Messier messes of mess

I'm currently outdoing myself in the mess department. I can't find myself in this mess, never mind things I might actually need like my keys and phone. Everything is upside down in my apartment, at work I'm chasing myself for work which I was supposed to have done days or even weeks ago, trying to get to the gym 4-5 times a week so I don't have to have surgery to reduce my breasts is impossible and I think I'm going to have to get a cleaner because, as so astutely said in August: Osage County, washing my underpants is getting in the way of my drinking. And as if that wasn't enough, the mess in my head is worse than ever. Perpetual. Obsessive. So what's new?

Finishing the novel in the midst of this mess - challenging. But I'm trying. And I'm trying hard. After the difficulty with rewriting Chapter 1 completely I've definitely put it to bed. It was particularly hard because nothing in the second half of the chapter was no longer relevant to the story, and I had to cut so much of what I considered to be really good writing and ideas I wanted to explore further. I do love my sentences - they are rather beautiful. But before Chapter 1 is ready for my editors, I'm taking it to a new writing group on Tuesday - it's going to be interesting to hear what people I have never met (I don't even know their names) have to say about it.

On to Chapter 2 and 3. For some reason I started working in parallel on them, which is not a good idea. Yesterday I spent looking through all the comments I've had on the various versions of those two chapters (and changing hyphens to dashes - god damn it Word!) and decide what I thought were valid points. Today I was supposed to finish them both but here I am blogging instead. I will though. Jag ska bara...

But truthfully I'm really quite excited. By the 101st birthday celebration - that's my FINAL deadline - I will have finished my first novel and start my second. I have my three editors lined up - one has no choice, the other two have expressed their wish to read it. All the themes are coming together, and at a workshop on Friday I was told the way I manage to weave the story around the themes is really impressive. To which I had to admit that I'm not even aware of it half the time. I was then told that in that case I have an incredible talent. Which I do. I kid, I kid! 

Well, I half kid. 

Let go - easier said than done?

So the somewhat arrogant, argumentative, obnoxious, challenging, annoying man that makes me want to punch him in the face told me I have to let this novel go. I should finish it, obviously, but know that this one isn't going to be perfect and probably not get published. Then I should move on to the next project. (Which is already at the planning stages and involves me getting a shiny 11 inch MacBook Air - business crucial.) And I hate when a somewhat arrogant, argumentative, obnoxious, challenging, annoying man that makes me want to punch him in the face makes a fair point.

To end it quickly, just to finish it, might be the right thing to do, to send it off out into the world and see if it can fly. 

This whole thing is really stressing me out. It's taking too long. I don't have time; I don't have energy. It depresses me that I don't have time and energy. It depresses me I've still not even managed to rewrite chapter one. I've tried, sat down despite being deadly tired, only to get as far as taking out the odd "that", tighten up a sentence, remove an "and", but ripping out the second part... Not so much. But, of course, working like I have these past weeks isn't really conducive conditions for productivity. Another four weeks off and I could easily finish it.

But I think what's most problematic is that the novel as it stands, even with the first five chapters rewritten, isn't doing what I set out for it to do when I started this project. The novel lacks some of the ideas I wanted to explore - or they are there but not developed enough, not tangible enough. This is partly due to the difficulties I've had writing Morgan. Her complexities turned in to my own emotionally retarded issues and that didn't work - I tried to write the stripped version of me without any walls of defense and sarcasm. Bad idea. Way too close. So I tried to make her nothing like me, but that didn't work either as I had no connection with her and she turned into a complete weirdo. I can see her clearer now, but she's still uneven. Maybe because I don't want her to be an antagonist as that was not my intention. My mentor kept saying the reader needs to know they can dislike her, but I never meant for her to be disliked. But I think, maybe, once I change her in the first chapter she'll be nailed. Just need time and energy to dig into the first chapter and the ability to just cut out stuff if it doesn't quite work with the new take, even if I think it's really good...  

The other thing that's holding me back from ending it quickly and move along is my unwillingness to waste Jack, Morgan, Ben and Eliza on a novel where they are not used to their full potential as they were intended, where the internal (and external) conflicts and psychological dysfunction haven't been fully explored and not created a big enough bang. At least Jack and Eliza are way too awesome to allow to end up going out with a tiny "poof". And there's the sunk cost fallacy - I don't want to have spent over a year (or we are really coming up to two) on a novel and then finish it up just so I can get it done when I'm not complete happy with the end result.

