THE LINE OF WORDS

"The line of words is a miner's pick, a wood-carver's gouge, a surgeon's probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year...The writing has changed, in your hands, and in a twinkling, from an expression of your notions to an epistemological tool."

    - Annie Dillard

"There's no writing, there's only rewriting."

   - Lisa Cron

I wrote in my last post how challenging this writing life can be (challenging is a euphemism, in case you wondered).

Today I printed out the first 90 pages of this current manuscript.

For reasons too complicated to go into here, I wrote a new part onto the beginning of it, then bridged that to what was already there, and now I need to go through the "already there" part and bring it into line with this new beginning. For this I decided I needed to print it out and just work it with a red pen.

There is an author named Gerard Houarner who once wrote a post about the "Span of Control" a writer tries to have over the whole of the work. An artist can look at her painting or sculpture and see it whole in one glance. Not so much for a writer. We hold the story in our brains, and in my case I run it back and forth like a film - fast forward, stop, rewind, play again. To hold it in its entirety within one glance is not possible.

Keep that in mind - it's important for this ramble.

I couldn't work without a computer. In fact, I'm a bit of a techno junkie (but not completely addicted).  It's so easy to type all the stuff that's in my head and then revise it and save it and there it is. I could never do that with paper and a typewriter. I thought about that the other day. Lord! They used to type all this stuff! No wonder Steinbeck had his wife type everything! (Check the dedication on "Grapes of Wrath" - "To Carol, who willed this book" - he should have also mentioned she typed it, again, and again, and again...). Still, even the computer can be a challenge.
   
All of that being said, between the rewinding of the "Span of Control" in my mind like film, and the sitting for hours at the computer writing that new beginning.... well, I was feeling so down about the work.

I was pushing hard to get this new beginning finished up, and then to connect it to the prior beginning. Last night I got there, but then I was tired - in the emotional sense. We writers and artists are emotional beings (or else we couldn't write or create art - that takes some pretty intense sensory faculties, which breed strong emotional reactions).

So, to bed I went last night, fatigued and telling myself the book was crap, and praying to God I could capture what I'm trying to say in all those rewrites I know I will do. I woke up feeling the same way. It's a rotten way to wake up.

I hate to tell you this, but, that feeling is a common occurrence in this writer's world. It is juxtaposed against those moments when I feel I have just written something so brilliant it cannot possibly be mine - when I look back at it and say "Did I write that? I know no one else has been in my manuscript typing. Huh, well I guess I did write it. Hell, that's good! I'm good!"

I will also go on record as saying I think those awful moments of thinking I've just written the worst thing known to mankind - they are necessary moments. These moments are the ones that light the proverbial fire under my feet. It is analogous to the sentiment expressed by this old axiom:  "Debt is to a man as spurs are to a horse." Well, those down moments are spurs to me, people - dig 'em in and watch me run!

Now add this equation:  Span of Control not being felt by looking at the computer screen (irrespective of my love of technology) + gloom and doom over the latest efforts at writing = my conclusion:  print this bad boy out on real paper - all 90 freaking pages of it!!

Get it in front of me in 3D!!

Me to myself:  "Just do the work, you idiot! Nothing great will be written while you piss and moan about how bad it is."

Occasionally, and only occasionally my alter ego makes some pretty good sense. :)

Low and behold, I picked up those 90 pages off of my wonderful little laser jet, and as soon as I had it in my hands my whole aspect changed. BOOM!

This is going to be a real book! I can do this, I've done it before.

This ain't my first rodeo! (I know, spurs, horses, rodeos - I'm Texan, deal with it. Also, I literally have ridden in a rodeo when I was 11 - in the opening parade and the junior barrel races, so the rodeo thing fits); but, I digress. :)

Looking at it in print brought back all that familiarity with the process, I guess. I've been published before. I know this drill.

Tonight with those 90 pages in hand I will not wield a miner's pick, a wood carver's gouge, or a surgeon's probe as Annie Dillard would suggest.

This artist will wield the red pen like the sculptor's chisel. I will make that block of writing "rock" breathe life!

I will sculpt the line of words into that true vision I have in my mind, and heart and soul.

Polla Filia,
J.F.