Sorry, haven’t posted in a while…

A lot has happened, but in the grand scheme of things it is all about the novel. (Would you expect me to say anything different?)

I think I am a day or two away from finishing this draft of the novel. Sort of.

Of course, a caveat is requred after such a big statement, but only a minor one. About a third of the way through this draft, it seemed awkward to keep weaving the narrative element with the "non-fiction" element, so I stopped. So, after I finish the narrative, there will be a few days of weaving all the elements in together again. If I can…

It will all depends on whether it is a possibility yet. Basically, the major writing work of this novel (in so much as my starting with blank screens and filling them with words) will end shortly. The idea of the ‘non-fiction" element is to break up the narrative elements. I’m not certain if I am still too close to the narrative to plug in the other pieces yet. We will know early this coming week.

If I can, great. I spend my days doing the weaving and then when that ends, I put the draft on a shelf for 6 weeks, so I can get enough distance to do the edit.

If I can’t, oh well, still great. It still goes on the shelf for 6 weeks, but then the first part of the editing process will be the weaving, although it might be easier to know when we need a breather from the narrative with that distance.

I prefer weaving before it gets shelved.

The notion of not having any writing to do will be strange. Editing is actually more fun, but it is harder to gauge a workday.  Two thousands words a day is a very clear deadline. But fixing stuff on the page? Did I do enough yet? We’ll see how it goes…

It’s also harder to tell if things have been less… interesting to me lately BECAUSE my mind is focused on the novel, or whether things just haven’t been interesting AND I’m writing a novel. Some examples:

I see Sin City. I love Rodriguez. Expecting brilliance. It doesn’t arrive for me. The movie is gorgeous. The tone consistent. He nails it. I’m just not feeling the heart of this movie. Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe there shouldn’t be. But the movie did get its talons into me somehow. I am compelled to see it again. Something is there. Maybe I wasn’t ready for that much Frank Miller in one sitting. Maybe I wanted there to be some element of fun to the proceedings, a la the Mariachi movies. We’ll see…

I see Millions. Heard great things. It is a charming movie. Danny Boyle has made his best flick, etc., etc. Again, total rubbish. Of all his movies, this one ranks last for me. Not into it in the least. More importantly, I can’t understand what the fuss is about. And people are saying it is a kid’s movie that has as much there for the adults. As though American kids are going to be going to arthouse cinemas across the country to see English kids speak with thick accents… not likely.

I see Fever Pitch. Let me explain… I didn’t expect much. Still disappointed. I like Jimmy Fallon. I like Drew Barrymore. I like the Farrelly Brothers. I knew it was a watered down version of the Farreleys, but still… I’m NOT a big baseball fan, but that seems to be irrelevant. It just isn’t an interesting story without the baseball. They built a romantic comedy around a baseball movie, NOT built a romantic comedy with a baseball theme. And it was boring, as well.

I see U2. I know. I’m surprised I am putting them in this list, too. Now, to be fair, they put on an amazing concert last week in San Jose. If anything, they are suffering for their brilliance. I expect too much. There just seemed to be a thematic element to all of their recent tours. When I saw Zoo TV, it was them breaking down the dour, political, serious band they were on Joshua Tree. PopMart was one step further, nearly parody, not to mention the band coming out in shiny suits out of a giant lemon?! Elevation tour was their back to basics. They rally just seemed to be having fun ripping away the artifice and just playing a rock show. But now, on Vertigo… it was just a bunch of great songs. For every other performer I see, that is the criteria, play a bunch of good songs. But U2 needs to take it one level higher. There was nothing to hang all of the songs on. Even the band seemed tentative about it. Maybe it is that I never saw them this early into a world tour. Maybe when i see them in November, it will have found its legs, its purpose, the glue that holds it together and raises it from a collection of songs into a transcendent experience. I know the band has it in them. That is what the problem is. I see bands all the time and if they put on any sort of show above and beyod the tunes, they get a passing grade. U2 is on a pedestal as my favorite band for a reason, though. They are still in that position, but hopefully November will bring mor magic to the proceedings. On the upside, seeing U2 at all is an amazing night out, so it’s all good.

But all of these things seem to have been muted. And the question is, is it just a coincidence? Or is everything taking a back seat to the novel? Can nothing unseat that from the foreground of my mind? And, if not, what’s the resolve? I plan to be writing a lot more often than ever before, so there needs to be some way for things to play nicely together. Hopefully I’ll see something soon that proves or disproves this theory. I’ve got Weezer and Nine Inch Nails coming up this month, but even NIN doesn’t hold near as high a place as U2 in my live act canon. The new NIN album is really good, though. When it is available in stores and everyone can buy it, I recommend you do!

I’ll post when the writing of this penultimate draft is done, probably at some point this coming week.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 16th, 2005 at 11:06 pm and is filed under diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.