The Project

As part of my Arts Council England grants for the arts application I submitted a proposal and gave the project the catchy title, 'Research and 'time to write' for the novel Thirst.' Basically it is broken into two parts, both essential to completing Thirst, but different aspects of writing a novel. Research is about gathering the core materials to 'build' a novel - keeping my mind, ears, and eyes open to everything around me, my consciousness absorbing as much as it can because I won't know until I come to write what is valuable. It usually isn't what I think it will be. 

'Time to write' is, in the case of Thirst, time to redraft. I've already written almost the entire first draft so this will involve taking what I have learned from my research and weaving it through what is already there. If that means unpicking all the stitches of the first draft then so be it. I'll have two months full-time concentrated time to do this. 

The Project: 

One month in Russia to research Thirst
Two months on my return to redraft and edit

I should tell you a little about Thirst but it is tricky. First because I don't want to give the story away - it is a proper story and not knowing how it unfurls will be part of what will make it what it is. Second, because I know it is likely to change, not too much, but enough. 

So what can I tell you? I can tell you this: Thirst is a real love story, in that it is also a lust story and a story about need. It's a novel of journeys; Alena who travels from Eastern Russia to London full of the shiny, breakable optimism of youth and Dave, travelling the same route in the opposite direction years later, without any of that, but moving all the same. 

My research will take me from Moscow to South Eastern Russia. Through Siberia and five time zones, from huge ostentatious wealth in Moscow to grinding and perilous poverty in rural Siberia. I will be there absorbing it all, those fleeting, peripheral, seemingly nothing details that, when you least expect it, turn out to be a point of clarity or a moment of truth that makes a scene. I want to do interviews with a view to inserting parts of them verbatim into the text but I need the smallest of details too.

I want to explore not just the physical landscape of Russia but also the emotional landscape of a country that has been through so much. Russia seems to be ever-changing but in certain rural regions remains as it has for centuries. It is a big job, I have one month. One month to watch, listen, absorb and write. It will make the biggest difference in the world to Thirst and it can't be said enough that this opportunity is something I'm hugely grateful for.

I fly out on the 16th June - just 18 days from now. In the meantime I am scheduling my time, reading, learning Cyrillic and going to see Cockney bus drivers about Russian tourist visas. My time in London feels like limbo. I am already partially there in my mind, trying to unscramble the thoughts and motivations of Dave and Alena. As part of my grant requirements I'll be posting regularly about this process: the gathering and ordering that defines research and editing. 

18 days now. Just 18 days.