Cursedly Conscientious

Why, why, why did I have to start reading On Becoming a Novelist while in the midst of revising my novel?

I'd planned on doing a really fast and not necessarily dirty line-edit, and sticking Genius in the mail. But prolonged exposure to John Gardner has convinced me that half-measures are inappropriate. After all, this book is important to me. It's not as if I need to tear the plot or structure apart, or cut characters, or anything majorly overhaulish like that-- the foundation, thank the gods I disbelieve in, is sound. But Gardner's got me being picky, he's brought out the perfectionist in me (and that guy's buried deep). So now I'm rewriting every &*%#$ line. And I mean that very nearly literally. I'm adding depth and shading to all the scenes, reading the dialogue aloud to see where it clunks, excising words like "furiously" and "shamefully" and replacing them with physical descriptions, paying attention to the pacing of conversations... all the annoying crap that Gardner calmly, seriously, quietly suggests that I need to do. He's right, and it's going to be a better book-- it's already a better book, just from the scenes I fixed tonight. This doesn't throw a monkey-wrench into Revisionmania, but it certainly slows it down. That's difficult for me to adjust to.

See, for right or wrong, I've always placed a premium on writing fast. Not that speed is more important than good prose... but I want to do both. I'm a prolific writer (at least, when the engines are firing properly I am). I do quite rapid first drafts. I like that about myself. I revise relatively slowly, sure, but for all my bitching that slow revision isn't such a big deal.

At least, on short stories it's not.

But a novel, I'm realizing, is more than a really long short story. It's a different animal entirely. I'm aware of that fact when I write the things... but I seem to have forgotten when it comes to revising. I expect novel-revision to go as easily as story-revision (which, for me, isn't very easily! Why the hell does this have to be harder?). I thought three days would be plenty to revise this manuscript... and to do line-edits, cut deadwood and replace clichés, it would've been. But now, as I mentioned, I'm going a bit deeper.

The book is holding up. It bears close scrutiny. Revision continues. But I won't be finished on Tuesday. I don't know when I'll be finished... only that this is going to be my main project until it's done. I don't think it'll take me more than a couple of weeks, but really, who the hell knows?

I sound annoyed. I am, but not in a relevant way. I'm annoyed for a stupid reason. Because I'm 23 (and eleven-twelths) years old, because I'm young and hotheaded, because I’m absurdly impatient. I want this book to be done.

But (it seems) I want even more for it to be done well. As well as I'm capable of doing it, at any rate.

John Gardner took, what, 20 years to finish writing Nickel Mountain? At least the guy practiced what he professed...