There are clouds on the horizon, big
fluffy ones. Although it's sunny today, or at the very least, right
now, I know all too well that it will storm soon. It's not going to
be one of those fierce Denver spring storms complete with hail,
tornadoes, lightening and thunder. No, it's going to be the kind of
storm that we know here in Portland: light rain and mist and for a
long, long time too.
But it's sunny right now. It's still
early spring approaching the halfway mark. Here in Portland, what do
I care if the April showers bring May flowers. If so, what do the
showers of May, June and July bring? And why is it that I'm never,
and I mean NEVER homesick for
sunny-bright Denver, Colorado when it rains? A sunny day here in
Portland makes me wish I was wandering the streets of central Denver
from downtown east along Colfax. Strange.
And
today, as with the last several days, possibly weeks, I've been
writing Denver: Denver streets, Denver light, Denver feel and I'm
doing it all from memory. How horribly twisted and wrong this will
be? Who knows?
Oh,
The Errors of Fabric! I cannot wait to shelf this piece. Awful.
I'm not just saying it's awful because I'm a self-editing,
self-doubting, self-deprecating writer either. I really mean this
piece is bad. Hell, this the tenth novel I've written and I know
that of the former 9, even the worst one is superior in every way.
And
yet, I am compelled to complete it.
Funny.
Some
time back about 20,000 or so words ago, I forewent my old habits of
work. Rather than taking the first draft down with pen and paper and
then transposing the second draft and working a concurrent third
draft, I've taken to the lazy writer's ways.
First,
I'm not, nor have I written a single letter with the stroke of a pen
in the last 20k words. Instead, I've simply written the first draft
on the computer. This is the first time for that.
Also,
I haven't been seeding the manuscript with hooks and actualizations
in a concurrent third draft like I normally would. In short, within
a few days when I consider The Errors of Fabric completed, it will
be a first draft only.
I
don't know why I changed my work habits with this piece.
All
I can think about is that I'm rushed because I waited too long on it.
I'm also, maybe, a little burnt out.
But
thematically this piece has taxed me. A big portion of The Errors of
Fabric is unplanned pregnancy and abortion. I don't understand how I
came to this theme at this point of my life. I just did. And
hitting close to home, my accomplice is pregnant and we are expecting
a son in July. He was not planned, but he is wanted. She got
pregnant just after I started the initial work on the novel.
So,
imagine it? I'm writing a story about two women, one who gives birth
to a child and the other aborts her fetus. All the while I have been
living with a pregnant woman, mother of my child, and everyday we're
both watching the changes in her. It's wild.
This
is, of course, no excuse for sloppy work, or indeed for rushed work
or even for new modes of work.
The
fact that The Errors of Fabric began in September or October 2011 and
now it's nearing the end of April is another conundrum. Six months is
an awfully long time to have a piece like this beating me down like
it has.
Honestly,
I don't know why I've become so hasty.
It's
just been a difficult novel to write. It's not the characters. It's
not the plot. It's certainly not lack of writer's experience. It's
me, simply stated, me. And perhaps The Errors of Fabric will be
relieved to be finished too. Perhaps it will be relieved once
shelved.
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