Writing a New Novel

For the past five weeks I’ve been writing a novel. It’s been going well. I’ve written 64,000 words so far and I’m enjoying it. There seems to be more freedom in writing prose, compared to writing poetry. But it’s just as compulsive. The story is in my head pretty much all of the time. But novel writing is more tiring, because it is so sustained. Usually it would take me only a couple of days to produce the first draft of a poem (which would then be revised over the ensuing weeks and months). I’ve been writing intensively every day for six weeks now, but I’m still only about halfway through the first draft of the novel. I just hope my creative energy and momentum keeps going.

The novel is set in 1961 and in a fictional place. So I suppose that makes it a historical novel of sorts. The place is based on the small country town where I grew up in Gloucestershire. I was inspired to choose 1961 by the Philip Larkin poem ‘Annus Mirabilis’, the first two stanzas of which are below (although he wrote the poem in 1967). The beginning of the 1960’s is interesting to me because it is a cusp between an older social order that has been marked by wartime and rationing and a nascent social order that is in search of new freedoms. Although the Larkin poem focuses on sexual freedom, the novel is concerned with a broader range of issues. That time was also the heyday of British social realist novels, plays and films.

I‘ve been doing little else than writing, eating, sleeping and cycling, for the past six weeks. It’s been much more exhausting than I expected. One day I wrote 3,500 words and my brain was fried. But I still woke up in the middle of the night with ideas for the plot and had to get up and write them down. If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have got back to sleep at all. I began the novel with only a very sketchy plot, which has become deepened and massively altered as I’ve moved along through the story. As I’ve been writing one chapter, the next couple have also been in my head. But I’ve not been working a lot further ahead than that. This gives you more freedom to insert plot twists and turns. I’m thinking that any plot problems can be fixed in the second draft. However, I’ve just been able to envision the end of the book. All I have to do now is to get the characters there.

Annus Mirabilis

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -

Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.


Philip Larkin

Doing the 101

‘Did you enjoy the summer?’ asked the newsagent this morning, as I walked into the shop from the rain. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘pity it was just for one week’. We both smiled, knowing that summer here is often brief and fleeting. At least we’d had an unbroken week of fine and warm weather, before grey skies and rain had returned. I told him that on the last day of summer (yesterday) I’d gone for an all day bike ride and had done 101 miles, my longest ride since 1997. ‘That’s some ride,’ he said, ‘you don’t look knackered, you must have been doing plenty of freewheeling.’ I laughed and told him that I was feeling reasonably okay today. ‘Weren’t you in hospital again recently?’ he said. ‘That was almost three years ago,’ I said. I told him that I was completely recovered from all my cancer treatment and that, strangely enough, I felt I’d even gained things from the ordeal. ‘Well done,’ he said, ‘that bike ride proves it.’

Riding for 100 miles is an endurance challenge, which has two main aspects: physical and mental. The physical challenge is to be healthy enough to keep going at a good pace for eight hours. Here the series of major operations I had was more of a disadvantage. I was chopped open three times in two and a half years, which left lots of internal scar tissue, muscle and nerve damage. Some of these limitations have been overcome with the help of physiotherapy and regular stretching; some just have to be lived with. The other problem was that each time I recovered and built myself back to health after one operation, I was put back to zero by having to return to hospital for yet another operation. This meant that I experienced an accumulated loss of physical health that has taken several years of uninterrupted building up to regain. During my long ride I’m glad to say that I had no major aches and pains, just a few niggles from time to time.

Nutrition is obviously very important too. When I returned, I calculated that I had burnt 4320 calories on the ride. However, I reckon that what I ate during the day came to almost 4000 calories, for I stopped every 20 miles to eat. I began the day with a big bowl of porridge with maple syrup. During the ride I ate one and half malt loaves, eight cereal bars, six bananas and four mini-cheeses. At the end of the ride, I demolished a big slab of pannetone before I drove home for a huge pasta meal. It wasn’t cow pie, but I might well have managed one.

