I haven’t published an article for over 4 months. I had been neglecting my novel and decided to focus on finishing the second draft. Outside of work and my morning pages, the only writing that’s received my attention has been my novel.
I finished the second draft on the 25th of February and since then I’ve been trying not to think about the work that lies ahead as I start the editing process. I’ve been distracting myself by watching television (The Bear, The Last of Us) and by reading (Cormac McCarthy and Damon Galgut).
I’m at the point now where I must start working on the manuscript again. I read a series of essays by Haruki Murakami a while back; Novelist as a Vocation. In it he tells of how he found his voice by translating the first few pages of a novel he’d been working on from Japanese to English. His limited English vocabulary forced him to use short, simple sentences, which helped uncover a style and cadence which he’s adopted as his ‘voice’.
I’m going to attempt a similar experiment. My plan is to translate the first 10,000 words of my manuscript into Afrikaans and see where I end up. I’m not a sophisticated Afrikaans writer or speaker. But I hope that this exercise helps me see what I’ve written in a new light. The translation project starts this week.
Which leaves me with the question; where do I go with this site? I’ve decided that I’ll write whatever comes to mind. I might write a short story, share a philosophical insight, or share some photos I’ve taken recently (I’m keen to start collecting photos of something random, like things that are orange, or shoes flung over powerlines).
Which means, I’ll share updates more often than I have these past months. However, the content is going to be more varied (read: incoherent) – which is a more accurate estimation of what happens in my head. I don’t have any rules for the site, I write here to become a better writer, nothing more. This is where I practice in public.