Thursday, December 11, 2003
Back to STFL
Nearly seven months after walking away from the editing process, and nearly eleven months after finishing the first draft, I've returned to editing my second manuscript, Selling the Finish Line.
It was an easy book to write. I had the idea for it long ago. While editing my first manuscript, I thought I probably had one more book in me that would directly confront the sport of running. I've gone back and forth with this. At one point in time, after finishing STFL, I stated I probably wouldn't write about running anymore. And to some extent, that's true. I certainly won't need to address it to the exhaustive extent I have in the first two novels. But months later, in a poetry class, I listened to this woman read some poetry she had written about Houdini's wife. Very powerful, acute work. Another woman in that class wrote almost exclusively about Darwin's childhood. The professor commented on these topics, saying something to the effect of, "Once you have a subject you can call your own, by all means stay with it. Some people search forever in vain for a subject they can write meaningfully about." That's a hell of a point. So I probably won't ever rule the subject of running out of my work. If anything, it's a suitable crutch to lean on for storytelling as narrative develops.
Anyway, back to my idea. I think I thought I had another book on running in me because my first book was an emotion-driven tale on collegiate running. I had some idea that there was a high school book to be written, mainly because the differences in age between college and high school offer very different developmental periods for the characters. I also knew this book would have to be different, tone-wise, as I'd never really be able to replicate the emotion of the first book.
But that was all I had. I never really planned on writing the thing until I finished another two books. I immediately began research on a novel based intricately on Nietzschean philosophy. But the research, while fun, was not writing. After months of editing, and more months of researching, I began wondering if I would really be able to write creatively once the time came for that.
Somewhere around that time I went for a run with a friend who spoke the nine words that motivated me to stop researching and start writing STFL. They're on page 201 of the current manuscript. And whenever I got stuck on a particular section of the novel, I'd go back to those words, and try to work out how I could get to them, how I could get the story to reach the point at which the character must say those words.
And for the most part, the story wrote itself. I had 34 great pages started in late 2001, and then my computer picked up a virus. And it died. With nothing saved outside the harddrive (other than my first manuscript, thank God), I lost those first 34 pages. (Incidentally, at the time I thought I lost all my research for the Nietzsche novel. Months and months later, I opened up a notebook to find that at some point I had printed out all of that work. I almost cried for joy.) As soon as I was back up and connected, I tried writing those 34 pages as quickly as possible to retain what I could, but it just didn't come off the same. Still now, after I've refined the beginning of STFL probably a dozen times -- to the point at which I now feel like it's one of the strongest parts of the novel -- I wonder about that first, lost draft. The story's the same, but I wonder about the wording, the phrasing.
The writing was on and off, through 2002. I was still editing my first book, so that took a lot of time. I also moved, lost a job, and got married. But the book kept writing itself. And around December, I sensed an end approaching. I figured I had probably 30 or 40 more pages, based on what I had left to say. But one night I had a strange conversation with my wife, and then couldn't get to sleep. I just sat in bed working out a new story, a new novel. This, being in the primal, developmental stages, seemed much more exciting than STFL. After getting up to type out all I could think of at 3:00 am, I decided I had to finish STFL pretty damn soon so I could start on this new book.
And that leaves me here and now. Well, sort of. I did end up finishing STFL in January of this year. I took a particularly long time with the last chapter, wanting to make sure that I was really finishing the story, not just putting the book out of my mind to start another. So I completed it -- I reached those nine words that sparked the work. And then I put it down. And then the problems came up.
That spring semester I had three fiction labs at UWM. Three classes in which students submitted their work -- either short stories or chapters of a novel -- to the rest of the class for critical feedback. I should mention something about submitting one's work. Once you finish something you like, you think it's gold. You think it's gold even though you've only run a spell-check. You think it's gold even though you KNOW it has problems. The good parts stand out. The bad parts get explained away. Right after finishing a novel, an author is his least helpful critic on the planet.
It's with this attitude that I quickly submitted various chapters of STFL to each of my three classes. I suppose the responses could have been worse. They could have all hated it. It could have been a united front against everything I submitted. But it was not united -- it was all across the board.
