Another 17 down. 300-something more to go.

I dusted off the editing work last night, pushing my way through another 17 pages on the novel, bringing me to page 67 and nearly the end of chapter two. During a break in the editing, I hit the computer to print chapter three, which runs from page 67 to 97, and approximately one quarter of the novel.

Looking ahead at future editing work on the first half of the book, there's one lengthy section in the first chapter that needs a from-scratch rewrite that I haven't sat down to do yet, and another entire chapter near the end that needs to be created from scratch (when I was originally working on the book, I leapt ahead to the second half, as the first half was beginning to depress the hell out of me).

All of this work followed a dish-washing binge. Because, for reasons I could only begin to guess, I was in a super-productive mode last night.

While doing the editing work, I was listening to what I sort of consider the spiritual soundtrack to the novel, Leonard Cohen's "The Future." It's from that album that I yanked the quotes that open the first part, the second part, and the epilogue of the novel. But while editing, with the songs I had quoted drifting into my head in the background, a further idea occurred to me.

I realized that, instead of *just* using quotations from the songs, it would actually be appropriate to retitle those section based on sections from the quotations.

I rolled the idea around in my head for a bit, and found that I liked these section titles far, far better than what I had originally planned to use, so I made the official change to the manuscript.

And so, the section titles are broken down as such:

Part One: The Awful Truth
Part Two: The Miracle
Epilogue: The Light Gets In

These titles replace the originals, which were:

Part One: Faith
Part Two: Truth
Epilogue: Happily Ever After

And this is why I generally don't title things until I'm finished them. Because it isn't until I'm finished that I really know what it is I'm writing.

It's also nice to know that these sorts of random, sudden, overwhelming moments of inspiration are still able to make an appearance, even after 95% of the creation work is done, and I'm the middle of the more clinical editing stage.

Here's hoping that there's still a little bit of that inspiration left for when it comes time to do those few bits of from-scratch writing. I'm beginning to *feel* the narrator's voice again, just from reading it, so it shouldn't be too hard to sit down and find my way back into his head for those few sections. But it'd be an added bonus if those new sections were particularly inspired. Of course.

Oh, and over the course of last night's editing, I actually came across a section that seemed solid enough to post here. Taken from a scene at a funeral...

And then, I did need to be beside her, and hold her, and let her cry onto my shoulder as I cried into hers, pressing ourselves together, unaware of anything outside of us except the other, closing our eyes to the world around us, and the universe beyond that, making a new universe that would exist only of she and I, where no one died and love was eternal and just wanting something bad enough was all it took to make it happen.

And then dirt was being thrown, and the sobs came a little more loudly while the droning holy man quieted, and people started milling around, moving to comfort those they knew and cared about, because it was all over now except the mourning.

That's all for now. Cheerio.

This makes me sad.

I came across some statistics, while engaged in my usual, daily web-browsing habits, that sort of made me a little bit sad. Here are the particulars that caught my eye:

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.
(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

To think that 80% of U.S. family didn't buy or read a book in the last year is just indescribably sad. Even more absurd, the article indicates that other research (which doesn't actually seem to be cited in the article, strangely enough) shows that 80% of the people in the U.S. would like to write a book one day.

Those numbers are just psychotic.

80% of people want to write a book.

80% of families haven't read a book in the last year.

Obviously those aren't the same 80%, but come on, there's gotta be some overlap between them. There's gotta be some *huge* overlap between them. So, why are there so many people who'd like to write a book that don't even bother reading them?

This makes my head hurt. It also makes me sad.

And, of course, I'm a little sad about the notion that 70% of published books do not make a profit and do not make back their advance, particularly at this point in my life, as I begin official editing work on my own novel, the first step towards what I hope will be eventual publication. Publication and, it would seem, eventual failure, if these statistics are to be believed.

Editing is hard.

Which is, I suspect, why I traditionally do so little of it.

But I formally decided a couple of nights ago that, not only would I allow myself to consider editing work as part of the "write every day" resolution, I would start off my editing work on the big one -- the novel that I finished in the summer of 2005, "Waiting for a Miracle."

I made this decision for a few reasons.

