I have been a night worker for 20 years and perhaps that's what makes me a late starter. Or maybe I was just born with a nocturnal clock. Anyway, whatever the reason, I don't get down to writing until mid-afternoon.
Usually, I start after the Arts Show on radio at 3.30 p.m. and work until about 9 p.m., depending on what stage I'm at with a novel. Being a bit of a news junkie, I usually take a break at seven to catch the Channel 4 news.
Most writers have rituals they follow out of a deep-seated superstition. The rituals develop because you started out doing things one way and are afraid to change in case you'd jinx the process. I do a first draft, long-hand, on A4 wire-bound notebooks. I like the tactile sensation of pen on paper.
Having started off as a short story writer, I still have a lingering fear that I won't be able to sustain a novel over the requisite 200 pages or so. Hence the first draft, which is a headlong plunge. Like a swimmer doing training laps, this is where the stamina of an idea is tested. I tend to designate X number of words per day - usually between 500 and 800 - and I stop writing when I reach the target. At this stage I can indulge myself by writing other things - short stories, fiction reviews, newspaper articles. Later, when I'm deeper into the novel, it's much harder to diversify.
When doing a first draft, I don't look at what I've written the day before and I don't go back and correct. If there are inconsistencies I scribble a note to myself in the margin and carry on.
Once it is done, I then transcribe it on to the computer and begin rewriting. Perhaps because I've spent most of my working life as a sub-editor - some of it on the news pages of this newspaper - I much prefer this stage, which is about boning and perfecting. The first draft may be a handwritten hotch-potch with lots of demented notes in the margins, but it is a template - and a safety net. And there isn't that awful squeamish feeling you get when you're originating material and, from day to day, you literally don't know what's coming next.
From then on it's impossible to set out targets or predict how long the work is going to take. I can gallop through 10 pages or I might spend five hours on one paragraph .
After draft number two, I get to believe that this thing I'm working on could actually turn into a book. Funny how just having a typewritten manuscript gives your work authority. It is only then I feel ready to show it to anyone - usually my agent and a few assorted friends, some of them writers, others who are that rare thing, good readers. There may be a third, fourth and fifth draft after this, and inevitably after the manuscript goes to the publisher, more tinkering has to be done. There comes a time when you have to let go. For me the book has to be literally wrenched from my hands. Otherwise, I would tinker forever.
I tend to write 4/5 days a week, depending on the day-job. They can be any combination of days but never a Saturday. I also seem to work the school year, but if I'm in the middle of a novel I plough on through the summer months, though productivity always suffers.
I'm lucky enough to have a room of my own. I find it vital to have a place I associate specifically with work. Getting into the room is always a struggle but once in there with the door shut I know I mean business.
ò Mary Morrissy's second novel, The Pretender, will be published by Jonathan Cape in February 2000.