Bad Boy
I’ve been a bad, bad boy. Great! Now I have Fiona Apple stuck in my head.
I’m referring to my blogging. It’s been nearly a month and a half since I’ve posted. I fell short of my own goal on that front. However, I did complete the draft of my work in progress. In fact, I did so well ahead of schedule. I began outlining during the last few days of June of this year, with the target of completing my first run at the novel before 2020. Not too shabby for someone with a full-time job plus a twenty hour side hustle.
As I drew closer to the end, I could not spare the energy or attention for blogging or social media. To give it to you straight, over the last four weeks of the process, I was charging for the end. I was not sick of the story. Not by any stretch. I sort of locked into a zone and adjusted my strategy. This beast of a project ended up clocking in at approximately 156,000 words. Had I prattled on in the fashion I had been for the first four months of the project, I’d still be writing, and I don’t think the novel would have benefited.
I wondered if I was simply writing two books here, but I think that was my resistance trying to trip me up. I need to lose about one third of what I’ve gotten down. The bad news is HOLY SHIT. The good news it, I think I know how I’m going to wade through the HOLY SHIT of it all. I had to meander at the beginning, I had to wander through the middle, to find my characters and to discover what is important in the narrative. At least, to find part of those things. Changes will come. Truthfully, I sharpened quite a bit as a storyteller in this process (at least in terms of being a teller of this particular story).
I have decided, based on a possibly wonky memory of what Stephen King advises, to put the book on the proverbial ice for six weeks before beginning the merciless slogs that will be editing passes. I need to clear my head and return to some semblance of objectivity. Objectivity might be a terrible reach, but I can at least find a little healthy distance from the project and revisit it with a slightly more productive head/heart balance.
This “rest” part of the process only began a few short days ago and it has been trying, to say the least. A big part of me says: Charge ahead! Finish the damn thing, and finish it now. Yesterday, if possible.
That is troublesome enough. What is positively vexing, though, is the even bigger part of me screaming: It’s a failure! You have not done it, Gideon. It’s too complicated. There are too many moving parts. The characters are inconsistent. No amount of editing in the world can save it. This turn isn’t justified. That pivot isn’t earned. No one will care about these people. You write too much about interior and not enough action. Fantasy!? What a joke! Your magical system blows. Who will even read about such a flawed queer protagonist?
What part of me wants so badly for me to fail? This is the trickery of internal resistance. Fuck this inner monologue. I’m not claiming I’m going to write a good book. I’m not even claiming that I’m going to write a readable book. What I will claim, however, is that the diatribe I was kind enough to italicize for you above is simply a description of a first draft. It’s what initial whacks at stories are. Furthermore, I think I should be much more afraid if I had just written 160K and my thoughts in the days after were basically, Nailed it!
To butcher a cliche: I’ve pulled a giant hunk of stone from a mountain. There is within that hunk a perfectly serviceable sculpture. Whether I can remove what is not perfectly serviceable sculpture remains to be seen. And “remains to be seen” is a hell of a lot better than “it’s a failure.”
We’ve yet to determine just how bad this bad boy is.
I’d love to hear about my fellow writers’ experiences with self-doubt and with idling between draft and edits.
PHOTO: Thank you to John Hain at Pixabay.
PROGRESS REPORT: First draft DONE.