Pace

There's nothing like a deadline. World War II may still raging, but my characters have had their final clinch and flown off into the sunset. I printed out the first draft of the new book just before picking the children up from their end of term celebrations yesterday, and sat late last night reading through it wondering where all the pages had come from. Maybe you're the same - you get no sense of a manuscript on screen. It isn't until you have it in your hands it comes to life. Over the summer these pristine pages will get covered in sand, river water, and red ink. It will go where we go - and as I'll be fighting to get on the computer for the next eight weeks (my home page has already mysteriously changed to Moshi Monsters), it's just as well for it to be portable. There are a few red letter days for it - quiet hours in archives sitting next to original documents written by some of the real characters who interlink with my fictional ones, but for the most part it will be thrown in the beach bag, dragged on long car journeys to Suffolk and Devon and kept up late after everyone is asleep. The manuscript is not going to look so pretty by the end of the holiday but I hope the words within it will be buffed and polished like a prizefighter.

Those of you juggling dayjob work with full time childcare maybe recognise this scenario. As Stephen King put it - art is the support system for life, not the other way around. No matter how much my thoughts are still with the book, characters clamouring to get a few poignant last lines in, Rufus Wainwright's sublime sonnets lilting as the final scenes unfold ... this morning we have Sponge Bob Square pants on full volume, two tired and cranky children (death by whining sound familiar?), the hound has eaten a rubgy ball, I've just been presented with a nappy (Did I do a poo Mummy?), the 3 year old is dressed as a gladiator, wielding a loud plastic Black and Decker drill like a flamboyant serial killer - and the pilot is in Sardinia.

It's been a tough few weeks, but I'm determined this book is going to be the best yet. There have been long hours burning the midnight oil transcribing hand written notes, (thank you to the terrifying Mrs Leach of my Bristol secretarial school for teaching me to type so fast - amazing how fear can get your fingers moving). You can't do this over a long period of time - you have to pace yourself. Several of you do NaNoWriMo each year and know it's impossible to keep writing like that month after month.

We've said 'writer's bum' is an occupational hazard from all that sitting, but writing must surely burn some calories (she says hopefully) - think of those days when you stagger from your chair shaking, easing your limbs into a standing position? Writing a long piece of work is like running a marathon (some of you have said before it's also like giving birth, or unrequited love - depending on how painful it is :). Any of you who run know you have to pace yourself - and writing is the same. You have exhilarating downhill moments when the words are buzzing effortlessly around you, but sometimes you hit walls where you feel you couldn't possibly write another word. You just have to push on through.

Several friends are doing charity events this week - a 10k London run, a 100k walk, another is cycling from Paris. It's inspiring, it takes dedication and pace - writers can learn from that. When you feel like giving up, when it feels like no one, ever, is going to take a chance on new work, keep putting one step, one word, in front of another. A friend confessed to me she burst into tears of frustration this week when she read of another 'I just jotted an outline on the back of an envelope and landed a £1m deal' story' - does that still happen? Who cares. Keep going. 'You have to get lucky at some point, but you can only get lucky if you are still on the road' as Mr Maas wrote.

TODAY'S PROMPT: I can vouch for the importance of pacing yourself from personal experience. When agent #1 encouraged me to get the second book written as quickly as possible ('we all love it!'), I spent a cold wet Christmas in a damp basement writing like a maniac. Idiot. Fool. I finished the book, but it finished me - I ended up with pneumonia. It was a good lesson - a book that as far as I know no one has read, and may well be the 'difficult' (ie hopeless), second book, put me in hospital and has permanently damaged my health. Getting the balance right between pushing yourself to produce good work, and pushing yourself too far is vital. If a long summer is stretching ahead of you too, why not have a think today about how you can pace yourself, take better care of yourself (sleep, vits, exercise, water?). You need to be physically fit to write, I've realised. Do something you love - swim, tango, ride, run. 'Pace' means peace too - if you can grab five minutes peace sit back and listen to today's clip. It's my favourite sonnet, a good reminder not to look sideways at other's success and count yourself lucky for having the things you love. Until you make it, love is the only reason to write. As the wonderful Alice Munro put it: "If you're going to be a writer you'll probably take a lot of wrong turns and then one day just end up writing something you have to write, then getting it better and better just because you want it to be better, and even when you get old and think 'There must be something else people do,' you won't quite be able to quit."