Doing an Anthony Trollope

This morning I told my husband that today I would be ‘doing an Anthony Trollope’ and, even though he’s used to unfathomable things being produced by my brain, he looked at me as if I’d lost the plot. But it sums up exactly what today is for me.

Last night I finished the first revision of my next book, one day ahead of my schedule, yes, I was pleased! Now I need to go through it again (it’s lucky revision is my favourite part of the novel-writing process) looking at world-building - I am hell on wheels for having my characters talking to each other in a vacuum - and all the other things I forget in the white hot burst of creation when the words flow so fast I get RSI trying to capture them before they’re lost.

So how does this tie in with Anthony Trollope? Well, yes, I’d like to be as productive as him, he was one of the most prolific novelists of the Victorian era. I wouldn’t mind someone of Tolstoi’s calibre saying nice things about me, Tolstoi reportedly said he wished he had the same amount of talent that Trollope had in just his little finger.  To have the words you put on the page still being read over a hundred years after your death wouldn’t be too shabby either.

Trollope worked for the Post Office for most of his working life and is credited with having introduced the pillar box. Every morning before work he would settle down to write as many of us writers do, squeezing the most out of every spare second.  But on one instance, when he finished his current work in progress fifteen minutes before he was due to go to work, instead of throwing down his pen and celebrating, Trollope pulled a clean sheet of paper in front of him started Chapter One of the next book. You’ve got to love that persistence.

So tonight, instead of taking a night off to celebrate being on holiday or that I have finished revision pass #1, I am pulling my clean new manuscript in front of me and beginning revision #2.

‘Doing an Anthony Trollope’, isn’t that great? I think we should adopt it into our everyday vocabulary, what do you think?