Tag: novel editing

The Party Bathroom Dream

I was young again – LOL – but middle-aged, and part of this large celebration.

Held outside, in a large green park, the party was to celebrate the birthday of someone famous. I have no idea who. Tables the length of football fields, covered in white tablecloths, set with dishware, china, and silverware, lined the park’s perimeter. Terrific food, cakes, sandwiches, veggies.

There were also numerous river-rock buildings which looked like shelters. These turned out to be restrooms.

Strangely, that’s where most of the dream focused: the bathrooms. I needed to use the restroom and spent my time dashing around, looking for one that was available. As I did, the Bob Seger song, “Shame on the Moon”, would play off and on. I mostly heard, “Oh, blame it on midnight.”

My friends found this hilarious. No one was in a uniform but people I worked with in the military were present, sitting in chairs in one section.

What I found as I searched for a restroom was that all of them were in use, and there were lines of others waiting.

I raced around, stunned at this problem, thinking, there must be a restroom I can use.

Thinking I found one, to my relief, I went in and discovered that it was set up as little barbershop. While I wondered, “WTH,” one of my friends called out with laughter, “Don’t even think about going there, Seidel.”

I flipped him the bird.

An announcement was made. Everyone was asked to take their seats. Miss Shirley Bassey was going to sing for the guest of honor.

I made my way across the grass toward a table.

Dream end.  

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Fascinating Dream: Aliens

It was a fascinating dream for me. When I awoke from it, I thought, I’d been watching a television show or movie. With a bit of surprise, I then realized I’d been in the dream, along with my wife and two children, which were my offspring. But I was both involved by watching as a minor character and sort of injected into some scenes.

My wife and children and I were tourists processing through some station. Aliens were there; sort of Klingon-like, in light grey blue uniforms with a jacket which has a deep red collar and a matching red shirt under it.

While traveling, all of us are stopped by these others who basically want to enslave us. It’s a troubling scene. I’m passive with my wife, not sure what will happen to us verses the others because we’re human and are supposed to have a different status. Nonetheless, we’re detained with the rest.

There’s then a scene where our captor and one of the captives go back and forth about what’s go be done in this cave where we’re being held. I realize that they’re having a disagreement over a matter of reference and perspective.

The captor keeps saying, ‘to your right’, and the other keeps saying, ‘that doesn’t make sense’. I then try to clarify that the captor is talking about the direction from the way he’s facing, while the captive is facing the opposite direction.

I end up getting up and pointing this out on a diagram they have posted on an easel.

We then ‘watch’ as captives are taken to another place to mine stuff. I don’t know what they’re mining. They make a show of it. I then suddenly realize that they’re secretly mining knowledge.

When the captive of before decides they’d learned enough, he reveals that he has a weapon. Shaped like an obelisk – really, just like a foot tall reproduction of the Washington monument, but shiny, silver-gold – the captive holds it up. Pressing a button, he sends a signal.

Suddenly, all these other dead, sleeping, and collapsed aliens awaken and rise. Each of them are equipped with a like obelisk. Using these, they overpower their captors.

As my wife and I watch, we realize that the revolution has begun.

Dream end.

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The Writing Moment

Standing and stretching from my coffee-shop table, I said, “Hi, Kim.”

Hair red as a cardinal catching attention, Kim grinned. My coffee-house writing friend. Three novels out there and counting.

“Hey, Michael. You leaving?”

“Yes, the table is yours if you want. It served me well.”

We laughed. I was giving up the corner table, the best for writing, offering comfort, privacy, and stability. Certain tables rock when typing. Precious as we are, the rocking disrupts needed writing rhythm.

Kim went on, pointing over her shoulder, “I was over there but that table is just too low. It makes my back and neck hurt.”

A grin overtook my face. She was as particular as me. “I know! It really makes it hard when you’re hunkering down for a two to three hours.”

Packing up my gear, I vacated the space. She swept in. “Happy writing,” I offered, then went on with a smile.

It was a good writing day for me. Hope it’s a good one for her, too — though, with that table and her talents, it’s bound to be.

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The Writing Moment

Eighteen pages. 5070 words. This is the gist of the chapter in my book which gave me so much trouble.

