Salt water & octopus legs
On getting back to editing the novel after an endless summer
Welcome back dear Bowerbirders, and an extra big smooch and HNY to all you new subscribers! Thank you for a skerrick of your attention in a world that demands so much of it x I’m cranking back into gear after what feels like endless weeks of summer, campfires, paddle boards, river swims, salt and sea and down time with truly excellent humans. I do hope that whatever your summer entailed it has been good to you and you’ve had some time for quiet or dancing or whatever it is that gives you momentum to push you into a new year.
One of the joys of summer camping is putting my phone and work away. It’s so damn obvious, but I didn’t realise how much I needed the break away from it all. It’s QUIET without the noise and news (nothing like a missing radioactive capsule to get both the writer and general human brain razzed up) and it felt discombobulating at times to just be with my own brain. I’m making no grand statements about offline periods for the year - one of the things I’ve come to realise in my 40s is that grand proclamations about what I am or am not going to do don’t really work for me, thus no NY resolutions for 2023, something I learned from Madeleine Dore in her 2022 book I Didn’t Do The Thing Today (you can revisit my chat with Madeleine on The First Time podcast or check out her newsletter On Things). But, I did notice how good the quiet was and how much it soothed my general anxieties to untether myself from the world for a couple of weeks. Someone remind me down the track, huh?
For the past three days I’ve been head down in editing the novel. Part of a longer phase (necessarily interrupted by school hols) of what I guess you’d call a first structural edit from my publisher. I go between big whooshes of energy as lines and moments slot into place, then plummet to the depths of self-doubt when the words I’ve written seem to have lost all sense and meaning. What is this book even about? And why will anyone even care?
When I’m entirely fed up with myself I reach for my ‘writers on writing’ shelf.
If nothing else I can rely on it to bring some solace. I am not, of course, the first writer to feel completely at sea with my own project in the final leg. This week (again) it was Anne Lamott in my well-thumbed copy of Bird by Bird who provided the words I needed:
There’s an image I’ve heard people in recovery use—that getting all of one’s addictions under control is a little like putting an octopus to bed. I think this perfectly describes the process of solving various problems in your final draft. You get a bunch of the octopus’s arms neatly tucked under the covers—that is, you’ve come up with the plot, resolved the conflict between the two main characters, gotten the tone down pat—but two arms are still flailing around. Maybe the dialogue in the first half and the second half don’t match, or there is that one character who still seems one-dimensional. But you finally get those arms under the sheets, too, and are about to turn off the lights when another long sucking arm breaks free.
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some instructions on writing and life p.94
Ah, Anne. I feel so SEEN.
To keep me on track, I’ve listed the final (for this edit!) escaping octopus legs to work through over the next week before I resubmit to my editor (and yes I’ve blanked out potential spoilers - trying to get my head around the fact that there will be ACTUAL READERS for this one day soon!).
I find myself working really hard to resist the urge to just hand the damn thing over, throwing my hands in the air and saying THAT’S IT - I can’t STAND these words anymore! I have to stare hard at the fading post it note on the window in front of me that says Hold Your Nerve. Writers - how do you navigate the last leg (at any draft!) of your manuscript? Would love you to share any tips or tricks in the comments x
For those readers new to The Bowerbird, this year, if you’re a free subscriber, you can expect a monthly post full of what I’ve been doing, reading, watching, loving and finding delightfully curious. If you’re a paid subscriber (thank you, thank you!), you’ll get a bonus post each month and a chance to ask me questions on writing, editing, publishing, podcasting - or anything you reckon I might have a worthwhile take on. At the end of each post I’ll give you a heads-up on events, courses or other bookish things I’m doing that you might be keen on getting to, if that’s not for you just scroll on past x
Doing
Paddle boarding, swimming, indulging in late night campfire games and plans for the apocalypse (is this what everyone else talks about around the fire??), clearing out my grandmother’s house where I’ve grieved, had a laugh, added to my always growing collection of vintage saucers and also found this strange item.
