It's been awhile since I've blogged on a writing day. But I have a feeling today is going to be a good day. Here's why: the manuscript is ready to send, save for a few crossing of t's and dotting of i's, and my editor has given me the green light to send it to her. In the months that it's sat quietly waiting, I've had the chance to polish some stories, and decided in a fit of dissatisfaction last week to completely rewrite one, which seemed weak and undone--the notes to a story rather than a completed story. I didn't want my editor to read it as it was. I knew it could be better.
Last week, I picked and picked at it, with discouraging results. At some point, probably during a yoga class, it occurred to me that the story contained too many disparate elements, and specifically, too many narrative threads that didn't cohere. Of course, I was quite attached to a couple of those threads, which is why they were still in the story (it's funny how that works; I actually recognize the problem, but am attached to it, and defend it until it becomes glaringly, arrestingly, hideously clear that it's indefensible, and we must part ways; I soothe myself by thinking, hey, never know when this might become useful some other time, some other place, some other story). So I scrapped a lot. And suddenly--it was suddenly--on Monday afternoon, as the clock ticked down toward babysitter-going-home-time, my brain jumped tracks and my fingers leapt across the keyboard, and I closed my eyes and typed. The story finished itself. This does actually happen; it isn't a writing myth. I would never have been able to plot this story and its ending out in advance. I had to wait and wait and tough it out and hang around and attend with patience and hope to receive what arrived, at last, like a gift.
I've been thinking about the image created ever since. It comforts me in my mind's eye. I will tell you what it is: the empty cellar of a burned-down house, overgrown and abandoned and forgotten, and in the centre of the cellar is a box, perfectly placed, left to the elements. Do you want to know what's in the box? Well, I'm not going to tell.
With some more work done on Wednesday, and the finishing polishes today (hello, my friend Spellcheck), I will send The Juliet Stories away with a light heart. There is more work to be done, of course, because there always is. But I have gotten the manuscript to the precipice, to the furthest corner of the earth that I can currently carry it. And I will be happy to set it down and rest apart from it for awhile, til a new map arrives to show me a way to get even further, even deeper into territory I can't yet imagine.
I love this process.
:::
In other news, I received a package yesterday and it had a book in it--not mine, though my name was on the back, beneath a short review I'd written of the book itself. I will tell you more about this book when it becomes available in stores next month. It's called Up, Up, Up, and it's a book of stories by a first-time writer (whom I do not know, but look forward to meeting someday; the CanLit world is a teeny-tiny world).Labels: Anansi, short stories, The Juliet Stories, writing, writing day