Hemmingway said you have to kill your darlings, and it’s pretty morbid around here lately. I’m on page 110 and the red ink is flowing as I mercilessly delete my most clever sections; for some reason, those seem to have the least to do with the story.
I’m also deleting a lot of non-darling crapola. I’m amazed at writers who can put something that resembles the final version down early in the process. I’ve been writing this book on and off (mostly off) for years and it has changed directions on me more times than I can count. Characters appear briefly, only to be abandoned. The story keeps trying to expand as I try to contain it.
Managing the story is the hardest part for me. I’ve never had trouble sitting down and making a lot of sentences, but telling the story in a direct and efficient way is really a challenge. I’ve been reading Thomas Harris’s Silence of the Lambs and am awestruck by how efficient and disciplined his storytelling is. There doesn’t seem to be a single extraneous word in that book, and that’s what I’m striving for.
I’m trying to fit this editing in as I can: while my daughter is eating her breakfast I sit beside her scratching out paragraphs and adding notes, as I eat my breakfast after taking her to school. Home repair and photography have ground to a halt, and my posts here have been few, as well.
As I’ve mentioned to some of you in person, this is it. Once this book is off to New York, that’s all he wrote. Unless…
4 comments:
no not unless.. 'until'. And a brief 'until' at that. Keep up the cull, I'm sure before long you will have distilled it down to purest Shinola.
... and hope editors can't tell the difference. ;)
I got to tell you, I'm always awestruck at your long term perserverence. I can barely comprehend the possiblity of me sticking with a project as difficult and that takes years to complete. I sincerely wish you the best with this book.
Thanks, Jono--at this point I'm pretty amazed with my perseverence, too! When am I going to get a clue?
Post a Comment