Someone else, also very annoying but who I less frequently want to punch in the face, told me to just finish it and then let someone read it. Brilliant idea of course. But I can't finish it unless I'm happy with it, unless I feel all my ideas have been fully incorporated and allowed to develop and be explored. My next novel is not about this and these are not necessarily topics I want to explore again.  

It is indeed a conundrum, but perhaps if I get my promised writing days in January I can solve it. But I'm not ready to let go just yet.


P.S. Note how clean my language is! Not a single expletive. Fuck.

Words

So, after being screamed at like I'm an 8-year-old - which means in less than a week I was compared to an 8-year-old because of the book I am currently reading, for dropping my new iPhone, for buying the Spooky Sticker Book and - for not backing up my work, I have now done so. It's all safely stored in a Dropbox, on a server that will no doubt collapse and break and every word I've laboured over and every sentence I've crafted with care - gone forever. And then I'll come after you guys - you know who you are...

Exciting! I've started rewriting chapter 1. I figured the time has come to get the beginning right, to tally up with the middle (which is right) so that I can get to the end. I know what I need to do: what needs to go where, what has to change, what ideas need to be pushed further and come through stronger. Only, there are so many sweet sentences in there I don't want to take out so I'm trying to make what I'm writing fit around what I want to keep. Not sure this is going to work... I might just have to rip it all out and sacrifice my words in order for the new ones to make sense. Very difficult indeed.

I'm thinking this especially after the disagreement I had recently about my love for some of my own sentences, in which I was told I have to stop marvel over my words. But it's difficult sometime to not look back and think, wow that's a great sentence, did I really write that? Or like yesterday when I had my ego stroked in a workshop where the stuff I love most about the chapter I had shared was indeed the things they picked up as being great. Which makes me wonder: shouldn't I like my own work? I don't mean in a self-satisfied, smug way, but why would I write what I do if I didn't like it? Shouldn't the words I choose, the way I put them together, say something that feels right in my mouth, that tastes honest and real? 

Because only I can write the words that I have. Maybe they don't fit you, but to me they are pretty tasty.   (And saved in a Dropbox!)

Our lives are not like most

So I've finally, after six weeks of nothing, dragged my ass into writing position, and am actually WRITING. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't partake in some procrastination in between bursts of genius. Hence this blog post and also starting to write my acknowledgements (yeah, I know...). I'm also trying to get myself out of a dicey spot I put myself in by engaging in conversation with a nutter. All in a day's work.

But I have a plan, a real plan, for how I'm going to finish this fucker by my deadline. And today is the first day. Ok, so admittedly, the plan kind of fell apart this morning when I woke up 10:30 instead of 7:30. But a little adversity is good for the soul.

I'm aware that for me to do this I'm going to have to be very disciplined and forsake all others. There can be no exceptions (not even for cocktails). It's going to take every ounce of stubborn in my body (which, thankfully, is a lot). It means giving up my social life. It means being exhausted from work and still getting up and do this. And when it's done, it means starting the next project and do it all over again.

Because it is who I am. And as my dear friend Alex reminded me of the other day, our lives are not like most. And to be honest, I wouldn't want any other life than this.

Scrap the novel - embrace the sunk cost fallacy

Another crap day, and no sleep. I'd like to say maggotcocks at this point but with all the flack I'm getting for being who I am I'd better stop swearing too. Which reminds me of a workshop where someone commented that on page 5 or 6 of my first chapter my protagonist says "fuck" and the comment was that they would have like to know a bit earlier that "it was going to be that kind of novel". I was that kind of novel but now I'm having to rewrite myself.

So no maggots of any sort anymore. But it was thinking about that very word and cockpossum that made me realize that I'm just not going to do this. Finish the novel that is. I thought it be awesome, Eliza walking into Abby's in the first chapter and saying that, that'd be just like her. But then I thought, if Eliza walks into Abby's in the first chapter I need to rewrite the second chapter (where she first appears) and realized I just can't be bothered. There's so much work to finish this piece of crap.

I can't do it working full-time (= 12 hour days). I can't take a month off next summer, and it can't wait that long anyway.