First, I really do want to keep up with the resolution, but it's not even the end of January and I've already done a horrible job of it. Lately, with two plays on the go, the last thing I want to do when I get home is crawl up to the computer and spend an hour at my desk. I want to just drop into the sofa, turn on some music, and relax. Editing is writing work that I can do on the sofa, if I've got some pages waiting for me.

The second reason is that, for the most part, I hate editing. When I'm finished writing something, the last thing I want to do is look at it again. I want to move onto something fresh and new and exciting. By allowing myself to include editing work as part of the resolution, it gives me a reason to do something I don't much enjoy, when I'm too lazy to do the actual writing work.

And the third reason evolved out of a conversation I had after the play on Friday night.

I asked a few people to help me choose a new career. The question came out, partly as a joke on the current trend that most people have four or five different careers in their lifetime, unlike people in the past who would generally stick with one career through their entire working life. And it came out partly as a result of a certain degree of employment dissatisfaction I've been feeling lately.

Among the many suggestions that were tossed at me (some good, some odd, and some downright dreadful), someone said, "Write a good book."

Which got me thinking. Maybe I should.

Which got me thinking, hey, wait a minute, I almost have. I've got a book that's pretty darn good, and probably just needs some cleaning up before it's of publishable quality. And all I really need to get it there is to, you know, actually work on it.

So I printed out the first two chapters of the novel tonight, double-spaced for easier editing. That amounted to about seventy-five printed pages (which is actually quite a lot, leading me to consider splitting some of these earlier chapters into smaller chunks), and promptly started work on editing a novel for the first time in just about ever.

And holy fuck, editing is hard.

I spent two hours, and made it through about twelve pages. Twelve double-spaced pages. There's black marks everywhere, sentences added, sentences modified, whole paragraphs yanked out. I'm ripping this book to absolute shreds, and it's actually a book I'm more than a little bit fond of. I can only imagine the sort of editing work that would go into something I didn't like at all. Although, more reastically, if I didn't like it at all, I doubt I'd bother with the editing work. You can't polish a turd, as they say.

And I'm only one night, and two hours, and 12 pages into this editing job, and I'm already wondering, when I'm done all this, when I've transferred all the changes back into the document, so it's a true reflection of this version of the story, when I'm done all that, will I be able to look at it and not make any further changes? Or, if I let the book sit for another six months, would I find myself making just as many edits as I did this time? Would I end up going through this whole process all over again?

This is what I'm afraid of. This, more than anything else, is why I don't edit. Because once you start, you can edit forever.

I have a book called "Paper Dreams." I first wrote it, as a novella, in 1990. Since then it has been rewritten, from scratch, another three or four times. Each time it's become considerably better. Each time I've found new things under the surface that can be mined for meaning, for significance. And each time I find myself thinking, "Wow, this is really, really good."

And, inevitably, time goes by and I look at the book again, and find myself think, "Oh, that's shit. I should just start that over again."

This is why I don't edit.

But I have to, and so I will. I have to make "Waiting for a Miracle" is good as humanly possible. Because I really want to be able to proudly send it to publishers. I really want an editor somewhere to read it, and then phone me, desperate to be able to put it into print. I want this book to have a life outside of a folder in my computer. I want people to read it, to experience it, to be moved by it. I want an audience.

And yeah, I'm thinking maybe "Write a good book," isn't a bad idea for a next career.

Well what do you know, you *can* stop procrastinating.

So, I did it.

Sat down with the novel tonight, and pushed my way through the trouble spot. And it was...well, I won't say it was a nightmare, but it sure wasn't easy.

I found myself tangenting an awful lot, going into some insomniac, stream-of-consciousness style stuff that, essentially, allowed me to pad the last chunk of this chapter just a little bit. What's weird about it is that, at the time, while I'm writing it, it doesn't feel like padding. It feels like this character struggling for coherence, struggling for meaning, struggling to make sense of his own head, and the world around him. But when it's done, the whole bit just feels sort of...meaningless.

Meaningless because it's not really driving the story forward. And in a way, it feels like anything that isn't driving the story forward is just padding. Just taking up space. Just killing time.

