XENITH

For a moment I was scared. It goes without saying that I was also depressed and moody and just a little fatalistic. While it seemed only two weeks ago that I was burning with immeasurable inspiration my heart must have had other ideas. After I finished the second read-through I had so many ideas and was so electric with hope at all the untold potential that I honestly thought nothing could stop me from diving back into that immensity and pouring from its depths a second draft wrought with more beauty and control than even I would have thought possible only a few months ago. You would think that I’d have learned by now not to trust my emotions. In fact I should be guarded with disbelief over what I am about to relate right now. Regardless, that inspiration faded without so much as a sigh. I was in New York on work-related business and while there didn’t much think about Rebellious Bird. By the time I got back I was in no mood to even look at it. After that I was languid and irritable.

Oh how these things change. Yesterday I decided that I wasn’t very fond of myself when I wasn’t actively working on the novel. I had allowed myself to fall into a directionless haze wherein writing was this abstract concept with which I was currently unfamiliar. I’d waited too long. I didn’t like how I felt and I didn’t like how I was interacting with other people, including my significant other. The absence of writing, when you take it seriously, is more or less like being unemployed. I felt unproductive and parasitic. I had no significant function whereas only a few weeks before I’d had a singular purpose to which all of my resources were allocated.

After I finally figured this out (it took longer than it should have), I decided that I had to get back into the habit of working on the novel, regardless of how averse I was to turning my brain back into a functional thing. I asked myself what was preventing me from working. A few weeks ago I’d come up with the idea of summarizing and diagramming each individual scene on an index card. The idea was for me to get a better look at the overall outline for the novel and decide which scenes were necessary and which scenes could be cut or expanded upon. I also wanted to find out which scenes were missing. I started this process shortly after I formulated the idea, but after about seven note cards (all devoted to the first half of the first chapter), I realized that I was perhaps embarking upon an adventure too tedious for even the most detail-oriented novelist. (That’s not true, by the way—I’ve read biographies that have convinced me of the insanity of some of the world’s great novelists.) So I abandoned the index card idea. In its absence I was left adrift without a plan and knowing that the plot was weaker than it should have been.

It wasn’t until I thought of a new plan that I felt that tinge of hope and inspiration come back to me. Instead of detailing each scene chronologically, I thought it would be a much better idea to isolate each individual plot arc and draw them out on their own. I originally thought this would be as simple as tracing the path of Character A, Character B, etc., but then I decided that this was necessary to do even on a thematic level. There were elements in the storyline that bothered me because I had this sensation that they were either unexplored or lacking any sense entirely. I’ve since started this new kind of outlining process—looking at the entire plotline with one selective filter at a time—and the results have been pretty impressive. I’ve been able to very easily identify what works and what doesn’t. I’ve been able to make vital changes that I couldn’t see before. I’ve even been able to agree upon the overall thematic structure of the novel and isolate bits and pieces of supporting evidence that lead me to identify those themes. Because there are some significant changes there’s a part of me that wishes I had done this after the initial outlining process—before the writing of the first draft—but another part of me is rather pleased with the way this turned out. I tried writing the outline as I originally planned it (with some minor adjustments along the way), and it for the most part worked out. After all, this is really just a vast learning experience for me. I’ll know what to do next time. There will be a next time. There will be many of them. This is a process which I have so far loved and even if I never make any significant money from it it’s a process I could enjoy for the rest of my life.

So where am I at in the revision process? I think I’ve solved most of the problems that were bothering me. I have a few more thematic elements and technical issues that I’d like to isolate and outline. I’ve also started getting pretty detailed with my journal entries to help me better understand what exactly is going on in my work, and I plan to make extensive notes with each new examination of the plot. After those bugs are worked out I think I’ll be ready to start writing the second draft. The current printed draft I’ve been carrying around with me has an entire pen’s worth of ink on its pages. I’m sticking to my plan of doing a complete rewrite. There are lines I’m going to salvage from the original draft but because so much needs to change I think it will be of only moderate resemblance, at least as far as the word-for-word story goes. I expect this process to take another three months at least. By that time it will be September and perhaps I’ll take another short break, after which I will start the whole process over again. I have an overwhelming amount of work ahead of me, but I have to keep thinking of the end result. The idea of a finished novel is so tantalizing that I can’t help but want to devote all of my waking time to it. I have this image in my head and if I could just get it to look like that image I will have all the faith in myself necessary to live like this forever. I can do it. I just have to give myself the time.

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