As I mentioned earlier, I got off to a good start on my short novel Circus but about 3,000 words in I ran into a problem. I realized that my plan to use a first-person narrator wasn’t going to work, because I needed scenes that my narrator couldn’t possibly have known about.

This was discouraging, since I’d already discovered a voice for the narrator that I was comfortable with.  I tried to fudge my way out of it, by suggesting that my narrator was telling us about things he learned of later, but it felt false.

So I started revising what I’d written as a third-person narrative.  It wasn’t as difficult as I’d imagined and I’m now forging ahead from where I left off.

And so it goes . . .

Ciick on the images to enlarge.

2,200 words into a short novel that will probably run to 27,000 words.  It’s a story I’ve had in mind for a while — a tale of the big top, of the golden age of the great American circus trains, in the 1930s.

After a couple of days of work on it, I feel a certain amount of momentum gathering in the narrative, and I know where it’s going — both good signs.

So I created a cover for it, to make it seem more real, forced myself to stop writing and fixed a nightcap to keep me away from the keyboard — I can’t write when I’m drinking.

Writing is a tiresome business most of the time — but it has its moments, like this one, when I feel excited about getting back to it tomorrow.

Click on the images to enlarge.