When in my last communiqué I explained the magnetic charm of madness—of the obsessed writer—I didn’t yet fully understand what was ahead of me. Don’t get me wrong—it’s still very alluring. I just didn’t realize how close I was to falling into that temporary suspension of sanity. It wasn’t long after posting that desire that I became wholly and hopelessly obsessed with the second draft. For most of July I was putting in between fifteen and twenty hours per week on revising and rewriting. That may not sound like a lot but when you experience it in conjunction with a forty hour work week, an hour a day at the gym, meals, sleep, and minor concerns like hygiene, it’s a lot of work.

But you can handle it. When writing becomes important you structure your life around it. And why shouldn’t you? If it’s your passion you should be passionate about it. You should love it. You should crave it. You should think about it when you’re falling asleep. You should bust out your laptop when you’re in the back seat on an hour long car ride back from Wisconsin. You should tell people you can’t come out and play because you have work to do (this is a very, very hard thing to do—just for the record). When you fall into the habit of working so hard you come to expect it. You come to feel empty without it. You come to need it.

Thank you to Catherine for finding this photo--it's perfect

I finished my second draft on Thursday, August 5th. It took ten weeks to heavily revise and rewrite the novel. It has gone through a massive transformation yet retains the same basic skeleton. It lost two chapters. I haven’t read it yet but I know without a doubt that it’s a much, much better piece of writing than the original draft. The level of improvement I’ve seen makes me so giddy not because I think it’s done but because this reveals the potential for further transformation, for a more frenzied journey toward perfection. It has improved and it will continue to improve. When I finished my first draft I was a little disappointed. When I ended it I sat back and asked myself if that was all there was. I even felt remorseful and a little depressed for a few days. Having finished the second draft I feel confident and accomplished, maybe a little powerful, maybe a little arrogant.

The initial process was pretty straightforward: follow the scenes sequenced in the original draft and rewrite them so they’re actually worth a damn. There were a few scenes that I had to add or delete in the beginning but for the most part the novel’s structure didn’t change. I fixed a lot of things that were bothering me but didn’t do any drastic remodeling. Then I reached the last third of the novel and realized that there were too many things going wrong to approach it lightly. I started doing complete overhauls of chapters—reordering scenes, deleting, adding, changing. Two chapters were fused at the hip. To be honest I wasn’t expecting to have to do so much plot revision, but I’m very glad I did. I didn’t realize there were so many glaring problems. I’m glad I went with my instinct: anything that doesn’t immediately feel right gets put under the bright lights and interrogated until it cries out in defeat. Off with its head.

So what happens now? Draft three, of course. At the moment I expect draft three to be a different kind of process. Draft two was a total rewrite: 100,000 words questioned and retyped. (As a side note I should mention I’ve been edging dangerously close to carpel tunnel. My hands hurt like hell sometimes.) Draft three won’t be like that, I don’t think. This is all dependent upon how I feel when I read the draft in its entirety, but for the most part I believe I’ll be able to go through the printed document and make any necessary changes with a pen. I anticipate a few scene rewrites, a few major revisions, but not one on every page. What I’m hoping is that the third draft will allow for a much tighter focus: I want to agonize over everything. Without the constant need to hash out an entire scene I should have more time to dedicate toward individual problems and specific moments. I can spend more time on significant areas. Again—I can focus. My hope is that I’ll be done with the third draft by the end of September, which should leave sufficient but precious time for the fourth and fifth drafts. I’m still aiming for a completion date of December 31st. Then, in 2011, we will embark on the terrifying odyssey of cover letters and heartbreak. It should make the writing process look like preschool. But, as Scarlet would say, I’ll think about that tomorrow.

It won’t be long before I dive into that third draft. Maybe a few days. I might let myself read a book first. Go for a walk. Breathe. No, it won’t be long at all. I’ll grow restless in no time.