Surprises in Editing

When I'm writing, I always listen to music. Sometimes I'll put the iPod (or iPhone) on shuffle and just see where the music takes me. Other times I'll make a choice and listen to one particular artist (to be honest, Josh Ritter and Iron & Wine get the most play time). The music helps keep things flowing, it gives my brain something to hold onto in the background to block out all those other things, other possible distractions. This need began in college and to this time I have a hard time listening to Mazzy Star or Portishead without thinking about writing major papers my senior year. I'm completely serious.

Sometimes the music will help draw me into an emotional place that suits the writing and other times it will draw me out of an emotional place that contradicts the work.

But either way, I find it incredibly difficult to write without music.

I thought the same would be true when it came to serious editing. I was wrong.

I sat down at the end of last week to begin editing in earnest the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year. I had a great deal of work to do on it after November and I hadn't fleshed out the entire story arc until July (I had written out where the Point A to Point B, I just needed to expand). For August and most of September I have let it sit. I haven't read it, I haven't written more, I haven't touched it.

But lately, the characters have been hanging out more (not unlike Matthew Norman describes "the men upstairs" in his quite wonderful novel Domestic Violets). I've run into them while walking about town, they've wandered into my dreams, filled my thoughts, invaded my little world. I knew it was time to get back to work.

I sat down in my office this time instead of the library where I'll normally do my writing at home. I opened up my fancypants new writing software to utilize some of the character/places/research options, a highlighter, a pen, some liquid paper, and the printed copy of the 200+ manuscript I had labored over for so long. (It's always been an easier experience for me to edit pen to paper, especially on a first draft edit.)

Sitting down at my desk, the first thing I did was open up iTunes and began a shuffling playlist. Three paragraphs in, I had to turn it off. I couldn't concentrate. I required absolute silence.

Editing is a completely different beast, at least for me, than writing. I know that, but somehow I needed to be reminded. After 20 some pages, I started to see new things about my writing, things I've never noticed before. Apparently I have a tendency (especially in dialogue) to being with the word "so." Who knew?

I've gotten through the first 50 pages by now and it's shown me a great deal. I'm using this as an opportunity to clean up the text, really flesh out the character notes, identify any inconsistencies, look for any themes I didn't know were in there as I plowed through the first 50,000+ words in November.

One of my favorite things about editing? The time disappears in a different way than it does when you're writing. Hours vanished in the space it took to get through only a few pages.

Another really awesome thing were those times where I would write down something I wanted to see next (a line of dialogue, an observation) and then, when I actually got to the next line, I would discover the previous me had already put those exact same words down. That was incredibly cool.

My goal is to get through a major edit by the end of October and then take November to write something completely new.

It's going to be an exciting fall!

Falling for Iron & Wine & Coffee & Cream & Will Grayson

I awoke today in the transition between dusk and dawn and could hear the wind rattling everything that would rattle. It was Fall knocking on Summer's door saying, "Sorry, I got caught up with an old friend and lost track of time, but I'm here now."

I fell asleep in the heat of a summer eve and woke to the cool, wet, windy emergence of fall.

I adore fall. It's my favorite of all the seasons (but I suspect I say that to all of them...) I love watching the trees catch fire. I love the crunchy sounds discarded leaves make beneath my feet as I stomp through city parks. I love the smells, the tastes.

This morning, after making a French Press Pot of Glorious Coffee, I have settled into my library with a Pandora station centered on the music of Iron & Wine. It's been a good time to reflect on the craziness of this whirlwind of a week that finally finished. It's been a good time to catch my breath, to practice my breathing.

Wednesday I went in to get a massage before work and the therapist noticed that I was not breathing into my chest, only my abdomen, so he did some work to open up and loosen my chest and showed me how to breathe again. At the end of the session I was light-headed from the increased oxygen. I've learned that when I have an increase in stress, I often forget to breathe and breathing, as we know,  is ever so important.

Thursday I met up with my husband and College Brother to grab some dinner and hang out. We ended up at Signal Station Pizza and enjoyed a lovely meal sitting outside. Afterwards we ended up going for a walk through St. John's. When we got to the bookstore I couldn't resist the allure and so we wandered in.

Despite spending too many hours in a bookstore already this week, it was too difficult not to want to peak in. It's always fun to see the same books you know and love in a different setting. It's almost like meeting up with a good friend when you weren't exactly expecting it. They look the same...and yet different. I wandered the aisles, looking at old flames and catching the eye of a few attractive new faces.

I wandered into the Young Adult section (which my brother pointed out contained the Captain Underpants series...) and was surprised to see the only John Green book they had was the one he wrote with David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson. I really did enjoy that book, but of all the John Green books available (like Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns) I was just surprised. I picked one up and noticed a flash of gold on the cover and discovered it was a "signed copy." "Well," I thought to myself, "Surely it's not signed by BOTH of them." I opened to the title page and found that indeed it WAS signed by both. "Well," I said, "Surely it's not a first edition." But it was and so I was left with no choice but to buy a book I already owned in digital form.

My husband just smiled and explained to my brother that this would be a "top shelf book." The top shelves of one of the bookcases in the library are reserved for the very rare books, including my increasing collection of signed editions.

Now the wind is picking up outside and I'm watching the red leaves shadow the sky on their way to the ground and I feel grateful to have this day and the next to read, write, listen to music, breathe. Good morning.