How Long?

Eight years is a long time to work on a single project, especially when the first draft is completed within six months. Yet, from start to finish this is how long it took me to write The Magic of Tiéga. To be honest, if I’d know it would take that long, I might never have begun.

When you’re writing a book people inevitably find out, it’s natural. Firstly it’s those you choose to tell: close friends, family, members of your writer’s group, but then word gets out. Or maybe it just slips out because you’ve been working bloody hard on the thing and can’t stand people thinking that all you’re about is your job. This is especially pertinent to those of us whose work life feels like purgatory. But anyway its out there now and people are interested, even if your explanation of the story line does your work little justice. And after a while, when you bump into these same people, it becomes natural for your book to arise as a topic of conversation.

What surprised me, being someone with pretty meagre self-belief, was how the interest shown by others was genuine and not just the kind accompanied by a barely concealed smirk. Your friends and family are happy for you, rooting for you, hoping you make something from the project you’ve begun. It’s very likely, that for you, your novel long ceased being a pipe dream and became a definite, if intangible thing unfolding before your eyes. But for others to show a similar belief in your work, that can be a very empowering indeed.

Now, none of this can be underestimated. The seemingly magical creation of a novel, erudite and crafted with what appears to be superhuman precision, needs all the help it can get. Of course those who have embarked upon such a journey know that what seems like magic is no more than a tireless round of drafts, rewrites, rearrangement and revisions. A process that often results in something very different from what was first imagined. However, as time goes on and the same question arises, ‘So how’s the book doing?’ what was once an inspiration becomes a weight around your neck. An enquiry whose very prospect fills you with dread and which is forever doomed to crop up in conversation. Well, until you finish, that is. And let’s be honest, who knows when that might be. We’ve all caught a glimpse of what we thought was the finish line only to see it jump ahead yet another furlong.

For the most part people’s interest is no less genuine than before and it’s your own perception of progress that taints your impression of their curiosity. ‘Can’t they just wait until I’ve got some to tell them?’ you think, ‘I’m doing my best here, I’m not just standing still. I’m not.’ It can become as much about convincing yourself in your ability to reach your goal, as it is about what others think. And as time goes on and you still have nothing to show for your work the burden only increases.

Eight years adds up to a lot of questions and a lot of self doubt.

When I mentioned having nothing to show for my work I didn’t literally mean nothing. It’s just that in my experience, only when you’ve finished reading that last sentence of your final draft, do you have something. Or that’s how it felt to me. The world you’ve created and that all those who inhabit it only become something whole when a resolution is reached. So you can end up living with a lot of nothing for a long time.

Now it’s been four months since I completed my novel and I have neither agent nor publisher. But despite this I have something and it hasn’t all been in vain.

What I hope achieve through this series of posts is something both informative and cathartic. I’d like to give others an insight into the creation of The Magic of Tiéga, its inspiration, setting and characters, as well as brief history of the island of Mauritius. But also I’d like to gain a greater understanding of what it is I’ve created and to begin this process it could well be necessary for me to re-experience these things for myself.