I’m finding my original edits from 2003/04 were more thorough than I remembered in some areas and missed some glaring errors in others. One week in and about half the book has been cleaned up. Surprisingly I haven’t needed a second red pen. I worry that is more a judgment of my editing abilities than my writing.

Admittedly it’s weird to read this because it flashes back to seven years ago, a different time in my life (as it was for everyone else, too). The book is fiction but uses loosely autobiographical elements: locations and settings, some individuals, some events blown out of proportion ten times over. So it’s natural to be dragged back.

What’s most interesting to me is how the style is so different. Second person, present tense. Themes across the story. I haven’t written like this in seven years. I’d be hard pressed to imitate or duplicate it now.

Maybe that’s reflected in the edits. Different word choices or maybe outright fear of my inabilit to do major rewrites should they be needed. I dunno.

Halfway in and I’m having my doubts. But that’s to be expected so far removed from the story. We’ll see how the back half goes.

On the left is a printing of my finished 2003 Nanorwimo novel that was roughly edited in the months after it was written and then shelved. On the right is a current printing of the first draft with plenty of space for me to really go hardcore on the edited. Not pictured are the handful of other edits, notes, and the like not just made by myself but friends who have added their thoughts through the years.

I am going through the new printing with a fine tooth comb as well as combining all of these other edits into one final marked up mess that will then be used to fully clean up the manuscript.

This is the year I truly and completely finish this book and see where I can take it. Well, the “take it” part may be 2011. But the book will be clean by then.

It’s only taken 7 years.

Across the lake in Kent, England a H.G. Wells story competition ran into a bit of trouble:

Budding young writers were invited to send their short stories creating a picture of contemporary life in Kent, to Reg Turnill, a former BBC aerospace correspondent who as a young reporter interviewed Wells.

But due to what Mr Turnill now believes were over-strict rules, he has had to change the entry conditions.

Interesting to note, the over 25 years of age category pulled in entries no problem. Longhand is starting to become another lost art (like headline writing) but maybe the “no sci-fi” requirement was the biggest hurdle, especially since last year they were fine when sci-fi was allowed. How can you have a Wells writing contest and not allow sci-fi? Sure he wrote other stuff, but c’mon! (via Boing Boing)

Script Frenzy is coming up in April. 30 days, 100 pages. Sounds like fun. Like a Nanowrimo for scripts.

The Millions has a great wrapup of Haruki Murakami in Berkley, CA.  Murakami is the author of such great works as Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and seems to give fascinating discussions.  One thing he said that stands out to me:

On his next novel: He finished it last week. Apparently, it’s going to be a doorstop. “I hope you’re not a commuter… The new novel is in the third person, from beginning to end. I need that room, because the story is getting more complicated. I need many perspectives.”

“I hope you’re not a commuter…”

A brilliant line, one that doesn’t mean commuting in the sense of the soul sucking waste of time spent between home and work and back day in and day out (not that I’m bitter about commuting) but a reader commuting into the mind of the narrator, putting himself into Murakami’s characters and world, something he typically achieves by using the first person in his work.  But there are limitations to the first person, bound to the thoughts and experiences of the narrator (if done correctly) and while that can create an attachment between reader and author the author can’t really tell other aspects of the tale or flesh out the world beyond the small view of the narrator.

Just the idea of “commuting” as a reader and author, that’s fantastic.

The introduction of Leslie Carbone’s series on writing well is now up and well worth the read.  Keep your eye for future Friday installments.

Kurt Vonnegut on writing with style:

3. Keep it simple

As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. “To be or not to be?” asks Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story “Eveline” is this one: “She was tired.” At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do.

Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

Richmond’s got itself a new literary journal: Makeout Creek.  The first issue features writings and art from David Berman, Tom De Haven, R. Kuszyk, Clint McCown, Sto, Allison Titus and more.  You can find copies at Chop Suey’s two locations and a place up in NYC if you find yourself up there.  Read more about it at RVANews.