But I'm wondering if, in a book like this, part of the story really is what's going on in the character's head. Not just his internal reactions to the things going on around him, but the random flailing of his thoughts as well. Just letting his headspace go wherever it wants to go. Because, even outside of the raw, point-to-point narrative, this is a book about a guy flailing about in his own broken perspective on faith, and coming out the other end with something new. Seems to me I'd have to have a lot flailing around to capture that.

I stumbled upon a nice bit of metaphor, entirely by accident, but completely botched my attempts to actually bring it to life on the page. I'd include a segment here, but, like I said, it was pretty badly botched, and not something I feel up to sharing publicly at the moment. Hopefully I got enough of the gist down on the page that, when it comes time to edit, I'll remember what it was I was going for, and be able to actually do it properly.

Here's one line, though, that captures the basic idea: "I’ve gone without sleep for so goddamn long that, until this moment, I had forgotten that being awake meant a whole lot more than just not sleeping."

And on that note, it's time to hang up the writing hat for tonight.

On titles

I've actually been meaning to post this for rather awhile now, but just haven't gotten around to it for a number of reasons, but following the post of a few minutes ago -- also about the novel -- this seemed like a perfectly appropriate time.

I'm still working on a novel that reads, "UNTITLED," at the top of the title page. This is, of course, the norm for me. Generally speaking, it's not until I'm at least halfway through, and quite often not until I'm at the end of something, before I know what the right title is. That's because, quite often, I don't have the foggiest idea what it is I'm writing about until I'm at least half-way through, or, quite often, at the end.

I already had a title that was bouncing around in my head: "Absence of Faith." It was a title I'd tacked onto a never-completed short story some years ago, taken from a chunk of lyric in a Nine Inch Nails song. I'd always liked the way those three words fell together. They seem to say so much with so very little.

But a few months back, another title idea came to me.

I was having a drunken conversation with a roommate who, just before going to bed, said something to me about "significant epiphanies." The rest of his sentence was muddied by out mutual drunkeness.

But the phrase "significant epiphanies" stood out to me.

I'd always liked the word "epiphany", specifically the third definition provided by dicionary.com:

a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

And so the two-word phrase hung around in my head for awhile, mostly because I liked the word epiphany, and because the character in the novel would have a few, and because they would, occasionally, be significant.

But something about it bugged me too. Too many syllables. Too clunky. Too awkward. It needed something to help clean it up.

After a few days, my brain came up with something new -- one word the same, one word completely new: "Everyday Epiphanies"

Still a lot of syllables, sure, but it's made a little easier to swallow by the fine use of alliteration. Which I usually detest. Well, which I always detest. But for some reason, this one I could swallow. Because it worked. Because it wasn't the significant epiphanies that I cared about. The significant ones always stand out. That's what makes them significant. It's the everyday epiphanies, the ones we almost don't notice, the ones that you almost throw away, those are the extraordinary ones. And those are the ones that are the most important to my character.

So there it is -- a second title option, making two titles with two very opposite meanings. Both very appropriate for one novel.

Votes?

Random book excerpt

My legs feel like jello. I wobble.

For just a moment.

Just a moment.

My hand shoots out, and it grips the edge of the closet doorway. It fumbles around. Fingers twitch like spider legs, looking for something solid, something to cling to. There’s a black hole swirling behind me, and it wants to devour me, and more than me, more than my flesh, it wants to devour my mind, my consciousness, my soul, my very reason to go on living.

The spider legs scrambling up the wall, my left leg disappears. Gone. The world turns sideways, and I’m reminded of call centre suddenly, of spinning, of losing direction, of losing focus, of losing track of who I am. And then the floor hits me on the side of the head and everything goes white.

Then grey.

Ashen.

Then black.

No, I think.

Fuck no.

Not black, I think.

I try to call for Jamie. My own mushmouth makes a bubbling noise. My throat is a sewage line, backed up with rotting, stinking death. I’m choking on a week of consciousness, I’m choking on desperation.

“Help me…” The words slip out on my breath, as light as a breeze. Intangible. I can feel them blowing away the moment they’re out, like smoke.

There’s a noise down the hall.

“What the fuck are you doing man?”

Jamie’s watching The Sopranos, I guess. Or pay-per-view. Or, I don’t know, uncensored episodes of Jerry Springer.

