knitroglycerine

You would think that after so many semesters of teaching writing, and more specifically forcing revision down students’ throats like it is cod liver oil, that my own tendency as a writer would be to revise. Nope!

I have reached a problematic point, where I kind of shifted my characters’ emotions around some plot points– but because I’ve been writing snippets instead of sitting down for hours at a time, the effect, when reading, was that you were reading some kind of kaleidoscopic verbiage. But I got attached to my story and to my characters, and for once there was tension, and I was loathe to toss the whole shebang out. My first instinct was, though, that I had to start over. Scrap it! Toss it! Do it over! And then I would have been back to square one, which is what I ALWAYS DO.

Luckily, I am married to a musician. While he may not write a whole lot of words, he does go through this similar process where there is a point where he is convinced that it is all crapola, and that it all needs to go out a window and fast. Also luckily, I told him what was going on, about this inner argument, and he was able to talk me out of my tree and keep me from starting over. So, phew! While The Babyhead was at school, I took my main notebook and my auxiliary notebook from my purse, and another scene that was in a legal pad, and read them all together and figured out where I went astray and what needs to be added instead. And of course, because I have no sense of focus, I rewrote little bits here and there as I read.

Seriously, I’m getting a little confused, and I think I might have to get a bunch of colored pens to color code my scenes. Mysteries are more complex than the short stories I am used to. Or maybe I will do this Golden Notebook style, using three separate notebooks, and hopefully the effect would not be quite so gut-wrenchingly depressing. I think that book might have primed me for postpartum depression, and I am not even joking.

In other news, I have found out that wool or wool blend yarn is much more satisfactory for felting than roving, and cheaper, to boot. Felting is going along swimmingly, but I’m totally afraid to sew the things together, in fear that I’m going to ruin everything.

And now for something completely different.

Tags: Angel of Grief, Goldfrapp, Grant Lee Buffalo, Groundhog Day, Quiet Americans, Revision, Tame Impala, The Golden Notebook, The Sleepover Disaster