Pre-departure: first drafts and custard creams
According to a little count-down icon on my phone it is 3 Days until I'll find myself in Moscow. Today is the first proper day of my ACE activity and so, as I faithfully promised when I made my grant application, this is the first of regular twice weekly blogs about Russia, researching, edits and generally whatever else takes my Magpie-like fancy. There will be pictures too (lots), and a few short films of me doing that 'um' thing I do when asked questions.
So, in between learning the Russian alphabet (I've learned 23 letters of 33 and yes, I can see the necessity of learning those other 10), making around 27 trips to Superdrug and buying dehydrated food (which explains the photo above I hope) for the trains, I've been doing lots of Russian reading.
Worryingly, both Paul Theroux (The Great Railway Bazaar) and Jonathan Dimbleby (Russia) were in the grips of a deep depression when they wrote their travelogues about Russia. Both relate the extreme difficulties in their personal lives (Theroux in his subsequent book 'Ghost Train to the Eastern Star' and Dimbleby, with real humility, in his introduction) that influenced their response to Russia and its people – Theroux barging through Moscow shouting 'Monkey!' at the Muscovites and Dimbleby downing morose vodkas in a nightclub called 'The Ice Breaker' desperately homesick.
I may have the opposite problem. I am so disbelieving of the good fortune that has befallen me that I'm calling it 'glass floor syndrome.' I'm afraid to tread too heavily or step in the wrong direction should all that has happened in the last year suddenly shatter underneath me. Basically, as I get ready to depart for Russia I am happy - the sort of happy that can be alarming. Not to worry though, that alarming happiness bubble should be burst soon enough as the time has come to re-read my first draft of Thirst.
No one likes reading their first drafts do they? I'm particularly nervous about it because I've been working on my edits for my first novel, Tony Hogan, for the last few months. I feel removed from the world I created, distant from Dave and Alena, their desires and frustrations, but that, of course, is the point of revisiting. Over the next few days as I read my first draft (moan, weep, threaten to delete it, eat whole packets of Custard Creams and then go back for the next chapter) I'll try to remember that first drafts are usually shitty. Remember that, as a very good teacher used to say, about life, not writing, 'The trick is rooting out the rubies in the shit and then being grateful for them.'
Despite my fear, I want to reestablish myself in the world of Thirst - a Hackney I know, but which is somewhat unlike the one outside my front door, and a Russia that I can only imagine at the moment. Reading that first draft is the key to going off to Russia fully prepared, with Dave and Alena perching on each shoulder – devil, angel and patron saints to the lost both of them. And so, with several packs of Custard Creams, treading lightly and remembering all first drafts are shitty, off I go.
Next post: Moscow
