Home Stretch

Three forty-five, Wednesday afternoon, cup of cafe au lait at hand, unlit Camel dangling between my lips, dressed in writing attire -- 2006 Rome (GA) International Film Festival T-shirt, gray cotton gym shorts, green wool blend socks (my toes get cold, perhaps a harbinger of great circulatory issues to come). Candle lit. Windows open. Didn't sleep well, up from two-thirty to five-thirty, during which time I read and thought I might have to see my doctor about getting some Trazadone, standard anti-depressant sleep-aid drug. Discovered this morning I didn't take my nighttime meds which include melatonin -- a non Rx sleeping aid -- and my generic Dylantin, anti-seizure meds which have some sedative effect. So, no wonder I didn't sleep. Skip the Trazadone for now.

Glorious afternoon, mid-60's, clear blue skies, light breeze, a voice says "you ought to be out in this." The voice carries little weight against the forces of sloth. Or shall we be more affirming to ourself. We are writing. Then we might be napping. Lack of sleep and all, you know.

Andy, my editor, had much to say. The work is in the last stages of creation. Need to deepen Kathy, the wife of the protagonist; draw out a plot line more; create more tension near the end. I envision how the first and last of these will go. The drawing out of the particular plot line ("the movie") is going to be the greatest challenge. I struggled with it in the original and it showed. It is a vehicle for generating suspicion of one of the main characters and was more intentionally constructed than other parts of the narrative which flowed more directly from the initial story line, although we always new this particular character - Jay - would be a suspect. I played with alternative narratives none of which seemed satisfying.

Part of my difficultly lies, I think (I'm just making this up, but it seems reasonable) is my ADD, my difficulty in thinking the thing ALL the way through. I get part way into it, it seems to be good, and then I get into problems. Maybe this is sloth, the failure to attack it with the necessary discipline -- if "a" happens, then "b" happens, then "c" happens, all the way out to "n." And all of this is happening while two or three other story lines are also going on, and none are entirely separate from the others. Andy suggests, however, that the movie story line be kept MORE separate from the others. I thought it was. There's the rub. Because that story is what brings us to our first contact with the prime villain. And is the problem then that it is too much of a stretch, or do I have to lay more groundwork so it is more organic to the larger narrative?

My goal is to be done in a month, lets say November 1. I have already done 40 pages of general clean up. He will then read it again.

I may have written before about the why of a free-lance editor as opposed with selling the book and let the publisher do the editing. And the why is, in this ultra-competitive environment I would like to have the tightest, best-written work I can before sending out to the universe. (And, of course, it keeps me one step away from the dreaded HAVING TO PEDDLE THE BOOK stage.)

Trivia tonigh sans daughter and Billy. I feel a nap coming on, to get my brain into a state that random knowledge contained therein will be more to come to the fore when summoned.