{"id":124,"date":"2010-07-22T03:34:52","date_gmt":"2010-07-22T03:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lara-morgan.com\/12~3wp\/?p=124"},"modified":"2013-02-14T03:35:17","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T03:35:17","slug":"july-22-2010-finishing-the-first-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lara-morgan.com\/index.php\/archives\/124","title":{"rendered":"July 22, 2010 Finishing the first draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve found, through trial and terror, that by the time I’m on the last few chapters of a first draft a weird thing happens. At some point I start to hate everyone and everything in the book. Even the main character. Does this happen to other authors? I don’t know. I also enter a kind of suspended state where I seem to be intent on self sabotage and write less than a three fingered monkey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why does this happen? I wish I knew. But it does. In the hours when I am not working – ie the middle of the night, often around 3.30am – I find myself weaving elaborate fantasies that tomorrow (in a few hours) everything will be different. I will magically love my characters and world again and be unable to wait to finish it. I will gallop to the end of the book like a mouse spotting aged gouda. My fingers will fly over the keyboard, I will write prose that although not magical is at least choherant and I will, at last, finish it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course this is three in the morning and everyone knows our brains are not fully engaged at this hour. We are mutant versions of ourselves with delusions standing – mostly of the paranoid kind. So when the next morning comes I am once again at my desk staring at the computer screen with a mixture of despair, frustration and self disgust that would keep many a therapist in pens and self help books. Instead of writing I phone a friend, clean the cupboard no one uses, do the dishes, spend hours on Twitter, or even perhaps blog. Like this. And all the while I can feel the unfinished book breathing behind me like a toddler with a head cold.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I hate that toddler. And yet when I am not at my desk that toddler is all I think about. I even dream about it, seeing the final scenes like polished shots of film in my head. I can only hope that one day soon – hopefully tomorrow – I will actually get it done.
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I’ve found, through trial and terror, that by the time I’m on the last few chapters of a first draft a weird thing happens. At some point I start to hate everyone and everything in the book. Even the main … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lara-morgan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lara-morgan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lara-morgan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lara-morgan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lara-morgan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lara-morgan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126,"href":"https:\/\/www.lara-morgan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lara-morgan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lara-morgan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lara-morgan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}