Sunday Feeling on Monday

September 1st, 2008

Despite a pretty robust (3/4) lifescore today, and (what is for me) hyper-sociability for the last three days, I am still pretty melancholy today, without really knowing why. I’ve been around people, I’ve been to parties, I’ve been to bars, I’ve been writing, I’ve got laundry done and dishes done and house clean. I don’t know what my fecking problem is, really.

I can say that the editing and revision of a novel is much more tedious and time-consuming than the actual first-draft writing of a novel. Very stop and go, very “crap, does that make any sense with what I said three chapters before?” and stuff like that.

What’s funny is that as I was writing the first draft I made little notes to myself, “research blah-blah, look up the date that such and such happened, find out about xyz” Well today, sitting at the gelateria and writing with Todd doing homework next to me I ran into a psychiatric/medical question that I had noted “ask Todd the correct psych diagnosis for this disorder.” So I was able to stop what I was doing and ask him, and that was an interesting discussion.

For each of the main characters in the book I’ve created play lists. “What would be on their iPod” kind of stuff and also songs that I feel capture parts of their personalities. Maybe part of my issue today is that my main character is kind of depressive and feels out of control and helpless. I’ve been listening to her play list all day to get me in the frame of mind to write her and that’s probably having an effect. I’ve switched over to a more hell-raising character’s list, which may perk me up.

Also, the “delete” key on my new laptop’s keyboard is in the place where the “backspace” key was on my old one. That fucks me up because I am a big back-spacer. That’s irritating, and instead of blaming the keyboard and my finger-memory, I blame myself for being stupid, every time I do it.

Lastly, the gelateria guy asked Todd if I was his wife. Why that should be so funny to me, I don’t know. I suppose most people who don’t know us assume that we’re a couple. But it made me laugh anyway.

  
  Music : yeah yeah yeah\'s, Date With A Night


3 Responses to “Sunday Feeling on Monday”

  1. Dim Reaper on September 2, 2008 11:23 am

    I’m 100% with you on the backspace/delete key thing - really pisses me off and one of the reasons I always use a proper keyboard with a laptop…though that kind of negates the point of it being a laptop in the first place I suppose.

  2. Zansetsue on September 2, 2008 6:37 pm

    I was just talking about editing last night, with my writing partner actually. It does suck, especially when you’re on your 8 or 9th polish pass or whatever you call it. I realize I could build up a habit to get through this part (because I’ve done it with art), but ugh. I do not know how you do it for a whole novel. Seriously, that has to be the hardest part, and the reason most people can’t finish.

    It’s gruesome. I don’t want anything to do with the story at that point, it’s so boring to me. Fortunately for me, I only write short stories that don’t require people to pay me, heh. And also fortunately, my partner’s an excellent writer, and last night when I was bored with tweaking my first finished story in a year, he volunteered to do a final edit AND redid all my horrid romance-novel-style dialog! Hooray.

  3. SuperBadGirl on September 2, 2008 9:44 pm

    Well, I guess I am lucky in that I am still fascinated by and loving the story and the characters. I just feel so bogged down in all this detail. A million reference books I have to read, a billion things to look up. And somewhere in the middle of all that, make sure my writing isn’t absolute crap. That too.

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