Where It’s At

I have been writing.

Not here.

I joined this local, fledgling writers group back in January. At first I was sharing short stories, just trying to get my fiction muscles back. The stories were okay but honestly I don’t have it in me to write a new short story every two weeks. Maybe it should be in me, maybe if I practised more, but no. Seeeriously, no. I have 45 minutes a day and sometimes I have to nap.

I needed something to bring to the group and I hadn’t written anything new and I didn’t have any ideas for anything new. Wahh!

Then I remembered my novel. I wrote this novel in 2004. I was laid off at the time so I started a novel. Then I got a job but I kept writing the novel in my spare time. I finished it in October of 2004. It was a Saturday.

A few months later, in 2005, I took the novel out of the drawer and read it. I made notes in the margins and fully intended to go back and edit it. But we went to Mexico. And then we went to Ontario, twice. And Penticton, I think. And Saskatoon. God we traveled a lot that year, why was that? OH YES because my body was secretly planning to overtake me with pregnancy in October.

Novel’s in the drawer. Novel’s in the drawer.

I did not think about it very much. Except sometimes I would think, holy shit, I wrote a novel. Actually, two, since I wrote the November Novel Writing Month novel later that year in – duh! – November. (2005: Get It All Done Now Year.)

Sooooo. A few weeks ago I took the novel out of the drawer. I started at the beginning and rewrote the first 8 pages for my writerly pals to look at. I called it Chapter One, even though I did not write the novel in chapters and I don’t know what chapters are supposed to look like, except I’ve read a million novels so really you’d think I would have paid attention to this at some point? No, actually. I have not been paying any attention to any novel I have ever read.

The group gave me some good feedback. Enough to decide I would move on to the next 8 pages and call that Chapter Two.

Why 8 pages? Why not.

For two weeks I had Chapter Two open in front of me for rewriting. And it was awful. It’s awful. I wrote this novel the only way I could: by saying “you can edit it later, just Get It Done Now.” I believe this is the right way to go but somehow I thought that when I went back and edited it, there would be more genius! And less shit! Ha ha!

As I told my son this morning, everybody’s poop stinks.

I gritted my teeth and rewrote Chapter Two. I ruthlessly took out big bags of garbage. I cleaned out those 8 pages like you clean out your closet after birthing two kids and living through 4 changes in pant size. And I realized something. I never went back and revised this novel because a) I am lazy but mostly b) I have NO IDEA how to revise a novel. No clue. I have written and revised short fiction. I have written and revised creative non-fiction. I have written and revised poetry.

I have never done a second draft of a novel. Revising a novel so that it makes sense? Is like. Um.

Being blindfolded and lying on your back and throwing rubber darts up in the air, trying to hit the stars.

I have resources. I have a group, who will hopefully not get sick of my chapters. I took a sneak peek at the middle of the novel, which is much better than the beginning, so there is hope. I have 45 minutes a day; more if I organize myself better. This is the thing I am going to be doing, until it’s done. I am going to work at it.

So! I might not be here, bloggity-ing. As much.

It is difficult, being away from the blog and away from the Internet, while I work other creative muscles. The instant gratification of the Internet is totally addicting. If I can choose between writing 700 words that people will read immediately and at least one person will have something to say about, or writing 1,000 words that no one will see for two weeks, and then possibly never again, well, it is tricky to convince my brain that the latter is a better option. But it is.

In other news, life is often hilarious: