I gave myself one year to write that first draft because I wanted to maintain the brightness, the lightness, the nice poetic urgency that is part of the first draft.
You see, that makes sense to me. That’s actually encouraging. In the interview, Towles also offers some thoughts on inspiration and finding time to write (he had two young kids when he wrote Rules of Civility).
I revised Rules of Civility from beginning to end three times in three years. All of that revision work was driven by the goal of economy.
It wasn’t about just the poetry or turn of a phrase, though if you read Towels’ book you’ll see he nailed those as well. I like the idea of writing with economy in mind. That has a very ‘newspaper’ feel to it. A feel that a reader would find useful and appreciate when reading a long novel.
Writing is a craft. It’s not a mystical state. It’s not a single emotion. It is craft.
And a craft can be learned. Very insightful and encouraging!