I’m not much of one to start threads, but wondered what it felt like to share with you guys a milestone in my days.
I’ve been writing a book for almost two years, and a few weeks back I finished the first draft. I know that’s really just a starting point, but it was a major victory for me. When I started it, I could barely think clearly, just recovering from a psychological episode that I still haven’t been able to identify.
Just past loss of my wife and a late-in-life self-diagnosis, I thought it would be a healthy exercise to lay out a writing assignment and judge my own efforts. Minimum two pages, preferably closer to three, the job was to envision a scene where a young autistic man could be attractive to a desirable NT woman. That was 937 pages ago.
Though I’d planned to wait a few weeks before starting a rewrite, I couldn’t wait. I was certain that there were several hundred pages that could be eliminated because now I knew where the story was going. Three hundred fifty pages into the rewrite, I’ve added a few pages, subtracted nothing; everything (so far) serves the purpose for which it was written. My only dear friend is a retired (NT) English teacher, who suggested turning it into a trilogy; I think, instead, I’ll massage it into three distinct parts. That solves some clarity issues I’ve labored over.
I’ve privately joked with myself for years that I’m a published author. I’ve written hundreds of teachings, then delivered them from script; I can teach individuals or small groups, but a roomful paralyzes me and that was my regular crowd. To avoid accidently saying something untrue about the Bible (which I sometimes hear off-the-cuff pastors do), I would carefully write all week, then ‘publish’ it by reading it aloud. Not sure why they put up with that for so long.
Once started another book that also turned into a monster, which I turned into a three-parter, wrote about one and a half parts, spanning a few hundred years. My wife loved the Part One characters, never got over them not being in Part Two. But it became such a huge project that my ability to manage it failed me. I may one day go back and pick it up again, as now I’ve developed some technique to manage a large project.
For now, I’m trying to figure out how to reward myself, how to celebrate the milestone. So… Whoopi! You’re all part of the party. Thanks for coming.
I’ve been writing a book for almost two years, and a few weeks back I finished the first draft. I know that’s really just a starting point, but it was a major victory for me. When I started it, I could barely think clearly, just recovering from a psychological episode that I still haven’t been able to identify.
Just past loss of my wife and a late-in-life self-diagnosis, I thought it would be a healthy exercise to lay out a writing assignment and judge my own efforts. Minimum two pages, preferably closer to three, the job was to envision a scene where a young autistic man could be attractive to a desirable NT woman. That was 937 pages ago.
Though I’d planned to wait a few weeks before starting a rewrite, I couldn’t wait. I was certain that there were several hundred pages that could be eliminated because now I knew where the story was going. Three hundred fifty pages into the rewrite, I’ve added a few pages, subtracted nothing; everything (so far) serves the purpose for which it was written. My only dear friend is a retired (NT) English teacher, who suggested turning it into a trilogy; I think, instead, I’ll massage it into three distinct parts. That solves some clarity issues I’ve labored over.
I’ve privately joked with myself for years that I’m a published author. I’ve written hundreds of teachings, then delivered them from script; I can teach individuals or small groups, but a roomful paralyzes me and that was my regular crowd. To avoid accidently saying something untrue about the Bible (which I sometimes hear off-the-cuff pastors do), I would carefully write all week, then ‘publish’ it by reading it aloud. Not sure why they put up with that for so long.
Once started another book that also turned into a monster, which I turned into a three-parter, wrote about one and a half parts, spanning a few hundred years. My wife loved the Part One characters, never got over them not being in Part Two. But it became such a huge project that my ability to manage it failed me. I may one day go back and pick it up again, as now I’ve developed some technique to manage a large project.
For now, I’m trying to figure out how to reward myself, how to celebrate the milestone. So… Whoopi! You’re all part of the party. Thanks for coming.
