Okay, time to come clean about what I’m up to. I feel a bit shy about one of these, but also foolishly excited and eager to share. So I’ll start with the other one.Our apartment has a yucky little bathroom. It’s adequate, but no more than that. It was actually the ideal state when we bought it, as it helped keep the price low, we weren’t paying extra for someone else’s taste that might not have agreed with ours, but it had been renovated enough to make it usable – just. But four years on we’re feeling sufficiently flush (hmm, interesting word) to improve it at last.
So I’ve been doing my homework on what we need/want/in your dreams woman, and what’s available. I want to be fully prepared before I get to the stage of getting quotes. I think I’m at that stage now. I’ve made up a list and divided it into “must have or it’s not worth doing”, “would make life much better” and “in an ideal world”. I’ve found two firms that look worth getting quotes from. Based on the experience of others, many people who call themselves bathroom designers aren’t interested in doing much more than suggesting colours, but the two I’ve found look to have done some real alterations. Ss as soon as I feel a bit more sociable I’ll get them in to quote, and see if we’re close to having the same number of zeroes in the price.
They won’t be able to do anything about the size of the room, but we’re hoping they’ll make it a lot pleasanter to use. What we have now: ugly and unsuitable carpet on the floor. A toilet that flushes (but only because it’s been repaired twice), but is awkward and horrid to clean. A huge pedestal basin that was a ridiculous choice for a room this size. A shower with a cracked bottom. A gas water heater that looks like an old prop from the BBC series “Steptoe and Son” (about secondhand dealers) and has needed several expensive repairs. A makeshift cupboard that hides the water heater while managing to provide almost no storage. A sliding door that takes up all the otherwise usable wall space. No electricity (except to the lights), so no heater or place to plug in the toothbrush.
There’s a lot to do.
And the novel? Well, yes. shuffles feet, blushes
Like many people, I have a novel in the bottom drawer. Except in my case it extends along a chunk of a bookshelf, with far more space taken up by all my notes and the various research books I’ve bought over the years. Unlike the stereotypical first novel, it’s not remotely autobiographical. It’s set in New Zealand from the 1880s to the 1900s. I suppose it could be called a family saga, though that conjures up a picture I don’t associate with my book. There aren’t any kangaroos in it anyway [obscure reference to a series I’ve never watched, based on a book I’ve never read].
What’s it about? Love and loss, happiness and betrayal. Growing up. Falling in love, and what comes of it. And all against the backdrop of a New Zealand farming area in the late Victorian/early Edwardian period. I’ve gone to great lengths to be as accurate as possible with the period detail while being restrained as to how much of it I put on the page.
I actually finished it years ago, but it’s been lying neglected for ages. I’ve never bothered sending it to a publisher; it’s extremely hard to get fiction published in New Zealand. It did the rounds of friends and acquaintances, and friends of friends and acquaintances of acquaintances, back then, and I had people sobbing down the phone at me (this is a good thing in this context).
But I was never completely happy with the early part of it. I felt that the first few chapters needed re-working, but it was hard to get the motivation to do so.
And now? Well, blame (or rather thank) my online friend Joelle. She described her own experience of (sort of) self-publishing, and I got intrigued. I decided to give it a go. So I am currently deep in the task of editing; I’ve reworked the early section, ruthlessly removed some minor characters, discarded some incidents that went nowhere… and I like it.
In fact I love it. I’d forgotten how fond I am of these characters. It’s huge fun to be hanging out with them again. I play out scenes in my mind to get the actions and dialogue “right”, and as long as I remember to look out for traffic (!) it keeps me pleasantly distracted on long walks. It’s fun to get in their heads (apart from one or two, whose heads are dark places and who are better observed from a distance) and let them figure out how they’ll speak and act. (I’m not as delusional as that sounds, by the way. At least I think I’m not. But would I know?).
The hardest part of the editing is done, and now I’m steadily plodding through, checking for any inconsistencies and just generally tightening things up. I’m about halfway through the first volume.
Yes, I did say “first volume”. This book is long. It will appear in three volumes, but it’s no more a “true” trilogy than is LOTR.
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