I did<a title="Sometimes progress means starting again" href="http://davidhewson.com/2010/12/19/sometimes-progress-means-starting-again/"> a brief note yesterday</a> about how I'd decided to abandon 35,000 words of book and start again, on the same story but from scratch. I wrote that post mainly for myself to get it down as fact. But judging by the number of people who've responded one way or another it touched a chord.

So let me expand on this subject because I think it's an important one that goes a little to the heart of the curious process of writing. To summarise...
<ul>
	<li>On Friday I had a 35,000-manuscript.</li>
	<li>Today it's back to fewer than 1,000 words.</li>
	<li>I know absolutely this is good for the book and feel incredibly happy about this development.</li>
</ul>
<!--more-->I can understand why people who don't write must think I'm bonkers. How can throwing away six weeks work, and a lot of words, possibly count as progress?

Easily. Because I'm not throwing it away. Some of it will be used again. Not much. But that's not the point. Writing is a learning process. And you need to understand that you should learn as much, if not more, from the stuff that doesn't work, as you do from the bits that make you puff up with pride.

Much of the struggle in producing a manuscript lies in working out what you want to write. What needs to be recognised more widely is that an integral element in that battle is defining what <em>not</em> to write. One way to find out is to write it. To put down words, look at them, screw up the virtual paper and think, 'Nah, let's start again.'

Let me try to spell this out more clearly. Nothing you produce, however bad, however crass, however misjudged, is wasted provided you recognise it for what it is: not good enough. Provided you're honest with yourself, learn from your mistakes and promise yourself, 'OK. Next time I can do better.'

No. Still not there. How about this?
<blockquote>One way to find out what you want to write is by writing what you don't.</blockquote>
I do it all the time. I'm a million grumpy Amazon critics rolled into one.

Here (written in Apple Pages) is the revision tracking for just a handful of paragraphs from next year's book <em>The Fallen Angel.</em>

<em><a href="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/12/screen-shot-2009-12-31-at-10-09-431.png"><img class="alignright size-large wp-image-6512" title="screen-shot-2009-12-31-at-10-09-43" src="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/12/screen-shot-2009-12-31-at-10-09-431.png?w=640" alt="" width="640" height="330" /></a>
</em>

I don't find this degree of tinkering strange in the least. Artists in other fields have been behaving this way for centuries.

We know from X-rays that great painters often reworked their canvases many times before they ended up with the images we now think of as both finished -- and original -- versions. One of my favourite examples is Carpaccio's wonderful painting of Augustine's vision which you'll find in the lovely Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni in Venice.

I should say I'm particularly fond of this painting because it features in the book for 2012, <em>The Plague Doctor</em>, too. Everyone who's seen it remembers this work because of the little dog, the one that people ooh and aah at when they go into the scuola. Yet originally it was an ermine. A ferret with white fur. In fifteenth century Venice such a nasty little beast  happened to stand for purity and loyalty.

Here's Carpaccio's original sketch which recently went on show at the British Museum.

<a href="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/12/09111.jpg"><img class="alignright size-large wp-image-6505" title="0911" src="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/12/09111.jpg?w=640" alt="" width="640" height="429" /></a>

Praise the lord: he <em>changed his mind </em>and came up with something better. That wonderful, charming little dog that has now enchanted people for more than five centuries. An albino weasel wouldn't have had the same effect. Take a look at the actual painting. Just a small detail, one animal changed for another. The difference between something remarkable, with a single, defined point of focus, the saint, and a masterpiece in which the eye is constantly drawn between the quizzical little animal on the floor and the man staring out of the window, lost in thought. What <em>is</em> going on? Clue: I give you an inkling of my own opinion in <em>The Plague Doctor.</em>

<a href="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/12/st-augustine-51.jpg"><img title="St. Augustine 5" src="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/12/st-augustine-51.jpg?w=640" alt="" width="640" height="423" /></a>

The same goes for music. Umpteen different versions exist of many modern popular recordings. Lord knows how many different versions there might have been of various pieces of classical music. It's only natural, if you're of a curious, adventurous mind, to try to look at the same thing from different perspectives. If we were straightforward, predictable, normal human beings, we wouldn't be spending our time trying to invent fairy stories in our head.

Writing is odd in the creative field because that attitude -- of experimentation, of openness -- is sometimes treated with outright suspicion. We occasionally like to fool ourselves every word is perfect, every comma in the right place, from the beginning.

This is nonsense. I'd rewrite every book I've ever produced if I could, including the one that's coming out in a few weeks time. In years to come, when books become digital and cease to be locked into the type and paper they were printed with, perhaps we'll start to have multiple editions of the same work. Imagine the same story written by the same writer, but thirty years apart, with the benefit of age and experience vying with the enthusiasm of youth.

The creative mindset should be chaotic, quixotic, incapable of being managed to some extent. We're writing dreams here, not business plans.

If that means you have to be prepared to throw everything away and start again when the words don't work, then fine. I've always said this job should carry a notice above the door: <em>Lazy, sane people need not apply.</em>

But if you do follow my advice, keep a copy, won't you? Just in case.