Well, it's done. Yesterday afternoon I finished the first draft of volume one. Yes, that's right, volume one. I had come to the realization about three weeks ago that I wasn't going to be able to fit the whole story into one volume. So, I had to start readjusting my thinking.
I hadn't even reached what I was considering the halfway point of the story and it was already over the number of words that was a suggested length for a first novel. I've been writing single spaced pages the whole time, and saving each chapter as a separate file, so didn't have any concept of the sucker's actual size.
I saved it all into a plain text file to make one long document and converted it to the standard manuscript format requested by publishers and agents alike: double spaced, one-inch margins all around, and twelve point type. Sat back to let my poor little laptop make the changes, and presto — I had 325 pages of something or other.
But in the last two weeks, I ran into a bizarre block. I couldn't bring myself to finish. The closer I got to the end of volume one, the more I wanted to put it off. On top of that, I couldn't figure out the best way or place to end it. Eventually I realized what the problem was. I didn't want to finish.
I had two pretty good reasons for not wanting to finish. The first was that I'd have to start re-reading the sucker and making corrections and edits to the best of my limited abilities. The second, and I know it sounds a lot like the first but it is different, was that I'd have to actually read what I'd written.
Reading for editing is one thing, it's dispassionate and purposeful. You're looking for typos, mistakes in grammar, and listening to the words to see if they're saying what you wanted them to say. I find the best way to do that is not to read for content; in fact, when I'm proofing something I usually start at the end and work back to the beginning just to avoid that trap in the initial scan. That way typos and other things stand out.
Even on the second read, I'm still just checking it sentence-by-sentence, and paragraph-by-paragraph. Does each sentence sound right, and does each paragraph express the idea I was trying to put across? On the third read through, I check to make sure that there is a proper flow to what I've written, a beginning, middle, and an end.
Article comments
1 - Elvira Black
gypsyman, you said:
"As much as I enjoy a good story, I enjoy the employment of words as building blocks for creating art. Does that sound pretentious? I hope not, because I don't mean it to be. It's just that I want to take advantage of the gifts the English language offers a writer that enables him or her to go beyond the prosaic."
That doesn't sound pretentious in the least. I hear you!
I've never aspired to write fiction, and writing several hundred pages of anything strikes me as a helluva accomplishment. If it turns out upon rereading that it's not all you'd like it to be, I don't think this makes it a waste of time by any means. When it comes to writing, I think the act of writing and rewriting--rinse and repeat--almost always makes for even more accomplished writing in the long run.
My hat goes off to you, gypsyman! Great post--I can relate to what you're saying.
2 - John Spivey
Congratulations gypsyman. There are several things that are hard to take on about writing. The first is to actually admit that one is a writer and mean it way down inside. Another is to get to the point where one can admit that one's writing is good; it might need some editing, but basically it's good. I think that when one can make this sincere admission then the writing quality increases profoundly in proportion to the self-confidence.
You gotta love the play of language. Nothing pretentious about it all. Stay with it.
js