Saturday, January 10, 2009

and i thought i was the one doing the revising (part one of two)

Writing a book is like taking a perfect class on how to write a book. ... Your unwritten book is a genius of a teacher. —Heather Sellers, Chapter after Chapter

January is the anniversary of many wonderful things (happy early birthday, Dad!), but among others, it is the birth-month of my book. In January 2006 I had a scrap of thought, a question, a fragment. Three years later, it’s a novel of more than 210,000 words. (Whew!)

I was thinking about that the other day, about this twisty-turny path of revision that I’ve been on for, oh, a while now. And I remembered some important conversations I’ve had this past year that helped point—or shove—me on my way…

Here it is, then. My homage to the painless process of revision.

january2008.
JENN: Brilliant. Have just finished my first real, solid draft of this book. Will now blitz through revision in a blaze of glory and red ink.
NOVEL: {silence}
JENN: Because, we’re basically done, just a little cleaning left, a little tweaking. But we’re basically done, aren’t we? ... Aren’t we?
NOVEL: {faint chuckle}
JENN: Um. I guess I’ll start with Part One.

days later…
JENN: Wow. It’s really a mess, isn’t it. I guess… I guess I’ll go through it bit by bit. This… this might take a while.
NOVEL {settles in, gets comfortable, says nothing}

july2008
JENN: Whew! Part One is done, and done well. I feel awesome about that. I think one more pass through Part One and it will be good—we’ll just let it cool for now. On to Part Two! I’ll take it bit by bit again. That worked last time. Bit by bit.
NOVEL: No.
JENN: No?
NOVEL: No.
JENN: Well… what should I do, then?
NOVEL: Redo the outline. Completely. Replace most of the scenes.
JENN: Most of the scenes?!?
NOVEL: You can probably keep a few.
JENN: ?!?
NOVEL: Maybe five. Everything else goes.

october2008
JENN: {wearily} Part Three then. Right. I guess I’ll redo the outline like before, and—
NOVEL: Sort of.
JENN: Sort of?
NOVEL: You need to learn to fly by the seat of your pants a bit more.
JENN: Right. Meaning ...?
NOVEL: Just look at your notes. Get a sense of the overall structure of Part Three.
JENN: {faintly, battling migraine} Overall structure. Right.
NOVEL: I’ll get back to you.

a few weeks later…
NOVEL: Hey. Langefeld. Nanowrimo? You’re in.
JENN: I ... am?
NOVEL: Go sign up. Write Part Three from scratch.
JENN: From ... scratch.
NOVEL: In one month.
JENN: Right.
NOVEL: You can keep one paragraph from the old draft. One.
JENN: Out of 35,000 words?
NOVEL: Yeah. You can keep 100.
JENN: Fantastic.

to be continued.—jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 01/10 at 01:12 PM
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