Category: editing

The Ascendancy

Once again, none of my novels were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Naturally, I was distraught. It almost put me off of my coffee. Almost, but not really. It’s their loss.

Despite that oversight, my spirits are rising. Nothing to do with anything tangible; it’s just that time of my cycle. It’s beautiful weather, and seems like a wonderful to day write and edit.

As part of my lazing about this AM, I read a 2011 Paris Review article, “Catch-18”,  by Erica Heller about her father, Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22. Several passages interested me, but I want to highlight two.

At one point when Dad was writing Catch-22 (he wrote it for nine years, which turned out to be something of an average gestation period for his books), only once and quite late in the game do I remember him becoming discouraged, fed up with the writing process and how long it was taking to finish. This brief, uncharacteristic bit of self-doubt caused him to actually set the book aside and try to find distractions. I recall seeing him watching television in the evenings, but his boredom and exasperation was immediate. Within a week, he’d become so sullen that soon he was scurrying exultantly back into the waiting arms of Catch, telling my mother that he honestly couldn’t imagine how anyone survived who didn’t have a novel to write.

It is hard to imagine not having a novel to write. That’s my primary survival/coping mechanism. Computer games help, along with coffee, wine, and beer.

When Catch was finally taking off, about a year after publication, my parents, who had now moved us to a much larger, far grander apartment, would often jump into a cab late at night and ride around to the city’s leading bookstores in order to see the jaunty riot of red, white, and blue and the crooked little man—the covers of “the book,” piled up in towers and pyramids, stacked in so many store windows. Was anything ever again as much fun, I wonder, for either of them? They would come home giddy and very late and go to sleep with their heads still full of the potent magic of a dream poised right on the cusp of becoming true.

That sounds fun and real, and is the kind of thing that I dream of doing, cruising places looking for copies of my books and evidence that my dream is becoming true.

Time to write edit like crazy, at least one more time.

 

 

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Unabashed Pleasure

Yes, I’m reading my baby, but I’m enjoy what I wrote almost two years ago. My baby in this matter is the second novel, Entangled LEREs, in the four book Incomplete States series. I’m often surprised as I’m reading it, thinking, “I wrote that?” I impress myself, but I was writing to me, and I’m easily impressed, so I wouldn’t be impressed that I’m impressed, if I were you.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve posted something like that. *shrug*. My observation about my writing pleasing me also belies how my writing process works. I usually stream scenes through me. “Release the muses!” I shout, and then write like crazy. Writing scenes are often like encountering a tsunami and being swept away. I know what I wrote and can give you the details, but I don’t recall thinking about it much. I think about it before I start writing and after I stop, but I rarely think about it during the process.

The point is, those words are a first shot at writing the scenes. Editing follows, and polishing, and more editing for continuity and pacing, and polishing and editing. I’m an organic writer, so that scene is often edited to help fit a later narrative that emerges. I learn the characters as I go, so their thoughts and interactions in these scenes are revisited and modified to suit their personalities, motives, and agendas. It’s a long way from the first stream of writing to even the beta draft that I’m editing into a first draft.

It’s also a little scary. As I read through these scenes, I wonder, do these things get sufficiently resolved? I won’t know until the entire series is edited.

I’m not worried about being scared. I suspect that I missed some thins when writing the beta draft of the series. That’s why I edit and revise. If I find that my fear is correct, I’ll edit and revise again, continuing that process until I’m satisfied that I’ve answered the questions in a manner and to a degree that will satisfy the reader, moi.

In an aside, as I’m reading and revising, it’s fun to re-discover how I’ve integrated friends and family’s names and segments of their lives into my fiction. For example, a comet that breaks up and destroys a planet is named Santella-Klements. The first is another part of the extended family and includes cousins close to me growing up while Klements is a friend’s last name.

Okay, time to write edit like crazy, at least one more time.

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A Good Day

Today was a wonderful editing and revising day, mostly because there was little of either required. It’s a good day, I thought.

Having a good day feels like a reward. The bad days must be endured, and they often end up being productive. I mean, by a bad day, a day where I feel tired, depressed, and flirt with thoughts about not writing ever, ever again.

I know, though, that the writing on good, bad, indifferent, and mediocre days isn’t likely to be any different. Bad days mostly refer to my attitude before I start writing, editing, or revising. Once I start and my focus is on my writing, my attitude doesn’t matter.

