Getting towards the end

I'm further ahead with the novel I'm working on than I expected to be at this stage. Somehow, in the last couple of weeks I've been on a roll with it and the end is falling into place. There's more to be written and all will need to be edited. And edited again. And again. I'm reaching the point where I'll be doing more reading than writing, and I learned long ago that the best way to read is to read aloud. That way it's easier to pick up typos, infelicities of language, over-used words, errors in the order of events in the plot and things I haven't noticed like names which sound like each other and could confuse the reader.





And more importantly, the other thing which happens at this stage is that the book's themes become clearer. I was once told that when a writer knows what their book's about, then they know they've reached the end, and it's certainly true for me. I find that as those themes present themselves, I can capitalise on them and develop them even at this late hour. In fact, it's precisely because it's a late hour that they emerge from the text and link up with what's happening in my head with more clarity than they have done up till now. I find this a very exciting and creative part of the process. Today, for example, important ideas have occurred to me out of the blue. Well, perhaps not quite out of the blue. They jumped up, variously, while I was buying a loaf of bread, dialling to make a hair appointment and feeding Tabitha, my cat.