Ergo, stop wasting energy on something that's so unlikely to ever get finished, and just "enjoy" life. I have 37 bars on my must-go-to bar list; surely that's a way better way (bad writing, see...) to spend my life? I've turned down a few dates to write (or I used writing as  an excuse not to go on dates with people I don't want to go on said dates with. But as I proved earlier this year, I did them a favor as I only go on dates if I first have two profs plying with me with wine so I can show up an hour late, drunk and talk about another guy for the rest of the evening. I actually went on a second date with that guy, to which I showed up really tired, declared that we were not on a date, just having drinks, proceeded to get drunk, talked about another guy and got walked to the subway at 9:30pm. I'm such a bad date! Like the worst date ever.)

So, I'm shelving the novel (and dating). I admit defeat. Who needs to finally achieve the one thing they always wanted to achieve anyway?

Cheers.

Enough with the lazy & excuses already

So I haven't written a word since the end of my retreat, which today is a month. A whole month wasted and I haven’t even been drunk. Maybe that’s why I haven’t written anything.

50% of my energy has been put towards an upsetting event, 50% has gone into endless hours at work and 75% has been spent on telling my brain to "shut the fuck up or I will lobotomize you” because as usual it’s fucking annoying and obsessive. Yeah, I’m talking to you pigfuck! (Sorry, I picked this word up from a novel this morning. Haven’t quite decided how to use it yet – maybe “we were drunk like pigfuck”. Or “you’re such a pigfuck”. It also works very well in Swedish, especially if you add som fan after it. See, you can always learn new things by reading.) The remaining 50% I’m going to spend on learning how many percent goes into 100%. And, to add to my my defense, I've been travelling and I've had a life.

So, anyway, the inclination, mood and energy to sit down and write after having to cram 175% into 100% have really not been there. But I do realize the time has come to pick this up again or the project, i.e. my novel, might actually just slide into oblivion. 

So I’m thinking I need a new schedule. (Though first of all I need to stop starting all my paragraphs with “so” and also stop starting sentences with “so”. I do it way too often, even in my novel. So what? Pigfuck. I like starting my sentences with “so”.) And new routines. And new people. And I need a drink.

I’m now mentor-less so (progress, a “so” not at the start of the paragraph/sentence) I don’t have deadlines beside any I set myself. Which I never, or at least hardly ever, meet. I’m meant to see the guy I did some workshopping with before I left for NY in the next few weeks but that’s not enough of a kick up the backside to make me write. And he’s only seen two chapters – I can just hand him something I wrote ages ago, which means I don't even have to actually write to meet up with him. It was much easier when I had to hand over money every month. I almost miss having a mentor.

So (yep) I also need readers and editors. Apply within.

(This is a pigfuck post. I’m just rambling because I don’t have a clue how I’m going to go about this pigfuck.)

The last few days I’ve heard myself saying to people, confidently, that my new deadline is my birthday - i.e. the end of May. And I think it’s realistic. I reckon it will take me about 1-2 Sundays (my day set aside for writing, unless… actually I shouldn’t tell anyone what the exception is) to edit a chapter, and maybe I will have to sacrifice Saturdays too. Unless I'm going to move after Christmas. But maybe if I want this done I will have to give up all else. Apart from running. And cocktails. And Halloween. It will all be worth it when it’s there, on a shelf, in a bookstore. Sometimes you just have to choose what you want most in life.

And I can always comfort myself with the knowledge that the next one will be so much easier…

Tears

I realize this post isn't going to make much sense to most, as only a very few knows what has happened. 

I've had some very unsettling and upsetting weeks (which have included a lot of tears) since I returned back from my writing retreat, not helped today by having abuse shouted at me by a crazy person over the phone for like 25 minutes at work. To be honest, with everything else going on it almost made me cry - and I don't cry over work crap. And that's after already bursting into tears over lunch while telling a friend about what's been happening in my private life since my return.

I spent a large part of last weekend with a tissue in one hand and a whiskey in the other (note - not while driving). And Wednesday I burst into tears in my Hendricks and tonic and last night I burst into tears in my Kraken and diet (though that went unnoticed - phew!). So it seems since coming back my life is all about crying.

I have decided to use this constant teariness for some good. Because tears can be powerful and make you determined too. She said she knows I will finish my novel, that it will get picked up and published. And I want to make her proud; I want to do this for her.

So, after I've finished crying for this time and I've been for a run, I'm going to sit down and start editing Chapter 1. Maybe I am committing the fucking sunk cost fallacy, but I don't care - I going to finish this novel even if it kills me. Although, since I told her about my next project, I kinda have to stay alive long enough to complete that too.