The Writing Moment
Another revision has been completed. This novel has kept growing*, but in a comfortable way, like I’m allowing it to breathe more deeply. I think I understand the story now, and grasp characters’ arcs and histories more completely, along with more nuances of the concept the relevant history informing the tale, things which I’d never thought about, simply inserting the pieces as needed, vowing, worry about it later, just get it written.
Even while I call this rev done, I have a small list of issues that need investigation so they can be vetted against the books’ revised story, so I’ll begin again. It’s been challenging but fun, and very, very satisfying. Makes me smile as I think, done again, even as I prepare to begin again.
That’s the nature of the process.
* The novel is now 482 Word pages and 146K.
The Writing Moment
I picked up my laptop bag and headed to the door. “Off to write,” I told my wife. “I’m pretty excited. Just fifteen pages left of this draft to revise.”
“How long will fifteen pages take?”
Pausing, I broke out in a broad grin. “Well, that depends on how it’s written.” As I laughed, she joined me. I went on, “I mean, it really depends on how it reads and if it still fits with the story after the revisions I’ve made.”
“I see,” she answered.
Shrugging, I turned back to the door. “And then I begin again.”
Saturday’s Theme Music
Mood: giddy
Beautiful windy, cloudy, sunny Saturday morning in Ashlandia, where the drivers are average and polite, but getting hit while you’re walking is close to happening all the time. The temperature is 54 F. Light rain might visit, and our high temperature will only be 57 F, but that’s better than 47 F.
It’s November 18, 2023, already. Counting down to all those things that are growing more and more imminent, from tests for students to mark the year’s end or term’s end, to buying presents and cooking foods for different holidays, to making travel arrangements to visit family or run away to somewhere warmer. All of these things speak from positions of privilege and having the money and food security to make these plans. Too, too many people will be scrambling as they have for years, trying to be safe, have a warm place for themselves and their families to sleep, and a decent meal. Their reasons for those situations are many; some are from choices made, but others arrived at their precarious situation through discrimination and bias, personal disasters, or mental health matters. Hope you can keep them in mind and help them out some during this season of celebration.
It’s time for the Leonids meteor show again. I went out to look for them last night, but the sky wasn’t cooperative. While Thursday night was fantastically clear, Friday night was hopelessly overcast. Bummer to me as I like watching the streaks and think about where they’ve been and what they represent. Three trips outside were done, and nada was seen but clouds and light pollution.
The Neurons popped an Isley Brothers song from 1970 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark marginal). “Freedom” is a song off an album called Get Into Something. I first heard it at the house of a girl I was seeing, but it was her mother playing the album. Her mom was about my mom’s age, but their musical selections seemed very different. As a thirteen-year-old heading for fourteen, I found myself listening intently to the vocals and the lyrics, and enjoying the instrumental elements of this R&B sound. I’d heard R&B previously but this was like, wow, there is such energy.
Let me tell you, this particular song, “Freedom” is so apropos as today’s theme music. Check out these lyrics.
Well, I wanna say, I wanna tell you
I wanna say when you can do what you wanna do
And go where you wanna go
And live where you wanna live
And love who you wanna love
And be what you wanna be
Join what you wanna join
Well, well, well, that’s freedom
Yeah, yeah, freedom, yes sir
When you can learn what you wanna learn
And read what you wanna read
(Free, free, free)
And write what you wanna write
(Free, free, free)
Do what you feel is right
(Free, free, free)
h/t to Songlyrics.com
Because, I’m remembering this song at a time when a group of misnamed people called “Moms for Liberty” are getting books banned, so students can’t read what they want to read. Red state school systems are pushing to limit what is taught so you can’t learn what you want to learn. And you can’t be who you want to be when state legislatures are making shit up and declaring that people who aren’t binary can’t decide what pronoun they will use or love who they want to love because these narrow-minded cultural dictators think that love and sex is only between a man and a woman. So, “Freedom” by the Isley Brothers is a solid theme music choice for this new wave Era of Repression and Fear that Republicans are pushing.
Stay positive, be strong, and lean forward with optimism and courage toward a brighter future of freedom, equality, and justice. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, as written in a 1918 book, “Readings from Great Authors”, attributed to Theodore Parker, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” h/t to quoteinvestigator.com.
Ah, the sun is shining and rain is falling. There’s a rainbow somewhere. Here’s the music. See you at the coffee maker. Cheers
The Writing Moment
24 pages.
I’ve had about twenty-four pages left to edit and revise in the novel in progress for about a month. Reason exists for that number: I keep re-writing and revising the first ten pages of one chapter. I’ve done so six times. After the sixth time — I’m a slow thinker — I realized that I didn’t know enough about the two characters and their relationship.
He was the main character and I’d been writing about him for months. His actions, thinking, and talking filled most of the 420 pages already revised. The other character had never shown up but was obliquely referenced. He was her son, but she wasn’t really his mother. He didn’t know that when he was young, only learning much later in life. He knew she resented him but didn’t know why. He thought he’d murdered her, but it turned out that she hadn’t been killed. Yes, it’s complicated.
After fleshing these things out more, I suddenly realized, oh, they hate each other.
It surprised me. I thought they were hostile and contemptuous toward one another but hadn’t respected the true depths of despise between them. She was secretive and using him, and he didn’t know why, but he didn’t like her and didn’t trust her. After leaving home, he’d researched his ‘mother’ and discovered little of the truth about her, except he hadn’t murdered her, that she’d framed him and she wasn’t dead at all, but had abandoned him and his sister, hiding her existence from them. All this traumatized his sister when she was a child, who responded by ostracizing her brother and becoming a cat. (I told you, it’s complicated.)
Now that I feel better about my understanding of the two, I tore out the chapter to rewrite it again. Then I’ll revise, and when I feel like I can go on, I will. Then I’ll read the novel again for more revision and see how the newest effort holds up.
That’s how it goes.
Michael Seidel, writer 