From Magnum Opus to Family Heirloom

 

by Pa Rock

Determined Typist

The past two days I used this space to talk about various writing projects I have tackled over the past fifty years or so.  Today I would like to cap that walk down memory lane with some remarks regarding my latest and second-most grueling writing effort across the course of a lifetime.  This blog will always rank first when it comes to grueling tasks because I sit down and face the challenge of a blank page almost every day, but for the last several years I have also challenged myself with creating a long piece of fiction that finally came to fruition a couple of months ago in the shape of something that looks and reads like a novel.  

Writing a novel had long been on my bucket list, but I doubted that I would ever get around to it.  A few years ago, however, I began developing the germ of an idea that could set a story in motion, and before too long I was at the keyboard a couple of hours a day nursing that germ as it began developing into a community of  complicated and somewhat comical characters.

As the days passed and the page count grew, there were times in which I felt that I was telling the story and directing the activity, but there were also extended periods when some of the characters hijacked the tale and put themselves in the center of the action.   I had to go back several times and delete large chunks of material because of their vain attempts to hog the tale.  

But through it all I kept typing, trying to keep up with the story as it unspooled in my head, and this past July I finally came to a point where I decided it had reached a semblance of completion.  A couple of characters thought they had more to say, but I asserted my authority, typed "The End," and closed the laptop. 

I failed to note the date when I started penning the magnum opus, but I felt as though I had at least three (or perhaps even four) years in the project.    Then recently, while cleaning out some folders on the computer desktop, I came across a brief set of early notes on the story - and it was dated October 19, 2020 - five years ago today.  So the material has been needling at me at least since then.  Five years is well into the neighborhood of "obsessive" and "neurotic!"

After three complete read-throughs in which I was only able to edit out a minimal amount of the exhausting material, I finally sent it off to a real writer - one who could not say no - for a professional editing.  My son, who is extremely busy with his own work and family, is going through the material, making extensive notes, and sending it back to me in small chunks which I am then incorporating back into the original work.   

I'm not vain enough to expect to find a market for a first attempt at a novel, nor am I needy enough to self-publish, but that doesn't mean my work of the past five years won't see the light of day.   When the manuscript has finally been massaged into its final form, I may serialize the damned thing and preserve it in this blog.  (That would be several dozen days in which I wouldn't have to come up with fresh material!)

I am proud of having set a goal and (finally) achieved it, and the experience has definitely been an education.  The writing process taught me (through plenty of trial and error) how to organize a complicated narrative in an understandable manner, and Tim's editing and notes are literally the equivalent of a graduate school course in composition and creative writing.  He is one of the best teachers I've ever had!

(And for the record, I am saving the original manuscript along with Tim's notes and edits to give to whichever of his children shows the most interest in writing - a family heirloom from a tired old typist and his equally exhausted editor!  Won't that be a fun read in a hundred years!)