A long train journey

I might one day find the exact quote I keep paraphrasing, Ibsen’s observation that after his first draft, he felt as though he’d been introduced to his characters, after the second, that he’d been to dinner with them, after the third, that he’d been on a long train journey with them, and after the fourth that he’d known them all his life. I am not yet out of the first draft and I feel I am on a very long train journey. To quote Rita Mae Brown, photosynthesis is far more efficient than writing as a means of earning ones daily bread.