Class number one got the first two chapters. The response was extremely positive, although there were comments of naivete on some points. Fair enough. The professor gave a me a ringing write-up. Class number two got the third and fourth chapters. This response was more mixed. The story was fine, but since they relied on a summary for the first part of the novel, they weren't so sure about tension or voice. The professor gave me a review that was cautiously optimistic. The third class got something smack in the middle of the novel, and they loved it. One classmate pointed out some minor changes. Fair enough. The professor gave a triumphant endorsement. That was round one of submissions.
Round two. Class number one tore open a mid-book chapter I particularly liked. They, with a couple exceptions, massacred it. Professor wrote a disappointed, though well-graded, response. Class number two was evenly divided on a mid-book chapter. Some derided it. Some defended it. The professor wrote a disappointed summary. Class number three loved a mid-book chapter. The professor wrote an excited, thumbs-up summation.
In each of the three classes, as well as another outside reader, however, I had a minority of people "Just not get it." This is the killer for me -- worse than those with intelligent qualms about the book. Worse because STFL is the most basic, clear, lucid, simpleton writing I've done. The first-person narrator is the voice of a high school boy, so I couldn't make it fancy or complicated. Yet this fraction of people came back with, "I don't get it."
After discussing this with a writing partner of mine, I decided the only way to move on from the labs was to toss, throw away, forget, or burn some of the responses. In his wise words: "Some people are just dumb, man. Better not to torture yourself with it. You gotta write for the average, not the minority."
While some people are, indeed, dumb, I could not ignore several glaring problems the novel exhibited during its time in the critical spotlight:
A.) There needs to be more tension. Especially early on.
B.) The second half of the narrative only takes up one quarter of the book. Meaning: I hurried through to the ending.
C.) There needs to be more characterization.
But I also learned:
A.) Never submit chapters of a novel to a lab. Many people will have many questions, and these questions almost always lead one to say, "Well, in the portion of the novel you didn't receive . . ." This seems like a cop-out. In a lot of ways, it is. But it's also true. People can only judge what they get, and novels build. Stick to short stories.
B.) Some people are just dumb.
C.) STFL is more manageable, as far as plot and characters, than my first manuscript. It's shorter, quicker, funnier, and easier to envision.
D.) While labs can be intimidating and confusing, they can be extremely helpful. Although I did throw out several reviews, there are many more that I will look to upon completing the second draft. It's amazing how you write something from one idea, expecting a certain response, but then someone comes back with an entirely appropriate, yet thoroughly unexpected reaction.
So with all that stated, I jut had a hard time coming back to the novel. There was so much I liked about it . . . yet definitely much to be improved upon. How much work was this? How quickly could I do it? Could I do it? That's what the seven months were for, I guess. I can't just write a novel and stick it in a drawer, like Salinger. No, I have no real dreams of publishing. I don't really care much at all if any of my work sees the light of day. But it's terribly important to me that what I write becomes the best novel I can put out. Does he really think he's so talented a writer that when he sticks it in the drawer, it's perfect?
So I started Monday, spending three hours rewriting the outline. When I first wrote STFL, I told myself I would do it without an outline; I would only develop a "schedule" of sorts that the characters would run by. Otherwise, I wanted to book to skip along without any pre-set structure. But now that I'm editing, I need to know where the narrative and character gaps are. And it's amazing, looking at it on paper, to see exactly where they are, to see where the novel turns from light to dark, to see where I need to add sections, etc. Rewriting the outline also got me familiar with the story again. I saw those moments in the book that made me say, "I don't know if I've written anything better than that." I also saw points in the novel that made me say, "Jebus, you crammed a month of story into a week, and there's not a lick of character insight."
So that's where I am now, right back in the gray area between, "Is it publishable?" and, "Is it utter crap?" It's a matter of editing with the latter prospect as the assumption, but making decisions with the former as a given.
I should note, that, as I've written quite a bit about this now, I did consider putting a chapter or two up on the site for my three readers to read. I realize it can't be terrible interesting to read about a novel one has not read. But I've decided against posting it, as the site does not allow for tabbing, or any creative typography. In fact, I'm very limited in my poetry on here, because most of my work is littered with tabs meant to create an objectivist space in the line . . . but that is lost on the log. I can live with posting poetry that's a semblance of my intention, but not fiction.