Twitter helped me identify it as some kind of toasting fork made from farrier’s nails - or a tiny witch’s fork. Do let me know if you have another suggestion! Either way, it’s not going to the op shop and no doubt it’ll find its way into a future book.
Reading
Our annual family Book KK provided excellence again this year.
Our house has started with The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O’Farrell and Horse, Geraldine Brooks, both of which I found perfect holiday reading. The Marriage Portrait had me completely hooked from the outset - a lush fictional portrait of the young duchess Lucrezia d’Medeci in 1550s Italy as she navigates her new marriage.
I generally love Geraldine Brook’s historical novels, and I admired the glorious detail in Horse (especially as it relates to horses, skeletons and paintings) and was swept up in the pacy story. The novel moves between past and present effortlessly as it examines race, slavery, horse racing and the enduring legacies of each on the American psyche. I’ve been keen to read the general response to the book, in particular how well readers feel Brooks has managed writing the perspective of two Black men; a fave critic Beejay Silcox describes ‘the unmistakable whiff of good intentions’ in her review for The Guardian and this article by Jordan Kisner for The Atlantic is also excellent.
Still getting my head around this substack thing but thrilled to keep finding authors I love popping up! I’m reading a bunch of new-to-me newsletters including Amy McQuire’s Presence, Emily Gale’s Voracious and Natasha Lester’s Bijoux and loving what I’m learning about all kinds of stuff. Also loving seeing how others are using the newsletter form (which Katherine Collette has been gleefully experimenting with over on Highbrow, Lowbrow, Mediumbrow).
Bunch of excellent bookmail has arrived and is tempting me from the stack - I CANNOT TOUCH until I finish this edit but so looking forward to reading Ashley Kalagian Blunt’s Dark Mode, Shannon Molloy’s You Made Me This Way and Jo Dixon’s debut The House of Now and Then.
Watching
Watched Glass Onion and loved it. Particularly loved analysing the plot and twists in detail with the kids and being schooled by them on who Janelle Monae is. Kind of cool watching Covid and lockdowns incorporated into storytelling (as I wrestle with a Covid-related part of my own novel) and seeing what hits the mark.
Other than that, mostly my summer viewing has been sunsets, wave curls and an enormous tribe of kids jetty-jumping.
Coming Up (soon!!)
Delighted to be helping Samuel Johnson and Hilde Hinton launch the new Love Your Sister collection Dear Lover, in which I have my own little love note) on Monday 13th February at Church of All Nations for Readings Books. Free but bookings essential.
Amazing new festival M/OTHER from The Wheeler Centre coming up 3-5 March in Melbourne. I get to interview Rachel Yoder on Nightbitch (and ALL the things) and I am BESIDE myself with glee. Huge lineup. Check it out in full.
Talking the Talk: my new online seminar on pitching, events and interview tips for writers. Evening (8th Feb) and daytime (14th Feb) options available. Limited to 20 places in each workshop.
Boot Camp for Beginning Writers: I’m teaching 3 x full day ONLINE workshops with Writers Victoria as part of a course. Suitable for beginners or any writer who wants to kickstart their writing year. Book via Writers Victoria.
Sunday February 12, 10am-4pm: The Basics of Becoming a Writer
Sunday February 26, 10am-4pm: Getting the Words Down
Sunday March 26, 10am-4pm: Pitching and Submitting Your Work
Til next time, K x
Hi Kate! I love the octopus metaphor - that's exactly what it feels like.
As for the last leg of the manuscript, I have no ideas, just sympathy. I always feel that for my initial drafts, the first three quarters of my manuscript is so much stronger and more deeply worked than the last few chapters because, by then, I just want to get the damn thing over and done with and I rush to the finishing line. I literally have to make myself sit down and just work on those last few chapters as its own special project, separate from the manuscript, so I don't continue to charge through them. My books are usually around 130,000 words so by the time I reach say 110,000 words in an edit, I'm exhausted. But if I hive them off and pretend they're a separate creature, it feels more manageable. The games we play in our minds as writers to get the work done!