Having spent a large part of the summer writing and decorating, I couldn’t help but see parallels between the two.
Preparing the Room - Your First Draft
This is where everything is primed for the assault to come. The old wallpaper is moistened and stripped from the walls, and any structural horrors that may have been lurking beneath are filled and sanded. You research and plan and, painfully, very painfully, begin the task of assembling your first draft, that moment in a book’s life when you have something pretty rotten to show for your efforts but which is crucial if you want to end up with a work of art resembling a professional job further down the line.
Those holes in the masonry, that blown plaster, will still be there, showing through your wallpaper or paintwork like a visible panty line unless you take the time to prepare them properly now. A book set in the second world war, for example, simply won’t convince unless your research is done before your first draft is begun, You cannot jump from the Spitfire and build your parachute on the way down.
This stage is where all the experience you’ve built up over the years comes in handy. It is also where you learn everything all over again. All those books you’ve read, written or aborted, the lessons you’ve learned. You select the correct tools for the job. Not all scrapers and sanders are built the same and you must hold them the right way round for them to be effective (Stephen King, in his peerless On Writing, talks about the writer’s toolbox, and how a builder keeps the essentials in the top layer, the screwdrivers, the hammers, etc. Your common tools are your use of vocabulary and grammar, the basic elements of style).
The first draft should be as tight as you can bear to make it, to save yourself problems further down the line, to save you unpeeling and starting all over again - your technique, though you are only writing for yourself at this point, can’t be too sloppy, so ensure you lay out that plastic sheeting over your most valuable items of furniture and remember to use a mixture of complex and simple sentences, believable characters, a plot that gets more interesting the longer the story lasts, a structure that follows the beats and arcs that a book should, and show rather than tell (in other words, don’t tell the reader that it’s a hot day, show the sweat in the cleavage).
Basically, you need to have a fairly good idea about what you’re going to be doing before you drag the ladder out of the loft.
Decorating - Your Second Draft
Congratulations. You have tennis elbow and blisters, the room looks appalling, but you’ve completed a massive phase in the overall journey towards your goal. Just as you would never invite guests round to show off the room at this stage, you must never show anyone this first draft, no matter how relieved you feel to have accomplished it or what condition you feel it’s in.
Have a beer and chill. Leave the book for a time, to prepare your eyes for a fresh look. I don’t know how long this needs to be. I left Blame for years. I left my current WIP about a month. Whatever feels right.
Then, once you’ve sanded and washed the walls, and only when you’re ready, it’s time for the job of decorating. This might involve pasting wallpaper or painting bare walls but, either way, we’re into second draft territory. This is where you take your chewy, god-awful first attempt, your frantic gropings at a story struggling to tell itself, and turn those words into something beautiful.
This is the most important draft, I always think, but it sits atop everything that came before. Something that was rough and unkempt - amateur and embarrassing, even - starts to become, chapter by chapter, strip of wallpaper by strip of wallpaper, a story you didn’t even know you had in you. Take care over each section, or coat. Some parts will need more attention than others, around the fireplace for example, or that tricky fight scene, but trust in your tools.
Finesse as you go, as much as possible, and don’t settle for anything too rough at this stage, but don’t delude yourself into thinking the room is done. If you squint, the dodgy parts are almost invisible but they’ll stand out a mile if you announce the job as complete to an estate agent.
Final coats and tidying up - Your Third Draft
Oops. You forgot to sand the skirting board first and the new paint hasn't taken, and the bay window needs resealing. You missed a bit over there. I know the sofa will conceal it when you push it back into place, but you’ll never be able to rearrange the room unless you fix it now.
Welcome to the polishing and fixing stage. You think you’re almost done. NOT EVEN NEARLY, MY FRIEND.
The hard work is, mostly, behind you, but this is where things get fiddly. A once-over is essential, because you will have screwed up some bits, probably around the light switches, sills and the radiator. Get your smaller paintbrushes out. Change those character names. Take out those unnecessary adverbs. Swap the scenes around to make things flow better. Spend what feels like forever changing that very first line and then put it back as it was in the first place. Polish until every sentence, every damn sentence, sings.
This is the moment you hang the pictures back up, reshelve the books, pack away the dustsheets. In other words, prepare your masterpiece for your agent, editor or publisher by formatting font and size to industry standard (12pt, Times New Roman, Courier or Arial) and double-spacing the whole manuscript. Feel free to panic over the title.
That weird stain that bled through several layers will probably always be noticeable, but only to you. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Bask in the glory of your DIY and move on to the next room. You've got this.
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