One of my friends recently described this blog as a chronicle of projects I’m trying to get done and how outside problems keep getting in the way.
Yeah, I get that.
If you’ve been following my Novel Update series you might recall that I’ve ALMOST finished a workable Fifth Draft of my novel about grad school life in the Midwest, and that this draft is especially important because it’ll be be the first one that’s finished enough to actually show people. Since I leave for Japan at the end of July, a few weeks ago I set a self-imposed deadline of finishing the Fifth Draft by July 1st so I’d have time to send it to a few beta readers and focus on other things before my trip.
Welp, I’m posting this on July 8th, and while the majority of the work is done/was done by the 1st, it’s not quite there yet, which I consider an acceptable partial victory. Lemme explain…
Background Writing Process Stuff
So when I write, I start with a general outline of how I want the story to go, and then write out the shittiest first draft I possibly can in true Anne Lamott-form just to get something on the page to work with later. (No joke here, Anne Lamott’s a for-serious writer whose essay about this method is actually called Shitty First Drafts.)
Once I’ve got something an actual skeleton draft to work with, I go back to it literally with blue pen and paper in hand, making hard copy changes on the page so I can see what the words look like in a different form. Working with a pen versus working with a computer also feels less intimidating, like I’m still very much in a This-Doesn’t-Have-to-Be-Shown-Yet stage and feel freer to play around with the material. If something bigger needs to be added, I write out the new material in a notebook, making notes on the printed pages where the new material goes so I can link it in later.
Actual page from my Draft 2→3 revision. Note boxed squares 1 and 2 in the lower right corner that correspond to new sections in the notebook, and that Lawrence doesn’t yet have a last name in this draft.
Supplemental notebook of additions too large to write out between lines or in the margins. I use regular spiral notebooks and tend to write on both the front and back sides of the page to save space.
Once the handwriting portion’s done, I start typing the handwritten changes into an updated Word file—which was taking me an insanely long time to finish last year while I was still working my Office Day Job. This stage is relatively mindless—I put on my headphones, blast some music, and tend to type at the end of the day when I’ve got less energy and focus.
I repeat this process as necessary for any piece of writing I work on, and working in layers makes it easier for me to solve difficult problems, add in stuff that occurs to me along the way, and iron out troublesome spots that take multiple goings-over to get right. With this novel I knew that the Fifth Draft was going to be the last one requiring major edits, and was psyched to finally, at long last, have it done.
And with that in mind, how about another ellipses and a section break to explain that…
The Actual Editing is Done!
This is what I worked on through most of June…well, some of June. I had a LOT of things to do last month, plus a few interruptions and sinus headache days that put me behind. I also unwisely spent the second-to-last week of June grading standardized essays for Day Job money (blarg…), a decision I went on to regret.
All told, when the last week of June rolled around, I had just over 260 pages of edits to work through on the printed page—which isn’t a small number. The Fifth Draft editing process was moving quickly, but I’d also just made plans to be away from my desk for the last weekend of June, leaving me a four-day week to plow through 85% of the novel.
Maybe this was the realization I needed to make me hunker down and get back to work, because for those last four workdays I made the novel my top priority, sitting down right after breakfast and working until I’d finished my daily quota of 65 pages (65 pages/day X 4 days = 260 pages = DONE!!!!). In real time, this took between 5 to 7 hours, and every day but one I wrote to the end without stopping for lunch (unfortunately this wasn’t on the 7-hour day, either!).
This 5-7 hours is WAY longer than I usually spend intensely writing or editing in one sitting, and though it was doable, it left me feeling drained at the end of the day and even more exhausted at the end of the week when it came time for my final sprint. This is partly because writing for me is such a High-Focus activity, but also because devoting so much time to writing caused my thoughts to linger in the novel’s world even after I’d put the draft away. This meant that for most of the week I underwent the same soul-searching and overall obsessing that the novel’s characters go through—and that wasn’t an easy ride.
Long story short, I finished the pen and paper edits before July 1st by pushing myself through this final, mad sprint. Those are all done, but there’s still some more work to go.
OK, So What All’s Left???
Typing up the edits for one, along with a LOT of manuscript formatting that’s required for this novel—like reworking text and email conversations on to the manuscript page, along with some portions that actually have to be handwritten (!) and scanned to create the desired effect. Since this is a novel about literature and other novels, I’ve also got some fact-checking and research to finish up, which involves things like actually going to the library and leafing through a copy of Moby Dick, plus some other books I didn’t have access to and couldn’t find online.
So really, all that’s left is this assembly and touch-up type-stuff. It still has to get done, but it’s not as mentally taxing as the editing, and it’s about a zillion times easier to work on at the end of the day when I’m not feeling 100%, which I consider mostly a victory.
Last of All: Are You Pissed That You Didn’t Make Your Deadline????
Not really. I think setting your own deadlines has value not because it gives you an rock-solid, absolutely-have-to-finish-or-I’m-fucked deadline like you get in the outside world, but because it guides your work and keeps you motivated. There aren’t any real, external consequences for my finishing the draft a week or two later than I’d planned, and the deadline itself was still useful because it pushed me to work harder than I otherwise would have that final week.
And having done that, in itself, feels like a victory.
Keep in touch for more novel updates, plus the inside scoop when I finally get this mofo done!
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