Into the void...

2002-12-12

4:47 p.m.

At long last, I’ve been able to spend some time recently on my novel. This is no ordinary, run-of-the-mill novel. This is the novel to end all novels. I’ve been working on it, doing research for it, and thinking heavily about it since April, and I’m finally getting to actually WRITE. You can’t just throw yourself into a project like this without the research mostly done. This time, in contrast to other times I’ve written books, the research is the most important part. And the finished product should be fantastic.

If it ever gets done.

Earlier this week, I had to stumble my way through an oral presentation for my class. Since then, I’ve felt as though an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and I’ve been able to write for my novel because I’ve gotten through all the somewhat related research due for the class itself. In all honestly, the class comes first at this point. As much as I’d like to put the novel first, the class has to come first until I’m sure of what kind of grades I’ll be getting. Once the good grades start coming in, then I can relax and go ahead full-speed with the novel.

It’s so much fun.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that writing a book is easy, though. It most certainly is not. Writing a half-decent book takes more thought and concentration than anything else I’ve ever encountered. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath."

That’s exactly what it feels like.

Good writing makes you feel as though you can’t breathe because all the energy in your entire body, including the energy allotted for those involuntary activities your body isn’t supposed to need energy for, is going straight through your brain, through your pen, and onto your paper. Or else the screen turns fuzzy in front of your eyes while your fingers go numb from typing so much. Then, when you’re done, you look away from the screen or you look up from the paper, and you notice that the rest of the world has yet to dissolve from around you into pools of irreconcilable sludge, even though that’s what you would’ve thought if you had never chosen to look up from your work again.

But I’m enjoying the writing despite the hard work.

And I’m so glad that the stupid oral presentation is done because it allows me to go on with the only thing in life that makes me feel like I’m achieving something. Classwork is all well and good, except that my stupid professor keeps telling me to add more and more stuff to a final paper that’s already beyond the acceptable top limit for length. How am I supposed to discuss a novella, three short stories, and a full-length novel with good character descriptions and descriptions of plot along with a discussion of World War I and the difference in American literature written before and after the war all within the limit of twelve to fifteen pages?

It’s not possible.

The guy’s main deal is that you have to limit your topic to a size that you can handle in the allotted space. No shit, Sherlock, but if you keep telling me to add more and more stuff to the topic that was already properly narrowed, it’s no longer going to be narrow enough, and that’s going to be your fault. I wish he’d just leave my paper alone. It’s going to be good, dammit. And he can’t tell me what to do if the suggestions he’s giving me are inherently opposed to the rules he outlined for the paper in the first place.

Doesn’t he see that he’s defeating the entire purpose?

The real problem, though, comes into play when I think about the fact that if I don’t include his suggestions, he’s going to think I just didn’t bother and he’s going to give me a worse grade because of it. But if I DO include his suggestions, it’ll make my paper klunky (that’s a technical term) and inconsistent with what I originally wanted to say.

And what’s the use of writing if you’re not saying what you want to say?

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