Hi Everyone,
The end of the year: December!
Hardly seems time yet to do a review of 2024. But by coincidence my Oxford Black n’ Red notebook ran out today, the first of December. Before tossing it in the recycling bin, I gave it a thumb through, starting with the three professional goals I had for the year. Those three goals were 1) to complete a first draft of The Fair Incognito, 2) to acquire a literary agent and 3) to secure a legacy publisher. I can safely say goals two and three remain on the list for 2025, unless of course there is some surprise awaiting me between now and the very last day of the year, but goal number one, the completion of a draft of The Fair Incognito, has been achieved, and I am now safely ensconced in goal number one for 2025: a rework of this new novel.
In all fairness, I would like to complete that redraft within the confines of 2024, but I am not sure that is realistic—thirty-one days? Mmmmmh. My trusted, first and at the moment only reader assures me that The Fair Incognito is “a great idea for a book, a truly epic story, and its juxtaposition of a traumatised, conflicted genius with a doughty English lady is exactly the right sort of novelistic combination.” Clearly she goes on to say a few more things, but without revealing too much, suffice it to say that the rework is achievable, if not at first glance an insurmountable conundrum, a Rubik’s cube of my own making.
I understand that Ernö Rubik invented his Magic Cube to help solve the structural problem of moving parts independently without the entire mechanism falling apart; allowing the pieces to move without the whole structure collapsing. I feel a bit of that puzzling as I go back to undo, redo and make do. I have also promised myself—with a very, very sincere hand on heart—that the next novel, and the one after that, and the one after that will have a highly detailed, point-by point, precise outline from start to finish. No more flying by the seat of my pants! I believe, but I am not sure, that a tight framework would be a bit like a pilot’s radio beam, which they used in the 1930s and 1940s. A steady tone meant they were on course, and if they drifted off, they would hear a different sound.
Perhaps I am just dreaming. First draft, second draft, last draft, all require trusting my own instinct, intuition, perhaps a sixth sense—even if I have my outline on an Excel spreadsheet. There is no paint by numbers scheme, or at least I have not found one, despite wishing it were so. There is no navigational system I can rely on, except to “give it a go.”
Interestingly, as I flicked through my Oxford Black n’ Red and reread my notes, I could see The Fair Incognito taking shape—mostly in bullet form, dates and phrases now long subsumed into a narrative that at least one reader tells me is successful. My Black n’ Red also has a quote by St Francis of Assisi. “Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” I suppose that is my writer’s solution to the Rubik-like riddle of a rewrite (perhaps anything): just start.
So here’s offering you, as we close out 2024, the only cheer I can give. Just jump in!
Love,
Marlene
Photo by Midjourney