Authorizing

I've been really focusing on my novel, and the re-write is continuing apace. My goal is to work on it every single day, and while I haven't quite made that, I've been close, and it's really moving. I'm pretty sure -- actually, I'm quite certain -- that I will finish with this pass of the re-write by the end of February. Probably, frankly, much sooner than that.

Then I'm going to immediately plunge into the next pass. I'm afraid -- hell, I know -- that if I allow myself a little break when this pass is complete, I'll probably just laze myself into another ignore-it stupor.

It's been interesting the past several pages, though: the writing doesn't suck. At least in my opinion.

I have noticed two tendencies as a writer, though, which I hope to correct in the re-write (and in any subsequent writing). I tend to run long in sentences, but short in transitions. I'm not a guy who likes to write (or read) long descriptions of the room, the clothing, the radio in the background, so forth. But often, instead of a phrase like "He noticed her sad face", I will write something like "He noticed her sad and unmoored face". When I'm writing something like that, I like the idea of that image. When I'm reading it, though, it reads exactly like what it is -- the overwrought prose of a guy who likes images like that. So most of this re-write has been to identify and cut the fat (while still trying to keep the imagery that does work).

The other bad (horrible) habit I have is not to let the scene breathe. Sometimes I find myself leaping from the beginning of a scene to the transition; and from the apex to the ending, without letting the reader walk with me. I don't like chubby, drawn-out scenes, but sometimes you simply have to let the dough rise, you know?

Anyway, here's the point. I have written a novel that sucks. I am now taking that novel and, one hopes, making it not suck. And that pleases me.