11 October 2004
Teaching
There's a new competition to announce this week. [This competition closed in 2004.] But I'll come back to that in a moment.
I wrote last week: 'I have just printed a typescript of my novel Labyrinth. It's taken a couple of hours. It has consumed about one and a half inkjet cartridges and one and a half reams of A4 paper. That's 750 pages.'
I told you about the page layout, the proofreading process, the careful checking of tiny details for consistency and convincing motivation. I told you that in the Labyrinth of writing a novel, you see the end - the exit from the tunnel - a long time before you actually reach it!
But, of course, you do finally emerge from the long grind of rereading, editing, rewriting and polishing. And then it's like losing your job. Or suddenly being transported away from your everyday life, on holiday, perhaps. But a holiday where you feel keenly - and not necessarily pleasantly - the lack of having anything to do!
For me, I can't quite imagine having that extra time in my days yet. And, in any case, work on my novel Labyrinth will not entirely stop with delivery to my publishers. There will be translation queries, requests for further information from editors and then - finally - proofreading once more.
In the meantime I will be presenting another edition of BBC Radio 4's Saturday Review at the end of the month.
Also, my husband Greg and I have recently written a new 20-part creative writing class that Greg has begun teaching at local Chichester College. We are also preparing three residential weekends in creative writing to be taught at West Dean, a beautiful college in the Sussex Downs, next year.
We are also working with a newly-launched publication - South Coast Magazine - writing fiction and non-fiction pieces. It's all go …
Take a new turn in the Labyrinth.
