Feeling A Draft

The first draft of the novel is done, and I’m afraid to look at it. It weighs in at 90,270 words and one has to wonder, how many of them are utter shit?

I know that some of these words are definitely going to be deleted in the second draft. This is not just playing the odds, which would be fair enough, but it's also a matter of knowing how I write. Example sentence: “She threw a bright shower of red [red spring flowers] at him, and rushed back into the field without a pause.” When I wrote that, I had an image in mind, but I didn’t want to say that the character throws red geraniums at him, or red tulips at him, or red begonias at him until I had done a bit of research and found what red flowers would be growing in southern Ohio in the Spring which would have a nice, satisfying petally showery quality to them. If I were more of a gardener (I actually worked for two summers as a gardener in southern Ohio after high school graduation, but that was long ago), or I lived where my novel is set, and it was that time of year, I might’ve immediately known what to write there. Since I don’t, and it would really trip up the flow of writing the scene, my habit is to throw in a couple of brackets to communicate with my second-draft-writing future self, and move on. Otherwise, the temptation of losing myself in endless google research into the flora of vernal southern Ohio would be too great.

I know some of these brackets are really lazy. I’ve bracketed character’s last names, not sure if I’ve given them already and unwilling to do a search, and addresses, and even – if memory serves me right – one part where I just knew I had to describe something in a flowery, poetic way and I didn’t have time that night.

What I am less looking forward to is marrying some pretty different tones and styles, and deciding what’s best for the novel as a whole. I’ve talked to some writer friends of mine who have taken years to write their books, and I have to imagine my problem is not all that bad since I’ve only had my couple dozen different moods, and levels of energy, and alcohol consumption, and distraction of 2008 to try to reconcile into one reasonably coherent whole.

But I’m excited. I’m thrilled actually, which is about ten times over excited. I realize I need to say that, since I like to sound ambivalent. Like my previous post about the adoption process. My folks didn’t want to reply right away with a “Hoy! That’s great!” or “Jeez! That’s terrible!” because they couldn’t tell what I was thinking about it.

And I am thrilled about that too. I mean, I'm buying a new car, since my current two-seater bachelor roadster won't do. I'm getting a fence built around the pool. I'm over the moon, actually, which is ten times over thrilled.

I guess that’s something really basic that writers and dads need to be able to do: communicate.