It was an easy book to write. I had the idea for it long ago. While editing my first manuscript, I thought I probably had one more book in me that would directly confront the sport of running. I've gone back and forth with this. At one point in time, after finishing STFL, I stated I probably wouldn't write about running anymore. And to some extent, that's true. I certainly won't need to address it to the exhaustive extent I have in the first two novels. But months later, in a poetry class, I listened to this woman read some poetry she had written about Houdini's wife. Very powerful, acute work. Another woman in that class wrote almost exclusively about Darwin's childhood. The professor commented on these topics, saying something to the effect of, "Once you have a subject you can call your own, by all means stay with it. Some people search forever in vain for a subject they can write meaningfully about." That's a hell of a point. So I probably won't ever rule the subject of running out of my work. If anything, it's a suitable crutch to lean on for storytelling as narrative develops.
Anyway, back to my idea. I think I thought I had another book on running in me because my first book was an emotion-driven tale on collegiate running. I had some idea that there was a high school book to be written, mainly because the differences in age between college and high school offer very different developmental periods for the characters. I also knew this book would have to be different, tone-wise, as I'd never really be able to replicate the emotion of the first book.
But that was all I had. I never really planned on writing the thing until I finished another two books. I immediately began research on a novel based intricately on Nietzschean philosophy. But the research, while fun, was not writing. After months of editing, and more months of researching, I began wondering if I would really be able to write creatively once the time came for that.
Somewhere around that time I went for a run with a friend who spoke the nine words that motivated me to stop researching and start writing STFL. They're on page 201 of the current manuscript. And whenever I got stuck on a particular section of the novel, I'd go back to those words, and try to work out how I could get to them, how I could get the story to reach the point at which the character must say those words.
And for the most part, the story wrote itself. I had 34 great pages started in late 2001, and then my computer picked up a virus. And it died. With nothing saved outside the harddrive (other than my first manuscript, thank God), I lost those first 34 pages. (Incidentally, at the time I thought I lost all my research for the Nietzsche novel. Months and months later, I opened up a notebook to find that at some point I had printed out all of that work. I almost cried for joy.) As soon as I was back up and connected, I tried writing those 34 pages as quickly as possible to retain what I could, but it just didn't come off the same. Still now, after I've refined the beginning of STFL probably a dozen times -- to the point at which I now feel like it's one of the strongest parts of the novel -- I wonder about that first, lost draft. The story's the same, but I wonder about the wording, the phrasing.
The writing was on and off, through 2002. I was still editing my first book, so that took a lot of time. I also moved, lost a job, and got married. But the book kept writing itself. And around December, I sensed an end approaching. I figured I had probably 30 or 40 more pages, based on what I had left to say. But one night I had a strange conversation with my wife, and then couldn't get to sleep. I just sat in bed working out a new story, a new novel. This, being in the primal, developmental stages, seemed much more exciting than STFL. After getting up to type out all I could think of at 3:00 am, I decided I had to finish STFL pretty damn soon so I could start on this new book.
And that leaves me here and now. Well, sort of. I did end up finishing STFL in January of this year. I took a particularly long time with the last chapter, wanting to make sure that I was really finishing the story, not just putting the book out of my mind to start another. So I completed it -- I reached those nine words that sparked the work. And then I put it down. And then the problems came up.
That spring semester I had three fiction labs at UWM. Three classes in which students submitted their work -- either short stories or chapters of a novel -- to the rest of the class for critical feedback. I should mention something about submitting one's work. Once you finish something you like, you think it's gold. You think it's gold even though you've only run a spell-check. You think it's gold even though you KNOW it has problems. The good parts stand out. The bad parts get explained away. Right after finishing a novel, an author is his least helpful critic on the planet.
It's with this attitude that I quickly submitted various chapters of STFL to each of my three classes. I suppose the responses could have been worse. They could have all hated it. It could have been a united front against everything I submitted. But it was not united -- it was all across the board.
