Day 1. The huge redrafting process begins.

Today is the day that I planned to restart work on my long neglected novel, The Sphinx Scrolls. Started way back in 1996, this writing project has involved research into ancient mysteries and histories, dozens of drafts and a research trip to the jungles of Guatemala that included taking part in an archaeological dig at an old Mayan temple with tarantulas under every rock. I stopped work on the book 7 years ago when my publishing business grew so fast that I didn't have time to complete the necessary final drafts. I estimated then that I would need 3 months' solid work to get the manuscript ready for publication. Those 3 months start now. Nothing is going to get in the way. Well, that's the theory at least.

In preparation for my grand revival as a novelist I cleared my e-mail backlog (which has the effect of clearing the equivalent amount of junk from my brain), tidied my desk, and opened the most recent version of the document ('The Sphinx Scrolls - 18 May 2009.doc' if you're interested - that's when I last looked at the file and maybe edited a couple of lines). This document contains 166,990 words and runs to 270 A4 pages, single spaced. It's not that I need to write more words: the story is finished. What I want to do is to make it sparkle and sizzle by weaving a new subplot, adding some deeper layers of meaning, giving some characters a twist, and generally polishing it to perfection.

However, having read a couple of lines from the first chapter to refresh my memory, I then closed the file. It's only a tentative start, but hey, I've still got most of those 3 months left. It's hard to dive straight into a complex manuscript after such a long gap. And it's not as if I wasted the day - I finished writing a book of Unusual Character Names for Writers in February, and I spent the rest of today turning it into an eBook and putting up on this site. I think my first job when I tackle the novel tomorrow will be to look at my character names and see if I can make them more interesting and symbolic using my new guide.