Wednesday, November 07, 2007

In what proportion do you use these four objects to write a novel?

Tonight I'm frantically tidying up a few corners of Jimmy Coates: Survival.

There's still loads of work to do on it over the next few weeks, but my aim as that after tonight it'll be in good enough shape for another human being to read it.

That's quite an ask.

So I'm just going to leave you with this image. It's a picture I just took of the right hand corner of my desk, as it looks right now. It's almost a visual poem. It says so much more about the writing process than I ever could with words alone.

I think it fairly sums up my experience of writing Jimmy Coates: Survival so far:

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't the knife come last?

Joe said...

You might think that - but you'd be surprised.
You know the saying, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs? Well I've got another one:
You can't write a novel without stabbing things.

Anonymous said...

That makes me think of the 1965 movie,"How to murder your wife" with Jack Lemmon. He played a very succesful cartoonist who acted out all his plots before putting them down. A confirmed bachelor(Terry Thomas was his valet), he gets drunk at a birthday party and marries the Italian girl who jumps out of the cake((Virna Lisi. Take a look. I remember being very entertained as an 11 year old.