The novel

Day: #2
Word count: 2,522

I have very triumphant music from one of my favorite video games (Final Fantasy VIII) playing on my computer. For those of you who are familiar with the game, it's the: "yay! we got the airship that is super bad ass"song that plays whilst you fly around the world map. I, on the other hand, don't feel very triumphant. According to the laws of daily word count, I should be at around 3,334 words. As you can see by the above... I am not.

I started writing last night around 8:00 and stopped around 10:30. Today I started at 7:00 and stopped around 10:30. Yet somehow, I wrote 200 words LESS tonight than last night. That happens... how? Needless to say, not a good foot to start on. I have to admit, my reason for even quitting before word count has been reached is simply that I'm exhausted. On Tuesdays (and Thursdays, actually) I work from 8:00 in the morning until 7:00 in the evening, with an hour lunch. A 10 hour day that is certainly physically, and often times mentally, challenging. And whether I want to admit defeat or not, my head feels like it's gained 20 pounds that can only be alleviated by the sweet embrace of a pillow.

But first, another entry of insight into what this crazy scheme is all about. What's a writer without a novel? Well... not a writer, actually...

Some basic facts to start:

The first draft of this story began in the summer of 2003. It was a side project myself and my partner (yes, I co-write if you haven't been introduced to this fact yet) started as a means to alleviate writer's block on a totally different project. As a side note, I apparently really like the word alleviate this evening. I was about 15 or 16 at the time, and she only a year younger than me. Three years later, in April of 2006, we found ourselves concluding the first draft. As accomplishing and unexpected as this was, it hasn't exactly made this the most pleasant of projects.

Between the ages of 15 and 19, between high school and college, a huge gear shift happens... and in the midst of that gear shift came the realization that we actually had something here. The problem therein is this: a story you start for fun and a story you intend to publish are drastically different things. Fun stories don't need to have a plot or cohesive anything. Publishable stories pretty much thrive on that. Fun stories are, essentially, and explosion of the god complex I mentioned before. I control your little world, oh characters, and I shall unleash thunderbolts and lightning (very very frightening me! Galileo!).

So there's my first problem. I have to mostly rewrite the beginning so it doesn't come off as two idle teenagers screwing around with nothing better to do. This means deleting a lot of anachronisms, plot holes, and the rabid effects of watching too much anime. It also means adding chapters, putting meat on the bones of what's left once the thing is torn down into the pieces that still have some actual literary value.

My second problem is having to switch the format. If you're at all familiar with online chat room role playing, you can pretty much skip this paragraph. For the rest of you, the basic idea is you introduce your character into a group of characters that are being written by other people. A story of some kind is intended to form through the line-by-line writing system.

My partner and I took that and changed it up a bit in order to write something more "novel-like" in nature, while still getting all the goodies of having back-and-forth banter. Constant tense changing problems aside, I've found this method to be exceptional for dialogue. Over the years we've debated taking another approach, and it's only in the editing that I'm seeing the value of doing so. Because the bottom line is... it's effing ridiculous having to go back and edit this much. Because like it or not, no publishing company can or would take it as is.

At the same time, I couldn't imagine doing it any other way when it comes to the character dynamics. A part of literature I've always been overly critical of in the first place. In other words, it has its ups and downs like anything else. But the downs really are the pits.

At the end of it all, three years later, the total word count reached over 98K. Between April 2006 and now, 3.5 chapters had been re-written + a prologue. A prologue I am debating on getting rid of, even though I like the way it reads. A first chapter that was the point of many an emotional crisis in the spring of 2007, but ultimately remains the best of the lot. A second chapter that was never in the original draft. A third chapter that is so long it eats other chapters for breakfast.

And then we have chapter four...

It sucks. I just finished it, finally, tonight. And it sucks. I absolutely hate it. I've hated it since the third page or so. It started out well, with the best of hopes and intentions to propel the rest of the novel. Then somehow it tanked. And now, faced with a word count, impending collection calls from loan officers, and the reeling sensation I get when I realize I may never accomplish my one freaking dream in the universe... I have climbed my way through the muck and the mire that is chapter four. Just to get it over with, just to be done with the damn chapter that's had me hung up since I first tried to write it. I've spent months thinking over how to fix it.

Tonight, I said a big f*** it. It isn't fixed. It won't be fixed until my partner reads it and puts in her two cents. But at this point, the goal has to be that it's done, not that it's perfect. I've spent this whole time believing that since it is the edit of the original, it has to be spot on ready to publish. I think the average number of times a novel gets edited is about... well, I don't know. Because Google doesn't know. How frightening is that?

So... that's the basics. A novel that, in it's original form, is completely unpublishable despite it's nearly 100K word count. As for plot, characters, and all that juicy good stuff... well, I'm supposed to keep this blog going throughout the month so, can't give everything away.

And now, since I can't think of anything else to provide a photo of, here's a cartoon that's funny but still describes how I'm feeling: