I’ve written a new book—at least one-each year for the past thirty-five years. I have, I know, a reputation for being prolific. And it’s true I have published something like seventy-three books. Others are waiting in the wings. Why then, does it always feel as if I am writing very slowly? I suspect it’s very much what my friend, the writer Betty Miles, once said to me: “I work on a book for six months before I feel like a writer.”
If you are a reader of my published books—and you enjoy them—you may find it difficult to believe that my early drafts are really badly written. But by the time you, the reader, get your eyes on them, they have been rewritten, sixty, seventy—if not more—times. Think of looking through the viewing lens of a camera. Everything is out of focus. It comes into focus only incrementally. Sometimes, if I am lucky, I make a change that alters everything, and I make a leap forward. It happens, but rarely. There is that slow, day by day, eight or more hours a day, going over the work again and again and again and…. Slow it may be. And it isn’t always sure. For me, however, it’s obligatory. In short, I work slowly, fast.
1 thought on “Bringing it into focus”
Hi Avi,
Thank you for maintaining this blog. As a huge childhood fan of your books, it is fun and inspiring for me to learn more about you and your writing process. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle is perhaps my favorite book to this day; I look forward to re-reading it soon!