For all that I know, what I read, edited,and revised today could have been written on a bad day. There’s a good chance of that being true, because I covered almost seventy pages today. I generally write one to two thousand words a day, which typically amount to less than ten pages, depending on dialogue and density. I probably covered a week to two weeks of writing, so there were probably some bad days in there.

Now I’m done writing like crazy editing like crazy. Time to go do other things, like eat.

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Crystallizing

I can certainly tell that Entangled LEREs was the first book written in the Incomplete States series. (Back then, the working title was The Long Summer.) I’m a third of the way through it in the initial editing and revising process, and I’ve deleted four chapters. Those chapters, written while I was exploring and developing the novel’s concept, no longer fit the overall story arc. To keep them in would be indulging myself.

So, off they went. The muse(s) didn’t argue at all, so I must have made the right decisions. Still, I saved each chapter intact as a file, with a note about where they came from, and updated the Editing Checklist to show what I did, and why.

The chapters were fascinating remnants of the genesis of the initial concept and the finalized concept. I remembered struggling daily as I wrote, trying to decide, what is this novel about? As the finalized concept crystallized, one novel became two novels, and then burgeoned into a series. Characters and their tales, plot twists and settings all arose. I didn’t include everything; sometimes I knew that what I was writing was writing to think, exercises to help me understand what I was learning and where I was going. They were saved, too, just in case I later veered.

In point of fact, the largest document of the twenty-five documents (including the four books) I created while developing this series is the document called “Circle (working doc)”. At five hundred pages, it’s one hundred ten thousand words and seventy-nine chapters. Some of the chapters made their way into the beta version of the four books. Many have notes about my intentions when they were written about where they should be in the narrative. Several of the chapters were written as snapshots of action, outcomes, or discussions between characters to help me understand the story arc but included information that I felt shouldn’t be ‘given’ to the reader.

They might still end up in the final first draft of the four books. I don’t know, and won’t know until I’ve completed this phase of editing and revision.

That’s what it’s all about.

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I Find

The first two parts of Entangled States, ten chapters, are like reaching a coast. The direction doesn’t matter. You hit the stretch where the land and sea meet. It’s turbulent, with crashing waves and hissing, seething waters. Taking it all must be done in pieces. There is the sea and the land, and there’s also the sky. Each exercises its own elements, colors, and behaviors. Once you pass this borderland, you’re released from the complications inherent to progressing from sea to land and freer to relax and take more in.

Now into part three of the book, it settles down again. I remember writing all of this, and recall thinking about the parts, and the placement of these chapters and scenes, and how they’ll interact. At that point, it was like being too close to a pointillism piece of art. Distance is needed for the colors to blend and become something more than blobs.

Wild, to think, while writing it, I saw these blobs and strokes, and applied them, and now I need to step back to comprehend the whole. I was realizing the whole on one level while I already saw and comprehended it on another level. Then, not so wild, as I write to help clarify and understand what I think.

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Nerves

I’m nervous as I’m editing this second book in the Incomplete States series. The series’ first book, Four On Kyrios, was straightforward for the most part. This book, Entangled LEREs, is well-named, with entangled stories and characters. It reminds me of Slaughterhouse Five meets The Sound and the Fury, Cloud Atlas, and Lincoln in the Bardo. Editing becomes intense for me. I imagine readers asking themselves and the book, “What’s going on? I don’t understand.” Makes me want to revise it to make it clearer and more linear.

The muses push back against that impulse and insist that I don’t change anything. And there it goes, I’m cringing and sweating, thinking, what am I doing? “Trust us,” the muses urge. In response, I hold my head and rub my forehead and temples, and think, pitting desire to change things against the muses’ directives.

The muses remind me, “You’re in the middle of the series. Don’t make any major changes until you’ve gone through all four books.” Right, because the mud settles later, and it all becomes clearer. These are mysteries in mysteries, all part of the concept and story. Yes, I remember writing these chapters and battling the muses about it back then.

Man, it makes me nervous, though. My jaw hurts from gritting my teeth. Should a writer have such a love/hate relationship with their muses and the novel in progress? I remind myself that I was going all in, that, yes, I knew when I was writing it that it would be way out there. I remember those battles with myself from back then. I hope readers can get through it and find the effort rewarding. Even as I nurture that hope, I remind myself, I write for myself. I’m my only guaranteed audience.

I think it’s time to call it a day.

