Saturday, September 27, 2008

welcome to the next level

I seem to be a little over-vehement with the pencils this morning.—John Steinbeck

Not long after my last post, I was leafing through an old journal of mine, and I realized something: I started revising this novel in January. January. Nine whole months ago, nine months I’ve spent revising the first half of the book. ... Which launched several days of feeling acutely irritable and frustrated with myself. It took only six crazy months to draft the novel in its entirety; why is it taking so long to re-write it?

And if I really think about it, I can come up with enough answers to almost satisfy myself: I’m learning all the time; my characters have become fifty times more dynamic and interesting; and my sister got married, for goodness’ sake, and that will mess with a writing schedule… etc. etc. But I was still left with all those calendar pages devoted to rewrites.

Fortunately, last weekend my parents and I road-tripped down to Atlanta for a few days. Eleven hours each way, which was plenty of time for good conversations, admiring the scenery (we don’t have many mountains here in Illinois), and generally getting my moods and attitudes reset. We had a great time with my aunt, uncle, and cousins.

(Oh, and on the trip, I began to resurrect another novel idea that has been pestering me for a while. What could be more fun than wrestling with one novel? Adding a second, that’s what! I’m not going to talk too much about it, or else the rest of my brain will get wise to what’s going on, and will sort of shut down. Because I must be crazy. But I love this second novel, so, so much. So, shhhh. Don’t remind me that I’m actually going to start working on it next week. Or I’ll get spooked and just run off to be a barista or something normal, instead of being the kid in the back room with ink on her fingers.)

Here’s a bit of Georgia for you:

loved these trees, so much. this is in my cousins’ backyard… i don’t think i’d ever go inside!


my cousin’s awesome marching band—totally made me miss my own marching days… great fun to see this show!


hanging out with Dad before church

Back home on Tuesday morning, I took a good long look at what I had left to do on Part Two, and made a scary decision: No matter what, I was going to get it done by October 1. Because one of us (either my protagonist or me) would be toast if I had to keep working on this same section next month, and I didn’t want it to be me. Or her.

So it’s been a hard week! Turned out I had more than ten scenes left—it was more like fourteen, and many of them from scratch. But yesterday morning—with five scenes left—I realized that I didn’t even want to work with Part Two on Monday… and so yesterday I cranked out the last scenes and slurped down the coffee and finished Part Two.

Wow. 184 pages, and that’s just a quarter of the novel! Whew! Monday, then, begins Part Three, and the next phase of rewrites. This next section will have to change a lot, since the first half of the novel is completely different. It will be tons of work, but I’m excited. I’m just itching to make it better, stronger, more compelling…

The funniest thing? Last night, after shutting off my computer, I went out with Dad for a celebratory pizza, and I felt like I was emerging from a different world. I’d spent most of my day facing a white screen with Garamond font zipping across it, and now I was in a world with cars and lights and shouting teenagers and flashing signs and ice cream stands… And it just felt so busy, so loud, and so big! (I live in a town with 20,000 people—we’re not talking a booming metropolis here.) But I was literally openmouthed in the parking lot. Yikes! Maybe it’s time for another road trip!—jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 09/27 at 02:47 PM
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