I then took the two streams of text and wove them into a continuous narrative.

Seventy per cent of the creative process was complete. Nonetheless, each paragraph still had to flow seamlessly into the next for 144,000 words.

I tackled the 10 chapters in reverse order of how difficult they were to get right. Between 3 June 2008 and 23 June 2008 I arranged chapter four (8,000 words) and chapter six (14,000 words).

 

Returning to Full-Time Employment

On 23 June 2008, following two years of travelling the world and a year living in a shed, I returned to full-time employment. From then on I continued to arrange my life around completing the book, despite the considerable distractions of London.

Arranging the twin-narrative structure took about four weekends per 10,000 words. However, I also had a full-time job, lots of people-related commitments, friends kept getting married and there were only four weekends a month. Securing time away from the madding crowds meant upsetting quite a few people.

I finished arranging chapter eight (11,000 words) on 3 August 2008 and chapter two (7,500 words) on 21 September 2008. The work to design and build this website was ongoing between October 2008 and January 2009, and coincided with a further spell of time-consuming external issues. Nonetheless, during that period I completed chapter three (4,000 words) on 11 November 2008 and chapter five (5,100 words) on 15 December 2008. I took this website public on 1 February 2009 and finished arranging chapter one (25,000 words) on 1 March 2009.

 

Feedback and Reviews

If you’re going to write a book, you need people to help you by reviewing your manuscript.

From spring 2009, I began incorporating the extensive feedback I’d been receiving on my draft chapters. Every draft chapter was reviewed by at least seven different people. Click here to read their biographies.

That review process involved a meticulous back and forth of editing and re-editing, then going through copy line by line with my heroic and patient editor and the Oxford Style Manual.

As that review process was ongoing, I arranged chapter seven (12,000 words) on 17 May 2009 and chapter nine (36,000 words) on 16 September 2009. Concurrent to this I was also supporting my mother through the final months of her life. It was insanely intense – zooming between my work desk, my writing desk, Liverpool Street Station and Mum’s deathbed.

 

Final Stages of Manuscript Drafting

After returning from bereavement leave in October 2009 I completed chapter ten (17,000 words) on 17 October 2009, organised my mother’s wake, spent an evening feedback session in Crystal Palace, a day-long editorial session in east London, a day-long feedback session in Wimbledon, a two-day feedback session in Hertfordshire, updated the website, re-edited chapters six and seven, drafted 10 YouTube scripts, drafted the sales documents and had 1,000 business cards designed and printed.

(Read more about these final stages here.)

The final feedback session was a 24-hour marathon with Si Peace, over the 23rd and 24th January 2010, after which we kicked back and smoked cigars.  Actioning the resultant changes took another weekend, then I spent two days doing a final read through, before declaring the manuscript complete on 7 February 2010.

Next task: get it published.

 

Next: The Road to Publication >

 

Praise for the end product:

[The narrator] wears his heart on his sleeve and seemingly bears his soul
in his accounts of the ins and outs of his relationships and
descriptions of the different characters he meets.
- Hermione Pagni, reviewer, London Student

 

Writing a travel book – menu:

• Part 1: Introduction
• Part 2: Conceiving the idea
• Part 3: Philosophy in a travel book?
• Part 4: A Year in a Shed
• Part 5: Binding Travel and Philosophy
• Part 6: The Road to Publication
• Part 7: Post-Production
• Part 8: Networking
• Part 9: The Publishing Deal