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Going On

Have you ever seen a movie or read a book about a prisoner who uses a spoon or other small implement to chip away their rock or cement prison and eventually escape? I was thinking about that the other day as I was editing Entangled LEREs and realized, that’s not how it feels editing the second book in the Incomplete States series.

It also doesn’t feel like I’m struggling to move the needle. Nor does it feel like I’m climbing a mountain or swimming an ocean.

It feels pretty damn good.

I miss writing like crazy each day, truly. I resent, too, that it’ll take sooooo looong before these novels will be published. By ‘sooooo looong’, I mean like months or more. Yes, I’m indulging in some hyperbole to expose my natural impatience.

I’m not good at this persistent, slow stuff. I eat fast, drive fast, think fast, and talk fast. I like doing things fast. I like being intense and immersed.

But, I’m enjoying this leisurely editing and revising. I’m reading other books as I edit, novels that are best sellers or prize winners, prizes like the Man Booker, Peabody, and Pulitzer, or books by authors who won a Nobel Prize for Literature. I used to avoid reading such lofty others while I’m writing or editing. Correcting myself, I used to avoid reading most published literature while I was reading and writing because I often felt that my writing could never achieve such heights, and it depressed and demoralized me.

I’m more confident about it now. While I still enjoy and admire the aforementioned sort of books, I’m not cringing from my efforts when I go back and forth between the two. More often, when I find something special by someone else that I’m reading, I pause to understand the passage’s impact on me and explore what the author did and how they did it, hoping that I can learn how to do it.

The process has helped. I can see improvement in my writing. I sometimes find beauty or insights in my work that startles me.

Like many writers, I’ve found that writing is a progression. With a little talent and heavy loads of persistence and determination, we can improve what we’re revealing and how it’s revealed as we tell the stories that flow through us. This progression shines in the editing process. Further away from the fiery crucible of creativity where the flow is so intense, I can apply the lessons that I perceive. I’m more mindful. While I’m doing this, my appreciation for the diverse processes of writing/creativity and writing/editing/revising increases. As with many facets of our existence, it’s a spectrum.

Of course, on the obverse of this coin, when I read portions of my earlier published works, I cringe. There’s a plan afoot to edit and revise some of that stuff stirring in my head. What’s that? Don’t look back? You might have a point.

Time to resume editing like crazy.

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Editing & Rewards

I’ve learned more about myself, again. I’m happy to report this. I think it’s important to recognize that we’re always changing. That means that we always have some mystery about who we are that we need to confront and resolve. (At least I do, but I suppose others like to leave some mystery to themselves.) Some changes are as slow to witness as a snail’s progress across a patio. Other changes can be seen like a meteor’s flash in the August night.

One thing that I’ve learned is why I like editing, a lesson learned and forgotten. Writing like crazy in my finest efforts is primal, immersive, and intense. It’s also rewarding. Reward is associated with solving problems that are created as part of exploring the plot and understanding the characters. Reward also comes from the tangible progress of putting words onto pages until hundreds of pages are done and a novel is completed. That’s very tangible and satisfying.

Editing, though, lacks that sense of progress and reward of writing like crazy. I miss both of those things. But I’ve found that the editing process grounds me. As it’s more relaxing than writing because it’s less intensive, it has a gentler and more reflective quality in it.

Writing like crazy is also exhausting. That might seem strange to people who don’t know how much thinking is involved in writing. Editing, being less exhausting, leaves me with more free energy. Weirdly, I don’t know how to use that energy. I end up reading more. Conversely, reading more triggers the write-like-crazy impulse in me. But I’m editing, so I need to shun that. It’s a frustrating dynamic.

There is a sense of progress inherent in editing. It’s measured in the number of pages and chapters read, the number of notes made to check on this, and the number of those items that become resolved and checked off. But creative writing is problem-solving; editing isn’t, to me, so different areas of my brain are engaged. When I’m editing, I’m mostly reading. Remembering, I’m reading and editing my own work. I’m familiar with it. That’s exactly why others need to edit it for me when I’m satisfied that the draft is sufficiently complete to hand it off to someone to edit.

Done editing for the day. Not a great deal was accomplished in the sense that I didn’t cover many pages. (Ten, actually, when I go back to see how many I read.) That was because I discovered a name was spelled incorrectly. I was surprised to find that I’d spelled it wrong in the manuscript and in my bible of information. Global find and replace was needed, but to reach that point required research and decisions about which spelling to use.

That’s editing though, finding and correcting the mistakes, along with revising the story to improve flow and clarify.

At least in my mind.

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