Good Friday Writing
I finished the first draft of The Glacier Gallows today at twelve thirty this afternoon. On the dot. The manuscript is full of holes and there are rents in the plot that you could drive just about any cliché you wanted to through. But they can all be fixed, and most will, in the subsequent drafts. Because I made a bunch of plot changes towards the end of the novel, I’m going to have to go back and make more additions and subtractions early in the book.
I penned about 8,000 words this morning. I had planned to work on this manuscript over the long weekend, being at home sans wife and children, and now that it’s done all have to do for the next few days is sit back and gloat. And go skiing.
In case you’re just dying to know, here’s what a day in the life looks like as I race through the conclusion of a first draft.
10:30 pm. A good morning’s writing starts with an early bed time. Healthy, wealthy and all that, minus the wealthy.
4:14 am. Wake up, already thinking about the final chapters of the book. I just fall back asleep when…
4:50 am. The alarm goes off. I lay in bed for a couple of minutes and then go down to the kitchen, make tea.
5:00 am. Back in bed I listen to the news. I usually do this in my office, but Jenn is away so I won’t wake anybody.
5:03 am. The news is the abbreviated version reserved for holiday’s when there is little newsworthy going on, or nobody left at the CBC to report it. Thanks Stevo. Feel cheated. Listen to the first 6 minutes of some BBC show on science.
5:09 am. Still savouring my first cup of tea, I commute the 7 steps to my office and read the Globe and Mail, Politico, and Pearls before Swine, online.
5:11 am. Open The Glacier Gallows and start reading the last few paragraphs I wrote yesterday.
5:12 am. Read Calvin and Hobbs. That’s right. On Go Comics you can read the whole strip, right from the start, with a new instalment daily. The internet is swell.
5:13 am. Back to The Glacier Gallows: start writing. I’m still not fully awake so it’s slow going at first.
5:20 am. Make second cup of tea. First breakfast: Honey-nut cheerio’s with almond breeze.
5:30 am. I work my way through some minor changes that I was thinking about at 4:14 and then start into a new chapter. The writing comes very quickly at this point and by 6:20 I’ve written 1,200 words.
6:21am. Third cup of tea. I switch to decaf (And don’t sneer. Taylor’s of Harrogate makes the best bagged tea in the world and they started making a decaffeinated tea and it’s awesome.)
6:30 am. Check Tweet Deck. Send a few tweets. Check Facebook. Check weather forecast and look at Ski Louise web site. Fantasise about skiing.
6:40 am. Back at it. (Sound of whip cracking.) I bore into the next chapter, and write another 1,100 words before…
7:30. Fourth cup of tea. Back to caffeine. High octane stuff. I use a fork to speed the steeping process.
7:33 Get distracted (again, always) by sunrise out my office window. Take pictures. Upload. Edit. Post.
The view from my office window of Mount Peter Lougheed (right), Wind Ridge (forested, foreground) Mount Allen (centre) and Mount Collembola (left)
7:42. For the next couple of hours I work on one of the climatic scenes in the book. It’s the much anticipated (by me) chase scene. Good fun.
9:45. Fifth cup of tea. Back to decaf. Switch things up. Keep the adrenal glands guessing. Second breakfast: toast with jam. I’ve come to a plot challenge that I have to work through, so I pace around the empty house, talking to myself. “Well, what would Cole do? He would do this…No, no, no he would do this….”
10:04 am. Take a shower. Next to going for a run, this is the easiest way for me to solve a plot problem.
10:09 am. Warm up fifth cup of tea.
10:10 am. Back at it. The plot challenge overcome, I burn through the a very long, exciting chapter that involves a car chase, a gun fight, a fist fight, an car accident and livestock being startled by masked assailants.
11:45 am. I want more tea, but it’s a bad idea, so I drink a glass of water and feel slightly righteous.
11:47 am. All I have left is a short epilogue. Not much room for creativity there….But wait, the excitement isn’t over! I decide to set up the fifth Cole Blackwater book right there in the epilogue. Legault you clever fellow. That’s where all the smug gloating comes from.
12:30 pm. I punch the last period of the last sentence of the last paragraph….you get the idea…of the first draft of The Glacier Gallows.
12:31 pm. Tweet about it.
12:32 pm. Wonder what I’m going to work on next.
If you would like to know what comes next, follow me on Twitter @stephenlegault.
To read all of my posts on Deconstructing Draft One for both The Glacier Gallows and The Third Riel Conspiracy, click here.
