Some Things Take Longer Than Others

It isn't every day that you finish something you started 20 years before.

But this week, hopefully just in time for Christmas, I have finished my first novel.

They say that everyone has a novel in them.

But I suspect whilst this may well be the case, not everybody will be able to have the luxury of the time it takes to write their novel.Or the obsession.

It was for me when I was around 30 years of age, single and without commitments, and therefore I was able to be selfish enough to devote the best part of a year of my life to writing the great majority of my first novel.

I never did quite complete it, although this week I have completed it. At least I think I have.

I have a friend that is doing me the honour of reading it and correcting it where necessary, and of course advising on where the sense of sentences can be improved.

I am rather well known for using 20 words when two will do, and often longer words than may be strictly necessary.

These are all of the kinds of things that are essential to enable someone to have the will to read a story that in my case has slight to about 110,000 words.

Perhaps a few less, unless of course my practised reader has any suggestions about additional chapters that might be necessary to complete this work.

And how the world has changed in those 20 years.

20 years ago computers were primitive to say the least, and mobile phones virtually non-existent.

My story does not need me to change the period in which it has been told in my manuscript, and does not require or would not benefit from the inclusion of an occasional mobile telephone.

And so it is preserved in its time capsule, written when I could devote two hours every morning to writing before I went to work full-time, and then spending an hour every evening correcting and often rewriting what I had written that morning.

And this six days a week for almost a year.

Before this project and certainly since I have written numerous short stories, and some not so short stories.

One particular story of mine I have written a 3000 word version of as one is the original which extends to nearly 15,000 words. Hardly a short story.

But completing my novel is certainly something that I feel is a significant event. Of course, it is a first novel, and I did not write it with the expectation of finding a publisher.

And indeed the entire world of publishing has transformed in the time that it has taken me to complete this work.

Now it is so much more straightforward to self publish, and there is so much less stigma associated with it. It is no longer considered to be simply vanity publishing.

And this year, I have almost christened the year of the Kindle, a totally new means by which books can be both published and consumed.

I have already published five volumes on my Kindle bookshelf, and I am hoping that if my editor/reader thinks it is worthwhile, I shall publish this one in the same way. With all proceeds heading for my chosen charity, the Queen Alexandra Hospital just across the road from where I lived in Worthing.

I don't think my next novel will take quite so long, I have an effect already started it, and in some respects this is the most difficult task of all, having a subject and then starting to write it.

This one, Bela, has been based on the PhD thesis of a friend from 20 years ago, who was studying as a mature student for a PhD in Art history.

It was a gift of an idea, and although I travelled substantially ostensibly to undertake research for it, a great deal has simply been invented as a context in which I can tell substantially the story of my friend's thesis.

A couple of times over the last 20 years I have considered that my story is a little worn out by the fact that so many other authors have written something similar, on an art history theme, but the great thing about the novel as a means of telling a story is that so much of it lies in the way in which the story emerges in the context of the individuals that are participants in the story.

And perhaps in some respects it is a different person, myself at just over 50 rather than just over 30, that is so much more able to understand important aspects of my characters and their motivations.

There it is, finally completed. And hopefully soon to be available on every computer with an Internet connection.

So please do consider checking out my Kindle bookshelf, and perhaps taking advantage of the fact that you can borrow it for 90 days free of charge from Amazon before considering purchasing it.

Amazon are offering something like the public lending right so that anyone whose book is borrowed from their Kindle library will get a share of a substantial sum that has been put aside for this purpose.

And you never know, perhaps proper publishers are keeping an eye on what is being published, so that they might see opportunities for new writing talent.

How the world has changed in just 20 years.


http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_2?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=Stephen%20Page&search-alias=digital-text