Editing

[aslant]

"A friend of mine once said this famously. And I think it's very true. To write a book, in the process of writing, you have to become the person you need to become to finish that book. And so when you write a book, you yourself have to be transformed in the process of writing it. And that can take a while, man. Especially if you're serious about the transformation. That could take a while."
- Junot Diaz, Interview with Bill Moyers, 12/8/12

I've got novel editing on the brain. Who else? I think it's time to print out the full copy and get out my red pen. Part of my ambition for 2013 is to create a full second draft of my NaNo novel, and taking advice from Grant Faulkner of OLL about taking a first pass to look at the macro, the plot points and counterpoints and progression, and waiting for the second pass to look at the micro, the sentence-level stuff.

(My other writing ambition for the year is to begin a regular practice of translation, working from Prato's Giu la piazza non c'e nessuno, which I started translating years ago, but that will have to wait until I can dig my copy out of the closet. It's the same plastic-bound photocopied version that I made in 2000 when working on my thesis, because I was too poor to buy a copy and could only borrow it for short periods of time. Ahhh the days before copyright was a big deal in higher ed...)

Comments

[debok.livejournal.com]

Oh, how I love that quote. I've had an intense week of dissertation writing out here, and to muster enough motivation to actually head to my office and write I've had to convince myself that I'm an academic doing intellectual work, that that's my identity, at least for now. For years I've struggled with reconciling the roles of mother and academic, choosing to take up the former. But to get this thing done I'm having to change how I spend my time and think of myself, at least until March, when I hope to have the full draft done. I suppose that's more of me playing the believing game rather than actually transforming, but who knows until I get to the other end?

I love this talk of revising processes, macro to micro. That's the best place to be, imo--illuminating and strengthening what themes and strands are already there. What's your timeline?

[aslant.livejournal.com]

That quote also has the miraculous property of reminding me not to be so damn impatient for his next book :P

I think that the believing game is actually just being the person who knows how to shift back and forth, and make enough transitions to be in both realms, right? I loved your account of your writing day, recently. I think when it becomes a treat like that, the desire to get into that flow is what drives the identity transformation. At least that's how it feels for me.

I loved what Grant wrote about macro first because he sounds just like me -- if I start EDITING right away, that means endlessly revising the first couple chapters, and never getting any further. Polishing the early parts without really considering them as part of a whole. So I like the idea of holding back and only looking at how it moves, first. It's true that as soon as I started thinking about it today, I immediately had an idea of where else it needed to go, a part of the story that was left out and would make it richer. Junot also spoke in that interview of finding the places where the stories are not being told, and standing there to start out, which gave me another idea of what is so important to me to talk about -- that journey (in my own life, fictionalized now) from doubting the strength of my commitment to staying on as Penny's mother, which was perhaps one of the darkest and most confusing parts. Anyway, rambling here to get my thoughts down -- my tentative timeline, which I'm making up as I write it down write now (thank you for accountability!), is to write out a little plot-summary before the end of January, hopefully, give myself Feb through March (?) to write what else needs to be written (and use March to participate in the 50 hours of editing NaNoEdMo challenge) and then spring-summer work on the micro level review. That way it will hopefully be done before the baby comes. Highly tentative! But this feels remarkably doable.

[handstil.livejournal.com]

I JUST told ryan at dinner that I'm ready to start editing. I think I'm going to read it out loud to him and ask for feedback about what of the story is not coherent without being actually inside my head (ha) and THEN I will go back and write, fill in the blanks best I can before I'm really far removed from the me that wrote the book in the first place, and then print out and red pen for DAYS. Er, years. ha

[aslant.livejournal.com]

Hooray editing! I know what you mean about not getting too removed from the self who wrote the book. That is key!