which crept up on me and messed up my already fragile plans.

As predictable as traffic jams on a Bank Holiday, is the fact that I am running out of days at an alarming rate. Then along came that extra day’s holiday and where did I find myself?

Surrounded by thirty-seven women.

Now I would like to claim that these were Novel Blog groupies; but they weren’t. They were - and believe me I counted them - the number of women who entered the cinema I was sitting in with my wife before another man came in.

I don’t think you need a PhD in Cinematic Theory to realise that this can’t have been a James Bond film. No it was...Mamma Mia!

I always worry about those exclamation marks. They seem to say - this is going to be loud and screechy. And it was. The hoards of women surrounding me wept, clapped, sang and even danced as the film unfolded before my cynical eyes.

Of course, I didn’t enjoy the film. True, I did get cramp in my feet which manifested itself in what someone could be forgiven for thinking was foot tapping; and the silly smile that kept crossing my face must surely have been a result of too much fibre in my diet. And what some believed to be laughter as Julie Walters strode across tables while singing Take A Chance On Me was definitely caused by me choking on one too many Malteesers.

That’s not to say the experience was a total waste of two hours (and let’s be honest, two hours in the presence of Amanda Seyfried is hardly a waste).

I was struck how much the plot resembled a crime novel. There was a list of suspects (i.e. possible fathers), a set of clues and red herrings and finally a denouement with a twist.

Looking at it this way, I can satisfy myself that Monday wasn’t a day lost to the thief that is time, but rather a research trip that just happened to be made up of dozens of slightly insane women having the time of their lives.

When all is said and done, my plans didn’t meet their Waterloo. They actually made another step towards my goal; and as planning goes, that’s the name of the game.

Week 48 - Battle Weary

Looking at the calendar this morning, I had one of those moments when the sheer enormity of your situation really hits home.

It’s now less than one calendar month until the end of my year-long novel writing journey. In less than four weeks it will all be over...but will I have a completed novel?

I know one thing for sure, it’s going to be close.

Throughout the past year, Kate Mosse’s 52 tips for writers has been a frequent source of inspiration and this week she has done it again. Her tip 48 is on “Fine Tuning” http://www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk/advice/48.asp and that’s exactly what I am doing. Having read through my novel again I am about to embark on the final draft - essentially small corrections and hopefully a little bit of polish.

For anyone who has made it this far - this close to the end - her words really resonate. There is definitely a little bit of battle fatigue setting in; energy levels can seem at an all time low and the thought of re-reading that particular scene again makes you want to desert and run for the hills.

But that would to be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on a level of which the English cricket team would be proud.

I think - I hope - that I have left enough time to work through the final draft.

Sheer force of will is what’s required, along with a lot of hard work and probably too much caffeine.

Maybe then I will be able to avoid a batting collapse and make it through the worsening light to stumps.

With just four blogs to go, it won’t be long until we have the answer.

Week 47 - Beginning of the End

“The moving finger writes and having writ, moves on.”

Too right Omar (and Agatha).

There’s been a lot of that this week as my red pen has skimmed through the pages of my second draft. Mostly it's been typos, but now and again I have found inconsistencies that have so far escaped my notice.

The worst moment was when I realised that I had left a strand dangling that I had completely forgotten about. I say strand, more like the contents of a Lancashire textile factory (when they still existed).

It shows the value of this two-week process and has been quite an eye-opener. Some parts of my novel I have actually enjoyed re-reading and even found myself getting caught up in the plot.

Other parts not so much.

But that, I guess, was ever thus. In fact, it raises a point relevant to a number of emails I’ve had from people following the blog. These can be summed up from Suzanne in Surrey who asks how I am feeling about the impending arrival of week 52 and what that means for the book that's been such a major part of my life for almost a year.

What she’s talking about is letting go. From comments I have read as well as things I’ve read on other blogs, it seems that one of the main barriers that prevents new writers from completing their book is that they are not working to any time frame.

Even if they manage to reach the end of their story, there is always the opportunity for a re-written chapter here and a change to structure there. Without a deadline, the story will just go on and on...

This may be one of the main things that separates the professional from the amateur. The professional HAS to stop at a certain point and hand the book over. He or she knows that the book could always be a little better, but what good is that if it never gets to sit on a bookshop’s shelf?

It’s all about knowing when to let go.

Which is what I’ll have to do in five short weeks. It’s the only way it’s going to land on a publisher’s desk.

Of course, it won’t be easy.

It’ll be murder.