e_bourne

Everyone should have one or two really big moments in their life. Finishing, really finishing, my first novel, The Seventy, has certainly been one of mine.

I thought I’d post about my particular process. Not that anyone else’s is going to be the same, but because it’s done. And as I read somewhere today, it’s my blog, I’ll do what I want to. ☺

February 1, 2007.  I went to a First Thursday with a client, and in the course of our conversation, she said something that decided me. No one had written what I knew about Alexandria, or what I wanted to read. I was going to do it. The next night I started writing.

Over the next six months, nights and weekends I wrote a first draft of 150,000 words. I discovered my writing pace runs (on average) at about 3,000 words a night. I lived in Alexandria. I dreamed it.  I thought about it every second I didn’t have to do something else. When I finished my first draft, I got the title tattoed on my wrist in Roman numerals. scarlettina (who also wrote with me many a Sunday morning) graciously didn’t laugh at me.

markbourne read my first draft, corrected the worst of my awful mistakes, and told me that the story was basically good.

In October I went to a workshop.  It was very interesting.  It was both useful and not. I’ll probably never go to another unless it’s specifically for and with other historical writers since while much writer information was good, much advice as it pertains to the genre I’m working in was bad.  I made many changes from that workshop I later had to go undo.

Let me take a moment here and say that (other than my husband) here are the books that were most helpful:
Strunk & White
The 10% Solution (thank you, Ken Rand)
Beginnings, Middles, Ends (Nancy Kress)
This year you write your novel (Walter Mosley)

Other than Strunk and White, I read none of the them until my first draft was written, and I'm glad of that because I think they would have stopped me cold. I would have felt intimidated.  After those first 150,000 words, hell, nothing intimidated me.

The other thing I did, which I am glad of and I thank Mr. Mosley for, was I read poetry from the era. I read Callimachus and Apollonius and Theocritus and everyone I could find to get a feel for the flow of language and how they thought.

I cut  from 150,000 words to 110,000 words. Yeah. Wow.

It was much better.

Then I rewrote up to 125,000 words and gave it to my 5 second readers. I am deeply grateful to them for their patience and their advice. I am particularly grateful to ironymaiden and maryrosenblum for their insights.

At this point, it was clear that some rearranging needed to happen, which was more time consuming than difficult. I nipped and cut. I added a chapter. I stuck in stuff that my second readers asked for while taking out things I thought extraneous. When I was finished, I handed it over to Mark, who read it one more time.

 I made his line edits.

I’ve written, edited, and tidied every night and every weekend. This is mostly all I’ve done for the past 18 months. It’s been a joyful obsession.  I wish I could say every bit was good prose, but it isn’t.  Some of it I think is prose as good as you’ll read anywhere.  Some is just good enough. But hey, it’s my first book.  I’ll get better.  Some day I may even learn to punctuate.

I’ve read the darn thing out loud, from start to finish, three times. The first draft took six months.  The second draft took six months. The editing took about six months.  A year and a half to the point where I consider it ready to send out to get an agent and try to be published. It now weighs in at 123,000 words.

I’ve sent out a enquiry, and need to send out more.  Both Mark and Mary, bless them, have assured me it’s publishable and I hope they’re right.  I’d write it anyway.  I love my book.  I love my characters.  I’m 80,000 words into the sequel because I have to know what happens next and that's the only way to find out.

Here's my favorite piece, because, ultimately, this is what the book is really about. From King Ptolemy’s spymaster to a Roman agent:

“I’m glad you have some perception. The world is changing, my dear. Soon, everything known will be in one place. Here, in Alexandria. What one man learns, another man can build upon. If we can imagine it, we can make it.” The lamps in the room were reflected in his black eyes. “In the Library, we don’t just catalog poetry and pornographic pictures. We write the world. Fighting men can’t do their work without us to place their feet. Men like us need each other, like a play needs actors. Your part is ongoing. A command performance, in fact.”

Calvus paced, amusing himself by keeping his guards on the move. “Everything in one place? Do you think you can keep it? I thought you Greeks had a word for that.”