The Progress of My Novel

There are writers, I’ve discovered recently, who’ve managed to write an entire novel in far lesser time than it took me to complete just one round of revision of my first novel. For the past eight weeks I’ve been slogging on, revising my draft one more time. Despite the effort and time spent, the draft continues to leave me with despair. With each round of revision I find so many holes in the story that the feeling of abandoning the book altogether becomes stronger. The story doesn’t seem right, the characters appear flat, the dialogue sounds phony, the descriptions are pedestrian- these are some of the things that bug me when I am reading the draft of my novel.

But one of the things I am happy about is that the revisions are resulting in a number of pages being cut out, bringing the number of pages down. After the current revision the page count is down to 325, which is still too high. I realize I have a lot more of cutting to do. Sometimes the cutting is easy but sometimes it is difficult. I don’t know what to cut and what to keep. I think I am at a stage where either God or a professional editor only can help me. I will keep on revising and editing until I cannot do it anymore. When I am editing I am lost in the world that I fail to notice that I am grumpy and irritated at home. I don’t think I will come back to normalcy until the book is finished. For the time being I am taking a week’s break from the draft.

I guess it is high time I revealed something about the novel that is taking so much of my time. Needless to say, like most first novels, it is autobiographical. It doesn’t take a genius to tell who the story of an advertising professional turned bureaucrat is based on. I’ve made up a story of a young copywriter who dreams of becoming a film scriptwriter but ends up in the government. I’ve blended some of my experiences as a copywriter with those as a raw recruit in the government posted in a very backward area. Not many bureaucrats have come to the government via an advertising agency. This I feel makes my novel different from the sort of books bureaucrats, especially the just retired or about to retire, churn out. Such books (by other bureaucrats) usually are self-laudatory without containing any embarrassing revelations. I haven’t read many of them but Upamanyu Chatterjee’s ‘English August’ is a brilliant exception. But then again, he is an IAS officer and English Literature grad to boot.

But I’m digressing. Coming back to my book, I’ve tried to add some humor in it. It was rather easy for me to write 500 word pieces that contained a few funny lines here and there, that I’ve managed to get published. Those who have read them have told them they are a bit humorous. But writing a funny book is very difficult, I’ve learnt soon enough. Anyway, the intention was to write a book that has a sprinkling of humor in it but I think I have fallen short.

Exactly two people, friends actually, have taken the trouble of not only reading the entire draft but also of telling me how the experience was. Being friends, they were very generous in their praise (?) of my work, despite being the sort of people whose taste in books can only said to be ‘eclectic’. Anyway, I cannot ever thank them enough for suffering the experience of reading my meandering first novel which I am yet to completely understand myself. Their feedback has been encouraging and I have temporarily abandoned the idea of throwing away the draft and forgetting about being a writer.

I’ve actually drawn up a list of people I want to give my book to for their feedback. Reading the book is the price they have to pay for making my (unfortunate) acquaintance. They are left with no other option but to read it unless they plan to flee the country. Sometime in December I will begin handing out the drafts to them. The plan is to listen to the feedback and decide whether to take the next step of contacting a publisher or give up on the book altogether.