Ode to Draft Five

There aren’t enough hours in the day.

It is 4:05 in the afternoon, and I sit with my tea, the book sprawled open before me. Draft five is coming along more slowly than I had hoped, but I am equally excited for the changes that it is receiving, for the ways its flesh is growing tougher and softer at the same time. I may have mentioned in a previous blog that characters are being aged up. I’m finding that this gives more weight to the consequences of their decisions, and I like it.

I remember finishing draft one. The book was 135,000 words. At that stage, it was bloated and featured unnecessary storylines, immature characters, and no real tension. Even recognizing this, I struggled and I strained to write the second draft because I did not know where to begin. That feeling of being overwhelmed bubbled up in my heart like a froth come to frigthen me. Maybe because I am older, maybe because I have massaged the pages into a fine, cooperative clay, but I don’t feel that fear going into draft five. I have until September 30th to complete revisions, a deadline that holds a lot of personal significance for me.

Part of being a writer is having a fluctuating relationship with one’s work. Sometimes it moves you to euphoria; other times it dooms you to despair. And yet for so long, I’ve felt quite strongly about this book because it is a small copy of my frolicking heart, shuddering its blood and fragrant ink on the pages with a sort of skip. No, the book doesn’t make me fret — the fact that I have a lot of my plate does, however. As I said, there aren’t enough hours in the day.

I’ve spoken before on this blog about The Hustle that I am throwing everything into. At the core of me, there is someone desperately hopeful that this book will see the starlight sometime, will take to the waiting moon. I get up at 4:00 in the morning to work on it. I don’t take lunch breaks so that I can get all that needs to be done, done. My career is being knit, day by day, thread by thread, and, after spending so long in mute rejection, I’m finally getting out this result, this unrelenting hope. The fact that it all rests on draft five does not frigthen me. Nothing in writing or cognitive science frightens me. To quote Joan of Arc, “I am not afraid. I was born to do this.”

I am resting on myself, and it is an intoxicating feeling.

So, to think critically about draft five, about what needs to be accomplished, I pick up my fountain pen, I whisper into it, and let some of the ink stain my fingers. Draft fives are for becoming friends with your novel. You’ve raised it; now you can meet as adult equals. What is great is that this story also saved me, also raised me, because I have lived with it my entire life. I, too, am on draft five. This book is on draft five with me.

Here is an ode to the characters who make reckless, despairing choices, a paean to the themes of grief, philosophy, and story, a declaration of a love affair with steampunk airships. I’ve said many times before, this is a book about books and, yes, apple seeds. Here is the banquet of all that I am leaving behind: Characters who are just too sensible and even-tempered; too fast pacing; excess in points of view; and small dimensions when it comes to characters’ hearts. I’ve always wanted this book to be the Great American Fantasy — arrogant, I know, but it was what my heart daydreamt of for so long.

I’ve ploughed through the enchanted woods for a long time, but now I feel akin to the trees. I feel myself in every setting, every familiar street pushed through a sieve of speculative fiction. This has never been more potent than in draft five.

Finally, the moon is surfacing!