me 'n Ernie
It has been fifty six days since I typed the last word of my latest novel and closed the file.
The novel is called "Marlene the Divine."
The last word is "balderdash."
The dictionary defines balderdash as "a nonsensical jumble of words," and as I stare at that pile of papers on my desk I get the sinking feeling that it might have been a little too appropriate a conclusion. Have I written the worst possible book? Is this a monstrous waste of paper? Have I violated the sanctity of some happy little north-Canadian tree for something people are just going to hate or, worse, ignore?
Ernest Hemingway is often quoted as saying that "the first draft of anything is shit."
We writers repeat this little nugget as a way of reassuring ourselves that we're not as incompetent as our pages initially tend to indicate. "Writing is rewriting," we say over and over—another nugget the experience of my last few books has always taught me to be true.
We writers repeat this little nugget as a way of reassuring ourselves that we're not as incompetent as our pages initially tend to indicate. "Writing is rewriting," we say over and over—another nugget the experience of my last few books has always taught me to be true.
And thank God for that—for the fact that writers, unlike neurosurgeons, don't have to get it right the first time. Because if there were mortal consequences for initial suckiness, I'd be dealing with a lot of extra guilt right now.
None of this makes it any easier to flip over that first page and confirm that I'm just another mortal like Hemingway, grinding it out a draft at a time.
It has to be done, though.
Totally gonna flip that page now.
Or tomorrow.
Next Monday, at the latest.
Totally gonna flip that page now.
Or tomorrow.
Next Monday, at the latest.
Shit it is not! Since I had the privilege of reading one of the drafts I can assure you that it is well worth reading. It made me both laugh and cry. And it made me think about my own life. But so did Avengers: Endgame. There were two particular lines in Endgame that struck me “Everyone fails at who they are supposed to be, the measure of a person, a hero, is how they succeed at being who they are." and something like "It is time to be who I am rather than who I am supposed to be." Something about that reminds me of some of what I felt while reading MTD. I wish I had written down all the lines in MTD that were particularly striking and moving to me. I can't wait to own my own copy of Marlene the Divine -- and it better be signed by the author. It would mean more to me than a signed Hemingway novel.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Chris! I think you nailed the theme of MTD pretty well. Or at least, Endgame did :-)
DeleteYour enthusiastic approval means a lot. I'm still plugging away at it every week or so -- gotta stop the holding pattern and start sending it out there.