The First Redraft

Apparently, when a caterpillar goes into a cocoon to turn into a butterfly inside is a fairly slushy mess, a soup of cells, and Aydin Aördin answers the interesting question of whether or not this slush is still alive. The answer, which he explains very well (on his blog and in New Scientist), is yes.


The reason that I mention this is that over the last few weeks I have been in my own cocoon redrafting the novel, I have barely gone out - only when I had to - a walk by the river while I was waiting for a new set of keys to be made, and of course the obligatory hunting and gathering at Tescos. But now it is almost done, apart from the epilogue, which I may or may not write. It is 117 000 words which makes about 400 pages of double-spaced lines, and I am exhausted. As I have commented before, this exhaustion I find fairly inexplicable since I have only been moving my fingertips throughout.

Now I guess I have to emerge - maybe not as a beautiful butterfly but some sort of winged creature, a bleary moth maybe because I prefer the night, and stretch the limbs that have gone unexercised for weeks, and on Sunday relocate to Lampeter for a fortnight to learn Welsh.