Epiphany
and crisis day arrives for me at the Faber Writing Academy – Writing A Novel
First Draft. The epiphany? I now know why writing this manuscript has
been such a struggle. The crisis? My secondary characters are pawns with names;
not one of them is developed enough.
Even if I had a cliché character, I’d have something to rework, but I’ve
got nothing. The enormity of the problem
overwhelms me and I wish we’d covered this topic much earlier. The past two months feel like such a waste. I shed a few quiet tears on the train home,
and ask myself the question, “Why do I torture myself with this writing
business?”
The
answer comes to me before I even reach for the sweaty, bloodstained towel,
before I can watch with horror and guilt as it flies from my hand and lands
crumpled in the ring — I have lost many a stoush with the pen in this fashion,
but not today. The answer, of course, is that it’s more of a torture not to write than it is to keep writing.
So, I
nudge the towel out of the way with my toe and raise my gloved hands, weary and
bruised, ready for the umpteenth round.
