Tag: revision

Write a note, but write

A quick note can save the day. You’re writing, and you start worrying, “Do I have the scene right?” You get bogged down, derailed, and despondent.

In the middle of a chapter, unsure of where it was headed, I inserted this line: “Out to dinner with [the usual crowd—check and add].” That not sat on the page (it didn’t sit long). The music changed, a few paragraphs later, I got up and walked to a different room, and then the note became two pages of unstructured dialogue (see at the end). Will it all stay? I don’t know. The Gatsby-driven exchange may come out.

What I do know, none of it was there when I wrote the note “the usual crowd—check and add.” I kept writing. Advice: If you can’t find what you are looking for, drop in a note to yourself, and move on.

First, writing begets writing. Write something—anything—but write. Put down sentence after sentence. The connections will come. But start. Write holding pattern sentences as a warm-up, the same way you begin a workout with 3-5 minutes of easy exercise before grinding into the “real” work. It’s all real—and all necessary.

Second, never forget that everything can (will) be revised and rewritten. First drafts are first drafts are first drafts. Write it (even if it is temporary, even if you think you have finished), and let it go. It could stick around until the end (maybe there is something Gatsby-esque that will hold that part of the exchange), but don’t get obsessed, attached, or disgusted. Keep going.

A note to yourself can save your day. Just keep writing.

“You have a job?” Valerie was incredulous. “Did Richard find it for you?”

“No!” I answered too forcibly. While they had been my entrée, with this crowd, I felt too much in their shadow.

“The tooth brushing didn’t work out?” Jason asked.

“He told me about that. You’re as scandal, Aletheia. No wonder you never found a real job.”

“She told Jason that she was doing porn—brushing her teeth naked for old men.”

“Or a boyfriend.”

“Better than brushing naked old men’s teeth.”

“No, seriously, how did you get the job?”

“An old man hooked me up.”

“Connections.”

“Gumections.”

“Get it?”

“I get it, Wolfsheim.”

“Ha!”

“She’s pregnant.”

“No! Valerie!”

“You’re having wine?”

“Just a glass. I gave up cigarettes.”

“You mean, I gave up cigarettes.”

“Well, I’m carrying the package. It’s the least you could do.”

“I’ll have another.”

“Do you have morning sickness?”

“I have nicotine withdrawal. The poor thing will grow up with a pre-baked craving.”

“An itch it can’t scratch.”

“Have you picked out a name?”

“Jason’s great grandmother was named ‘Esmeralda.’ We can call her ‘Esme.’”

“Is it a girl?”

“Who knows, we just found out.”

“Just?” Looks shot back and forth across the table.

“Well, not just.” Jason placed his hand on Valerie’s. “Just enough. It might be a boy, but Val’s convinced.”

“She’s never wrong.”

“A baby and a job!”

“We’re getting old.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Speak for yourself. I’ve always been old.”

“I hope I die.”

“You are old.”

“Here’s to getting old!”

On the revisionary road

Here is the next step in the process. I have spent the last few weeks reviewing my rough draft, which I have dubbed the “working draft”—and have produced several copies of that working draft. I split time between one draft saved in between Pages (on my iPad), and and another saved in Word (on my laptop PC). I have run the draft through Grammarly several times, and read the document from page one through page 312 (now). By the way, Grammarly does not catch every typo, nor does it allow for “Djinn” to work as both a plural and singular noun. So be it.

I have enjoyed rediscovering how I imagined the book when I began, and to rewrite those old intentions to suit where the whole thing turned. While I was aware of this change as I worked, I resisted the temptation to head back and “correct” the earlier chapters. During the first draft, forward motion was more important than perfection—or rather, something like perfection, because, really, perfection is a chimera. In spite of my decision to emphasize forward motion, there has been much in the working draft that has delighted me, and some, on reflection, that has surprised me.

This draft also contains memories of what I was doing while I wrote. Some of those memories are bittersweet, some are joyful. I began this book with one reader in mind—which was helpful at the start. I felt that there was a whole story ahead of me, but did not know where it would end up. Along the way, I read passages in public, and gauged the work by the reaction of an audience—which was also helpful along the way. I also shared bits and pieces that made me happy with other people, including a colleague, who generously read the 170 pages I had written (and not finished) in June. I found the responses of these readers to be helpful, and heartening, as well.

While writing has taken its right and proper role in my life, I do not write for me, to express some deeply held inner belief or to prove some point. I like to engage a reader, to connect. If there is a bigger point, it would be about the power of connection. I appreciate that a piece of writing can be a kind of conversation between me (the writer) and you (a reader)—and it is not an intellectual conversation.

I think, for years, that I tried to write with my intellect, and that I did not trust my heart with the process. I struggled with the desire to express something perfectly, or at least as well as others had expressed themselves. Those others included anyone and everyone who had written anything and everything. More recently, I was able to hear Sidney’s muse exhort me as well—“Fool, look in thy heart and write.” Turning to my heart—away from not the anxiety of influence as much as the weight of awareness—has allowed me to feel my way through the work. Sharing with others has helped expand that feeling, and to have it be a shared feeling at times.

I have turned back to my intellect as I revise, and this has helped me make connections in the text. I add more than I cut, as I realize that I have not provided all the bridges necessary between scenes. Still, I have rediscovered intuition, and as I make my way through this draft, I am surprised and delighted by what I wrote, almost, it seems, by accident, or, at least, by trusting my poor, fallible, and durable heart.