The chapter is called “Reconciliation”. Consisting of eight sub sections, this part of the story swung back and forth between two points of view.

Man, was editing and revising it a challenge.

I began with reading it after finishing the previous chapters. Right away, my brain was screeching to a halt. A grimace of displeasure spread. This wasn’t working.

Okay, recognizing there’s problem is a good first step. Identifying the problem is the second step. Fixing it is the third step. Then reviewing it to confirm it works is the fourth step.

“Reconciliation” begins on page 532 of 646 manuscript pages. So a lot of the story is well underway by then. Until encountering “Reconciliation”, the editing and revising was going well. I think I owe that to my process. I write and rewrite and polish as I progress. If I’m uncertain about what happens next, I’ll drop back and read and edit until I’m ready to write the next stage. Also, this is the novel’s third official draft. So there’s already been a lot of effort in it.

“Reconciliation” was a whole different animal. The story and the flow balked and balked again. It was like a squeak that must be fixed but first I needed to locate the squeak. I went through that chapter seven times before I was satisfied that I could go on.

The chapter after that, “Camden”, 23 pages, 6400 words, was done in a day.

Yet, with all that whining, editing and revising “Reconciliation” was very satisfying. There was a problem to be fixed. Fingers crossed, that’s what I did.

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The Writing Moment

I finished my writing session yesterday and headed off to shop with my wife.

Well, that’s the story. In truth, I continued writing in my head. I’d been editing the novel in progress. After finishing for the day, my mind stayed on tht treadmill. Sentences to add came to me as I studied cat food offerings, strolled along bulk offerings, selected green onions.

I made mental notes to myself. Remember this and that. Would it hold?

Settling in today, I remembered that I’d continue writing in my head. Were they still there?

Yes, they all returned. I pressed into the manuscript to make the changes. Even as I did, I reflected, would I really know if I remembered them all, or is that just another trick of mind?

That’s how writing often seems to be to me: a trick of the mind.

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The Writing Moment

Dealing with a bad muse today. Experienced with my buttons, she’s pushing them to get her way.

See, I should be editing and revising. It’s round number five on this novel in progress. It’s coming along well but it has a big appetite for my time. I hope, with another round or two, that I’ll have a finished tale that satisifes me. But that comes with a big sigh cuz I’m a little weighed down with the novel. Sixty pages of editing remain of a section which was expanded and shifted in the last two go-arounds. Complicated, they were sloppy and overwritten so I’m addressing what I see. It’s satisfying but tedious.

Bad Muse knows this. She knows that I’m addicted to the creativity experienced while writing a new novel. So Bad Muse is pushing buttons to continue with a new novel in progress. “It’s going well,” she croons, “and it’s fun. Time away from that other one will give you distance and you’ll find the editing is more easily done.”

I don’t know if her logic is right but I don’t like her tone when she says ‘that other one’. So disdainful. Not calling it a novel. Not even referencing it as a book or manuscript. Like she’s talking about another woman, a past girlfriend or wife or such. Oddly, that tone cements a decision that I’m going to edit ‘that other one’.

Take that, Bad Muse.

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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.

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The Writing Moment

Deeply into revision after letting the novel in progress simmer for a few days. Surprising early cuts come, which weirdly feel ‘natural’. Like the book is already out there, and I’m shaping the manuscript to fit it.

The process is much more involved and slower than the creative writing stage. With the entire story from beginning to end filled in before me, I know how I want to sharpen its focus. Ten pages have been sliced away from the beginning. What remained of that bird required extensive rewriting. It’s like that first draft was an exploration of the history of an event and the characters populating it. Now that I’m familiar with it, I can properly tell the story. From less comes more.

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The Writing Moment

Eighteen percent of The Light of Memories remains to be edited and revised in the third revision session. Small percentage but over a hundred pages. Once it’s done, another round of reading it through will begin. Figure I’ll read and edit until I reach the point that I’m not confused by anything I’m reading, that it reads smoothly and fully, that I’m not pausing to make corrections.

Then I’ll offer it to others. So, maybe this century. If not, the next.

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