Drafts, Drafts, Drafts.
For the past two days, I’ve bunkered down and gone through my eighty-odd pages with vibrant red pen. I planned on going back another two times with different colors and tackling different aspects of it, but I feel I might be able to get what I want done in one go, in terms of editing the current material.
(Slashing through with green and blue may be saved for another day.)
It’s shaping up well. Granted, it may be somewhat half-finished, but one of my toughest critics, my own sister, went through and enjoyed it.
She, of course, made points that I am being a bonehead about the process – some things, that I don’t know diddly about, like bone structure, cars, or the physics of hurdling, become readily apparent. As I want my writing to have a certain expansive quality in it, as opposed to being one-dimensional, it MIGHT be a good idea to get some help with those parts.
But other things that shine with my trademark wit, she enjoys thoroughly. One of the big, incredibly emotional scenes almost had her in tears.
When something you’ve created with words can inspire emotions in people – WORDS – that might be telling you that you’ve got something good.
But for now, it’s just a draft in progress. The mere deed of printing out eighty pages of my own words, my own characters, my own story, and holding in my hands brings me a great deal of happiness.
I cannot wait to “finish” it – I use quotes because once a different editor gets their hands on it, chances are that changes will still be made – and possibly, one day, see it bound and printed.
I know it’s business as usual for some people. It wouldn’t make a lick of difference what book they’re selling, and they could be more likely to sell copies of the latest dieting fad than put my book on shelves; but I could really grow to like the idea of finding my own book at a Borders or a Barnes and Noble, or at The Strand in New York City, or at a local bookstore in a podunk town I’m dropping into on the way to visit a friend.
Then again, I’m a little old-fashioned like that.
-Brian
Backseat Elvis 