My last update was in mid-August. At that point, I had just started editing the second draft. I went about 30k words in before I found a big issue with my draft.
The first two quarters were fine, but the crucial third quarter of my novel had been written very roughly. The third quarter is where everything I set up in the first two comes to roost. People die. People go to prison. People go on the run. Betrayals. Backstabbing. Bad guys closing in. And a lot of it hadn’t been fleshed out very well.
I needed the third-quarter scenes to be written in detail if I wanted to edit my first and second quarters. If X is going to betray Y, I have to reinforce the trust Y places in X so the betrayal really hits you. If the betrayal itself isn’t fleshed out, then that makes it hard to know the direction that X and Y’s initial characters need to go. Also, I realized I like it better when things are overwritten than underwritten.
So I added about 40,000 more words to my draft. I don’t know how I was doing the math on the word count in August when I counted 186k words, because, now, my manuscript stands at 175k words. I definitely didn’t cut out 50k words from my earlier draft.
Numbers apart, it’s been very interesting work, almost like wiping a window clean little by little that gives me a peek into the lives of my characters, which I only was getting a blurry version of until now.
Another very interesting part of all this for me has been learning how to focus. I’ve done a lot of work on my mental health and inattention issues, and I’ve made significant progress over the past year. Working on this stretch of writing has been like a big puzzle piece falling into place - I learned how to focus on specific activities that might be unpleasant to do, and hence distracting. I can do 1200-1500 words an hour now consistently.
I’m often annoyed that this is taking this long, like, it seems like the Bhavya Sri Ram Temple at Ayodhya has taken less time to get built than this draft has taken. But things take the time they take. There isn’t any point in being annoyed at your past self. If anything, this has been a kind of tapasya to conquer parts of myself that I had earlier given up on.
Sometimes, when writers I admire write epic works that take them a much shorter while than this has taken me, I question my time investment and my abilities. Sure, I can take inspiration from someone like the great Tom O’Neill who took 20 years to write Chaos - Charles Manson, The CIA, and the Secret History Of The 60s, but I’m not sure I’m making that kind of impact on the world where I’m kinda getting close to unmasking the conspiracy behind JFK’s assassination. (Seriously, the book is WILD and it’s gonna be my Christmas present to everyone).
On that note, my book does try to make a big deal of a conspiracy uncovered by Vikram Sampath - here’s an extract:
As the warder called out the names on the prison roll, Tilak sat calm and collected, inquiring about Babarao and his family. As he answered him, Babarao could not help but envy Tilak’s equanimity in the face of such adversity.
It had become known among Abhinav Bharat members that Gokhale had been the one to clue the police in on the Savarkar family’s connection with Tilak, which had brought them both to the Esplanade prison. Tilak was now staring at a long prison term, probably again in Mandalay. Gokhale, with the support of the British, was going to fill the Congress with British loyalists. How was he not angry, not dying to get out and set them right?
“Balwantrao,” he whispered, “Now that you are here, are you not worried about what is going to happen to the politics of Bombay and the rest of India? The Congress? Gokhale?”
“Babarao, don’t worry about India. India is alive. The movement is alive. If India is alive, it will not die with one less man. If it is already dead, one man cannot really hope to revive it. So why worry?”
I’m now trying to edit down 71,000 of the funnest words I’ve written. I feel more confident little by little that this will come to fruition and actually get read.
Here’s my favorite bit right now:
They climbed the stairs to the third floor, where Jahangir Hall was, and were met with the smell of rose perfume mingling with Indian food. Everything seemed to glitter and glow.
A walrus-mustached Englishman and his golden-haired wife glittering in a green saree with extensive mirrorwork greeted them.
“Khushamdeed! Aiye!” they said. They seemed to be one of those couples who took it upon themselves to learn Hindustani. The sort of couple who called it Hindustani.
“Namaste, Namaste,” Madanlal and Koregaonkar said with folded hands and joined the crowd.
“I feel so underdressed, yaar,” Koregaonkar said.
“Who asked you to wear that ugly suit? Go to Savile Row, and spend money on one good suit that actually fits you well,” Madanlal said, irritated and distracted, scanning the room for familiar faces.
There was some sitar music playing in the background, a tune Madanlal didn’t recognize. What song was it, he wondered. He ought to ask Aiyar, he thought before chuckling to himself. That wouldn’t be possible. He would just go to his grave not knowing what song this was.
They walked around the crowd, and people were all standing and chatting, most with a glass of wine in their hand. Waiters walked around handing them plates of samosas, cutlets, and small cakes. Koregaonkar demolished several samosas, but Madanlal had no appetite.
“Maybe it’s good you’re not eating anything,” Koregaonkar said, “When people are in stressful life-or-death situations, they tend to empty their bowels involuntarily.”
Madanlal was annoyed but also amused. A factoid like that was so characteristically Koregaonkar, and only he could think to bring up such a thing when he was supposed to be overseeing Madanlal shooting a man dead.
“Let’s hope Lord Curzon-Wyllie is fasting today then,” Madanlal said and they laughed.
“Oh yaar, there’s Sophie Duleep Singh. Princess of Punjab. Such a sad story yaar, such a beautiful princess.”
“She looks quite happy,” Madanlal said absentmindedly as the daughter of the deposed Prince of Punjab walked in their direction, presumably to talk to someone behind them. She was resplendent in a beautiful dress embroidered with sequined peacocks, and her hair was done up delightfully with a peacock feather fascinator.
“Sat Sri Akal, Princess,” said Koregaonkar.
Sophie looked confused, frowned, and moved away.
“This is the problem, this is how Indians lose our culture,” Koregaonkar said, “She doesn’t even respond to a Sat Sri Akal. Her mother is an orphan from Cairo who converted to Christianity and was married to Duleep Singh to keep him Christian and not go back to Sikhi. What culture will she teach? Just like that a beautiful legacy of Sikhi, all gone.”
“Koregaonkar, you idiot, she didn’t respond to you not because she has lost her culture, but because you don’t have any. Is that how you talk to a princess?” Madanlal said, cringing hard, wishing Tatya had sent someone else, anyone else to support him, “No princess has to deal with a lout like you.”
See you on the other side!