“I heard a crash. Is everything all right?”

I answer the television. I say “No, everything is not alright,” or I try to at any rate. But the only noise coming out of my mouth is some sort of grunting, wheezing hybrid. And besides, I was talking to the television.

And still, everything is black.

I try to open my eyes, but they’re sealed shut. There is not a force on this earth that could open these eyes.

Even in the darkness, the world spins. I feel it spinning around me, and then it’s more than the world. Suddenly I can feel every planet – Mercury and Mars and Venus and Neptune and…fuck, I don’t know, how many planets are there, anyway? Nine? Ten? Twelve? They keep finding new ones. Everytime you turn on the TV there’s a new planet. And I don’t know all their names, but they’re spinning around me, the sun is spinning around me, and all those planets we know of, all twelve or twenty, and all the ones we don’t, or twelve or twenty thousand or million or trillion, at this moment, every one of them is spinning around me as well. For just a fraction of an instant, I am in the center of the universe, and the universe is spinning a circle around me, staring at me, watching me. Every living thing on every planet with a living thing has its eyes on me, holding my breath, because this is my moment.

This is the most important moment of my life.

And I’m about to fall asleep and miss it.

And as soon as I do, as soon as I drift off into unconsciousness, then the laugh track will start. They’ll all have a good laugh at my expense, and I’ll be too deep into the darkness to notice or hear or really give a damn.

And there’s no escape.

I don’t even feel the floor anymore.

I’m floating.

I’m floating in this blackness, and this blackness wraps its arms around me, and it is so peaceful, it’s so amazingly warm and quiet and restful, and I’m so fucking happy to be here right now. I’ve wanted this moment for so long that it no longer matters what I’m giving up to be here. It’s worth it. Oh God, it’s worth it.

And then I’m gone.

And then I’m not.

Then there are hands.

Hands on my shoulder.

They’re picking me up.

And the world stops spinning and the black turns to ash, then grey, then white, and something dissolves whatever was gluing my eyes closed, and they open, and I’m blind it’s so bright in this room, and there hands sliding me backwards, and they’re setting me back against the bed, and then there’s a voice that sounds like what ever was on television, and it says: “What the fuck happened in here?”

And I realize it’s Jamie.

And I say, “I fell down.”

I say, “I think I almost fell asleep.”

And he laughs and he says, “Well, shit, if I’d known that I would have left you alone. But you made suck a fucking racket that I thought you’d hurt yourself.”

And I wonder if I have hurt myself.

I still can’t quite feel my legs.

I know my arms are there, because I can see them. But they seem disconnected. They seem to belong to someone else. I try to move my arm, to lift my arm straight up, and dose a crazy wobbling jig sideways and my smacks Jamie in the shin.

He looks at me.

“What?” he asks me.

He thinks I was trying to get his attention.

Maybe I was.

“Make me some coffee,” I say. “I’ve got to get dressed.”

Can't say if there's anything terribly good in this batch of text quoted from the novel-in-progress, but here it is anyway, just to verify that I am at least trying to maintain my new year's resolution to write on *something* each and every day this year. Although, sure, yeah, I could have written this in December and just posted it here until now, it's not like anyone would know.

But I would. And I'd feel bad about lying to you. And that just wouldn't cut it.

I'm about to try to push my way through an awkward portion of the book. I know sort of what has to happen in this next chunk of text, until the end of the current chapter, because I know exactly how the next chapter begins -- I know it so well, in fact, that I wrote it months ago, right after I started the novel. I knew that this next chapter was going to happen eventually. I just wasn't sure when.

I'm not sure, at last, that it's the next chapter. And I know, sort of, more or less, what I have to go through to get to that chapter. But the details...the details are hazy.

So I'm nervous. I'm not sure I want to just dive in and wing it because, as much as that has worked for me in the past, it also has sort of a tendency to steer off my original course. And while that can be fun sometimes too, getting steered off my original course might not be so good when I have a fantastic plan for exactly how the next chapter should start.

So I'll probably do what I usually do when I bump into trouble like this. Avoid the novel for a couple of days. After all, even though I've resolved to write every day, I still have at least three other things I can dump words on.