Mulling

From October 2024

Mulling

I am going to start writing my next novel in December.

Which means that I am going to have the most glorious time between now and then, because I will be Mulling, and Mulling is such a fabulous process.

I’ve learned through experience that you cannot rush The Mull.

The first time I had a year to write a book, it really felt like a lot of pressure. So I made the rookie error of thinking WELL THERE IS NO TIME TO PLAN and threw myself in. A year later, and hardly weeping at all, I sent 125,000 words to my editor with an email saying ‘I think there is a book in here but I don’t know where’. There was. We found it, largely because of my editor’s insight and patience. It was the least fun I have ever had writing a novel. (Though oddly, maybe my second-favourite of all my novels.)

I know what I did wrong. I skipped The Mulling, friends. I don’t think I completely understood, then, what it was or how much it matters to my process.

I’m not a writer who knows everything before they dive in to writing. Even if I think I have a plan, it will change radically by the time I am 20,000 words in. But I do need to know some things. I need to know my themes; my motifs; the main things about my characters and the challenges they will face. I need to know, for sure, where the story will begin, and have a rough sense of where it will end. These are all things that come via the Mulling.

I’m lucky in that I can share my Mulls with my agent and my editor, who ask excellent questions, and, when I’m ready, will help me tease out what I really mean. (‘When you say she will ‘find purpose’, what might that look like?’ ‘Here, where you’ve written, ‘after a transformational experience’, do you have any sense of what that could be?’ ‘‘Random hot man shenanigans’ sound great, can you say any more?’)

I’m also lucky that so many of the things that I do, like walking Harris and knitting socks and baking, lend themselves to Mulling. Or maybe I like those things because they give me time to Mull; it’s hard to tease the two apart, as I embark on my ninth (eek!) novel.

Right now, I know the shape of that novel. I know the key characters and where they are going. I know some of the things they are going to go through.

But I’ve learned that only when I have Mulled will I be ready to start writing.

I sort-of can’t wait. But I also know that I absolutely must.

(This suggests that I really might be a grown-up soon. I’m still undecided as to whether this will be a good thing.)