It always happens somewhere between pages 120 and 150. This is what they tell me, and I suppose there must be something in it, because I only have to get a certain look on my face and the daughter and ex-husband nod knowingly at one another and say: 'Page 120.' Invariably, between half and two-thirds of the way through a novel, the whole thing turns to dust. The choice is to take a deep breath and re-write, or chuck the whole thing into the dustbin at just the right moment on a Thursday morning so there's no time to retrieve it before the dustmen come and claim it. After the event, with a slab of finished manuscript sitting on my desk, I call it a second draft: now with months of work a heap of ashes, a pile of incoherent words whose meaning I cannot for the life of me fathom, I wring my hands, drag my feet, and announce dully to anyone who'll listen that this time (yes, I know last time, and the time before that, but this time) it's an irretrievable disaster. And my loved ones yawn as if Karl Popper had never lived.

LRB 23 February 1995 | PDF Download