Avoiding the Ending

Technically, my summer writer-in-residence experiment will end tomorrow. I return to work the following day. I have relished the opportunity to think about writing every day and to actually produce something most days. When work begins--and it will begin in high gear--I am too frantic at the beginning of the day and too drained at the end to be creative. It is a sad reality. Perhaps the coming year will be different. Perhaps I will be successful in guarding time for myself and in accomplishing things beyond the work agenda. Of course, those possibilities go along with my standard musing: perhaps I will have a clean work area.

There is another ending I am struggling with: the ending of my latest novel manuscript. I have reached the word limit for the publisher who has first right of refusal, but I wrote +5,000 more words in the last week and there is at least that much more required to tie things up. While I realize I have a brutal round of revising ahead of me before I will consider submitting the work, I wish one area of focus weren't about deleting words and scenes. Changing and adding are fine. Deleting is harsh. Words aren't like hair that will grow back--we hope--after a cut. When they're gone, they're gone. Adios. Adieu. See ya!

When I submitted Fouling Out, I had to delete 25,000 words...before the stage in which more revisions came while working with an editor. Faced with thousands of words to cut, numbers become a greater focus than the words. That is why it is so painful. It is not about creation; rather, destruction. Sure, there are the easy cuts to excise wordy sentences and unnecessary qualifiers like very and apparently. (I thank writing instructor Nancie Atwell for her list of "The Very Bad Words".) That will address hundreds, not thousands of words.

Of course, I am getting ahead of myself. The ending, while near, is not yet upon me. I have two days of summer writing to figure out how to conclude matters with Marshall Allen McGonigle and Mr. Thomas Spenser.

On to it!

Slow but Steady

Well, I managed to finish the second novel yesterday.

CUT!

Take two.

Okay, so I wasn't anywhere near that productive. It was the first day of my summer writing. Give me some slack. I could blame the dogs, but they weren't any more distracting than usual. No, it's just a difficult transition to sitting at a desk and staring at a (blank) laptop screen. I needed many breaks to stretch and move about. I even gave the microwave a thorough scrubbing!

I did make some headway with my writing. I chose to set the novel aside since getting back to it will require a day and a half of rereading and tinkering before writing anything new. I needed to actually write on the first day so I worked on two short stories. Both were a little grim so I'm hoping to bring some levity to that project with a humorous entry at some point this week. Not feeling funny just yet.

Coffee's On: The Beginning of a Routine

Here goes! My summer of writing begins today. I have high expectations. Now that I have a novel on the market (Fouling Out), I can't hide the fact that I'm a writer. Summer is my prime time for creative output and I have an unfinished novel and five picture book manuscripts that need to be revisited with a critical eye. Over the Christmas break, I began a screenplay (which I'm thinking I'll abandon, but it still requires a passing glance) and I began a short story collection a few months ago. Lots of possibilities!

It all begins with establishing some sort of routine. That's a challenging step since I'm a restless writer. I tend to compose in a series of short spurts, with lots of movement in between. (Thank goodness for all those weeds in the garden. I may finally pull a few!) Still, when I'm not otherwise employed during the summer, there is a "danger" of letting the days get away from me. I can loaf about as well as anyone.

So,...the coffee's on--I'm on cup number two--and the dogs are (momentarily) settled. The laptop is running although the space bar is struggling to awaken. I have a short break planned for a light breakfast in an hour and my swim workout comes mid-afternoon. It's time to pull out a manuscript and try to figure out what to do with it.