The mental aspect of an endurance event is probably the greater challenge. Keeping up a high level of physical activity for eight hours does require significant determination. This is where I think the ordeal of the cancer treatment, particularly the series of operations, has helped me. Coping with all the setbacks of my treatment required great resilience and mental strength. I had these qualities beforehand, but I know they developed significantly during this ordeal. I experienced two very severe operations with several years of significant post-operative pain. But I found the resources to survive these and to rebuild my health. So I know I have the resources to cope with an eight hour bike ride.

Oddly enough, the most difficult time mentally was from 50 to 60 miles. At 50 miles I stopped to refill my water bottle after completing the hilliest section of the ride. I was starting to feel tired and it suddenly struck me, I now have to do all that again. In a flash, the end of the ride became an extremely long way away. Drawing on my cancer survivorship skills, I broke the challenge down into smaller parts. I didn’t think of 100 miles, but of another ten miles, to get me 60. When I got there, I had a short break, ate some food and relaxed. I was sitting beside the River Blackwater, on the border between Armagh and Tyrone. The sun was shining, no-one was about and it was pleasantly warm. Just before I left, a fella drove down to the riverside in his car, wound the window down and spoke to me. ‘It’s too damn hot,’ he said, turned the car around and drove away. Typical, I thought, we’ve only had one week of summer and people are already complaining.

The Summer

On the fourth day of autumn (Lughnasa happened on Tuesday), summer put in a surprise appearance. In the north of this Atlantic island, summer had been absent for most of the past two months. And without a sick note, unless you count the tract that had been nailed to a tree down the road: ‘Repent for the days of Noah are upon us.’ Meteorologically, it had seemed to be true enough. We’d got used to a blanket of dark skies, cool northerly winds and squally rain. So the sudden appearance of the bright sun in a clear blue sky came as quite a shock. I put away my Vitamin D supplements, hunted around for my sunscreen, rescued my short-sleeved cycling top from the bottom of a drawer and went out for a good bike ride.

As usual I started at Scarva and headed up the canal towpath. The boost to cycling that lockdown gave has been continued in these strange beyond times. I’m glad to say that it is no longer unusual to see whole families out on bikes. Although, I’m careful when small kids are coming towards me on their little bikes, for they are often wobbly and unable to keep going straight on. But the only way to get better at riding a bike is to gain experience, and the towpath is a safe place to start.

At Portadown the towpath takes you almost into the centre, so you have to ride carefully. Along the path there will often be gangs of teenagers jostling one another, piles of broken glass (usually in the underpass) and a group of adults swigging cider. This is all concentrated in the last half mile of the towpath, and once these challenges have been negotiated there is only another mile of city streets to do before you reach back-roads and fields.

I followed the cycle route to Maghery, had a break and turned inland towards the Argory and Blackwatertown. These are quiet roads through undulating country, farms and small villages. In the fields contractors were cutting silage. A heavy mower is followed by a large vacuum machine that picks up the cut grass and blows it into the back of a huge trailer that is being driven alongside. But beware, the big trailers are always driven at high speeds along the narrow roads between the field and the farm. Contractors are paid a fixed price for the job, so the sooner they are finished, the sooner they can start earning at the next job. They take no prisoners on the road and drive their huge tractors at full speed, expecting everyone else to get out of their way. On a bike it’s easy to hear them coming.

I did a loop, almost to Armagh, and then turned back towards Loughgall. The drumlins are steeper here and covered with apple trees. It looks like it’s going to be a good harvest, for the trees are heavy with fruit. It was warm, around 26 degrees. Plenty of people were out working in their gardens. There are few little shops around here, so I stopped at a house and asked for water. They almost seemed glad to have an excuse to pause and refill my water bottle. After a break, I headed past Crowhill, a striking white house sitting on top of a drumlin, to rejoin the return route towards Portadown and Scarva.

On the way, I stopped for a chat with Lila, who lives alone in a small roadside cottage. Despite being 85, she’s always out working in her garden or painting the walls white or the window-frames red. She’s tough countrywoman who hates being idle. The sky was still blue and the sun remained strong. Portadown and the towpath were fairly quiet. I got back to the car at 6pm. It was still 20 degrees. I’d had a great day out, done 70 miles with over 2000 feet of climbing. And it had been summer all day.