The novelator

I've been working what I would like to refer to as "steadily on and off" on the novel, and it's coming along well. I'm about halfway through. In a way, it's a bit like what it was the last time around, only totally different, if that makes sense, which it doesn't.

I write new material, and I go back and revise. In my most recent round of revisions, I broke down a lot of large chunks of text into smaller bits of text, so there's a lot more white space on the page, and less claustrophobia on the sentence level, because the claustrophobia level on the content level is probably enough to bear. It's crowded in the mind of a madman, I've found.

This time, the midway point feels more like reaching the top of the mountain, and then preparing to pick up steam while tumbling down the other side. Other times, this was the part that felt like you lifted your head up, and remembered this was a long hard slog, and wondered why you ever raised your cranium.

I feel most comfortable with this version of the novel, and the other versions have been legion. It is the most what I set out to do, lo' those many years ago, which was simply turn a short story into a long one, which, as it turns out, is decidedly doable.

I wish for the rest of my life I would just do the easiest, most obvious thing first, but sometimes I have a way of winding around the circumference, taking the long way before I get home. And home is where I want to be. Like Dorothy.

[Video via Siege]