Class number one got the first two chapters. The response was extremely positive, although there were comments of naivete on some points. Fair enough. The professor gave a me a ringing write-up. Class number two got the third and fourth chapters. This response was more mixed. The story was fine, but since they relied on a summary for the first part of the novel, they weren't so sure about tension or voice. The professor gave me a review that was cautiously optimistic. The third class got something smack in the middle of the novel, and they loved it. One classmate pointed out some minor changes. Fair enough. The professor gave a triumphant endorsement. That was round one of submissions.
Round two. Class number one tore open a mid-book chapter I particularly liked. They, with a couple exceptions, massacred it. Professor wrote a disappointed, though well-graded, response. Class number two was evenly divided on a mid-book chapter. Some derided it. Some defended it. The professor wrote a disappointed summary. Class number three loved a mid-book chapter. The professor wrote an excited, thumbs-up summation.
In each of the three classes, as well as another outside reader, however, I had a minority of people "Just not get it." This is the killer for me -- worse than those with intelligent qualms about the book. Worse because STFL is the most basic, clear, lucid, simpleton writing I've done. The first-person narrator is the voice of a high school boy, so I couldn't make it fancy or complicated. Yet this fraction of people came back with, "I don't get it."
After discussing this with a writing partner of mine, I decided the only way to move on from the labs was to toss, throw away, forget, or burn some of the responses. In his wise words: "Some people are just dumb, man. Better not to torture yourself with it. You gotta write for the average, not the minority."
While some people are, indeed, dumb, I could not ignore several glaring problems the novel exhibited during its time in the critical spotlight:
A.) There needs to be more tension. Especially early on.
B.) The second half of the narrative only takes up one quarter of the book. Meaning: I hurried through to the ending.
C.) There needs to be more characterization.
But I also learned:
A.) Never submit chapters of a novel to a lab. Many people will have many questions, and these questions almost always lead one to say, "Well, in the portion of the novel you didn't receive . . ." This seems like a cop-out. In a lot of ways, it is. But it's also true. People can only judge what they get, and novels build. Stick to short stories.
B.) Some people are just dumb.
C.) STFL is more manageable, as far as plot and characters, than my first manuscript. It's shorter, quicker, funnier, and easier to envision.
D.) While labs can be intimidating and confusing, they can be extremely helpful. Although I did throw out several reviews, there are many more that I will look to upon completing the second draft. It's amazing how you write something from one idea, expecting a certain response, but then someone comes back with an entirely appropriate, yet thoroughly unexpected reaction.
So with all that stated, I jut had a hard time coming back to the novel. There was so much I liked about it . . . yet definitely much to be improved upon. How much work was this? How quickly could I do it? Could I do it? That's what the seven months were for, I guess. I can't just write a novel and stick it in a drawer, like Salinger. No, I have no real dreams of publishing. I don't really care much at all if any of my work sees the light of day. But it's terribly important to me that what I write becomes the best novel I can put out. Does he really think he's so talented a writer that when he sticks it in the drawer, it's perfect?
So I started Monday, spending three hours rewriting the outline. When I first wrote STFL, I told myself I would do it without an outline; I would only develop a "schedule" of sorts that the characters would run by. Otherwise, I wanted to book to skip along without any pre-set structure. But now that I'm editing, I need to know where the narrative and character gaps are. And it's amazing, looking at it on paper, to see exactly where they are, to see where the novel turns from light to dark, to see where I need to add sections, etc. Rewriting the outline also got me familiar with the story again. I saw those moments in the book that made me say, "I don't know if I've written anything better than that." I also saw points in the novel that made me say, "Jebus, you crammed a month of story into a week, and there's not a lick of character insight."
So that's where I am now, right back in the gray area between, "Is it publishable?" and, "Is it utter crap?" It's a matter of editing with the latter prospect as the assumption, but making decisions with the former as a given.
I should note, that, as I've written quite a bit about this now, I did consider putting a chapter or two up on the site for my three readers to read. I realize it can't be terrible interesting to read about a novel one has not read. But I've decided against posting it, as the site does not allow for tabbing, or any creative typography. In fact, I'm very limited in my poetry on here, because most of my work is littered with tabs meant to create an objectivist space in the line . . . but that is lost on the log. I can live with posting poetry that's a semblance of my intention, but not fiction.
