An Indispensable Receptacle
Despite the planned release order posted on
my Web site
, I did not, in fact, start work on these nine novels in that sequence. I actually began the Divine Cortex trilogy in high school and started working on the Cyanide of the Masses books right around the year 2000.
Dicing Time for Gladness ended up being first simply because it felt more finished than any of the others, even though it was my most recent project. (See the story of how DTfG came into existence here .)
*Side note: there was an eleventh project, Fly by Night, which I actually finished in the early 90s, and subsequently dumped because it was exceedingly stupid. There was also a twelfth, which I completed in the late 80s, but even its title is too moronic to include here.
One of the things I discovered very early was the usefulness of what I descriptively call The Deleted Text File. It started out as a sort of vaguely conceived rationalization and quickly evolved into an essential tool.
As a writer, one of the most painful things to do is cut out something that you really like. Sometimes you write something that you're very fond of, very proud of, very attached to, and then realize that it just doesn't belong in that particular story. Not that it isn't good; it just doesn't fit.
So I created The Deleted Text File as a repository for anything worth saving. Maybe someday it will find a home elsewhere. Maybe not. But it's a way of relieving the acute sting of hitting CTRL+X on paragraphs or pages of smashing material produced at great effort. The real narrative usually begins about twenty pages in, and sometimes those first twenty pages have to go — even though it took a week of rum-fueled nights to pound them out. The simple, hard truth is that editing and revising usually entails mostly hacking away at the manuscript with a machete, then a set of pruning shears, and finally a tiny pair of mustache scissors. It's uncomfortable to watch a 20-page scene shrink to 5 pages, but if it was 20 ponderous pages reduced to 5 brisk, incandescent pages, then that's what needs to happen. (Not that I don't do it without an occasional grunt of rueful indignation.)
The Deleted Text File is a way of giving myself permission to slash ruthlessly at the text. Once the outline and the bulk of preliminary research that goes with it are finished (see "The Process" ), I confront the vast, barren wasteland that lies ahead: fleshing out each scene from a skeletal sketch to a fully realized chunk of prose, which is both tedious and laborious. What makes it much easier is knowing that I can begin by shooting at it with a wide-muzzled word cannon, and that I will be back to clean it up later. Often, the hardest thing to do in a day of writing is just convincing yourself to turn on the computer and open the manuscript file. Being able to say, "just write something; I'll fix it when I'm sober" is a wonderfully liberating motivator.
Dicing Time for Gladness ended up being first simply because it felt more finished than any of the others, even though it was my most recent project. (See the story of how DTfG came into existence here .)
*Side note: there was an eleventh project, Fly by Night, which I actually finished in the early 90s, and subsequently dumped because it was exceedingly stupid. There was also a twelfth, which I completed in the late 80s, but even its title is too moronic to include here.
One of the things I discovered very early was the usefulness of what I descriptively call The Deleted Text File. It started out as a sort of vaguely conceived rationalization and quickly evolved into an essential tool.
As a writer, one of the most painful things to do is cut out something that you really like. Sometimes you write something that you're very fond of, very proud of, very attached to, and then realize that it just doesn't belong in that particular story. Not that it isn't good; it just doesn't fit.
So I created The Deleted Text File as a repository for anything worth saving. Maybe someday it will find a home elsewhere. Maybe not. But it's a way of relieving the acute sting of hitting CTRL+X on paragraphs or pages of smashing material produced at great effort. The real narrative usually begins about twenty pages in, and sometimes those first twenty pages have to go — even though it took a week of rum-fueled nights to pound them out. The simple, hard truth is that editing and revising usually entails mostly hacking away at the manuscript with a machete, then a set of pruning shears, and finally a tiny pair of mustache scissors. It's uncomfortable to watch a 20-page scene shrink to 5 pages, but if it was 20 ponderous pages reduced to 5 brisk, incandescent pages, then that's what needs to happen. (Not that I don't do it without an occasional grunt of rueful indignation.)
The Deleted Text File is a way of giving myself permission to slash ruthlessly at the text. Once the outline and the bulk of preliminary research that goes with it are finished (see "The Process" ), I confront the vast, barren wasteland that lies ahead: fleshing out each scene from a skeletal sketch to a fully realized chunk of prose, which is both tedious and laborious. What makes it much easier is knowing that I can begin by shooting at it with a wide-muzzled word cannon, and that I will be back to clean it up later. Often, the hardest thing to do in a day of writing is just convincing yourself to turn on the computer and open the manuscript file. Being able to say, "just write something; I'll fix it when I'm sober" is a wonderfully liberating motivator.
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Upside-down, Inside-out, and Backwards
My blog about books, writing, and the creative process.
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