the way out

I sort of finished a draft of my novel yesterday. It’s now called Drop Shadow. Sorry Lou, On The Edge has been replaced with this apparently literary, cover-designers-would-love-it title. I’m worried it’s a little obscure and unmemorable but what it means is cool – it’s a graphic effect whereby an object appears to be floating above the surface, leaving a fuzzy shadow below it – which is all frightfully metaphorical of Daniel’s idolisation of Joanna. He’s the fuzzy shadow, bless him.

I’m not feeling too good about the book. There it is, all 65,000 words of it, thousands of them strung together well and thousands of them not. But it’s a complete story for the first time and I ought to be proud of that. I don’t know. I feel very lost. I think I’ve had too much feedback. I need to go into a hermit space and see it alone but the course isn’t over yet and it’s still extraordinarily helpful and something I won’t have again. I don’t believe I’m a great writer but I’m starting to believe that it takes staying power as much as talent to make it. You just have to keep going. I told Kris last night he’s not marrying a quitter. When I’m in something I’m in it for life. But that doesn’t automatically make me good at it.

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