edit post

I realize that I came down a little hard on the ol’ english dictionary last time and I’d like to apologize for that, not to any of you… but to the book – my dictionary wouldn’t stop crying about it. That is until I reminded her that I hold her in the highest esteem when it comes to defining mysterious words I stumble on when I’m reading.  Sometimes I can figure out what a word means just based on the context but more than half the time I’m like ???????  So soon as I said sorry my dictionary got all warm and fuzzy and cuddled up right next to me, even though I still think she can be a bit stubborn when it comes down to spelling.  Anywayzz dot dot dot we’re friends again.

So I’m working on a collection of short stories.  Something I’ve been putting off for a long time.  I’ve finished one so far and my goal is to complete 10 sometime before the end of the year I guess.  Ok well that’s no way to set a goal, so, um, definitely by the end of the year.

Wow it’s difficult for me though.  Why? Because I’m a bit of a compulsive editor and I have a hard time getting one paragraph down without reading back over it and making a million little changes.  And then I do it again.  And again.  Then I’ll be like dammit, now it reads like it’s been over worked and I’ve gone and flubbed the natural flow all up so I should just rewrite the paragraph from the start.  In fact even with these bloggoroonies that I’ve been posting I find myself going back days or weeks later and making changes.  Tiny ones.  If you go back and read a post today that you first read at some other time I promise you it’ll be different, but you wouldn’t even notice because that’s how obsessive, compulsive and insignificant my editing can be.

Sometimes I’ve got no idea where to put comma’s and I’ll just throw’em in there wherever the hell I feel like it, then I’ll take them out after a read thru and stick’em somewhere else.  Then back where they were in the first place.  In fact there used to be a comma right after the word comma’s back at the beginning of this paragraph but it’s gone now and I put an “and” in there instead.  Will it always be like that? Doubt it.  And fuck the semi-colons, I’m tempted to just do away with those altogether.

As an aside, sometimes I like to pretend that I’m more obsessive compulsive than I really am.  Or at least I think I’m pretending.  For example, when I’m eating dinner with people I’ll make sure to eat and finish all my eggs first before I touch my bacon.  Or I won’t touch the potatoes until I’ve swallowed every last bite of my steak.  People usually notice and say stuff like, OMG you’re one of those people?  Haha.  One time I convinced someone that I couldn’t sit in a room unless every object was placed at least six inches away from the edge of whatever surface it was on, because the idea that something might drop off the edge was too much for me to handle.  So we spent like 15 mins moving all sorts of nicnaks around until I was able to relax and enjoy myself.  Ok so there’s a really good chance that I’m not usually like that but when it comes to editing my own stuff I’m much much worse.  I’ve already gone back and changed the opening paragraph of this lil piece like 4 freakin times! (5 now)

OMG I just noticed that I described eating bacon and eggs for dinner when what I really meant to say was breakfast.  But I’m going to leave that in just as an exercise in self-control.

The way I got through the first story is that I forced myself to just spit out one complete page without looking back over it and then taking that page and hiding it from myself.  And I somehow against incredible odds was able to do that for each page, one at a time until the heart of the story was on paper.  But it was hard, like an alcoholic trying to pretend that there isn’t a case of cold beer just a few steps away in the garage, or an LCBO one elevator ride and half a block away.  I could hear the pages calling to me to come and give them a quick read.  Just a real quick one; a skim.  But those devious little pages know if I let myself give in then before long it I’d be at the keyboard-pipe, taking hits from the editcrack until the story is completely torn apart and ruined, wide-eyed and rotten toothed, walking with a stagger in the rain offering complete strangers…. um where was I?

I think the problem is that I get way too close to the story while I’m writing it and can’t see it for what it is.  I think people do that sort of thing a lot, not just with writing or creating but in all aspects of life.  You get too close to anything and it’s hard to see all of it at once; to understand what it’s really all about.

When I bury my head into a story that I’m writing it’s me looking at it from the inside out, and that’s even worse than just being too close.  That’s why I make unnecessary changes or edit things prematurely and end up losing the story altogether.  It’s like I’m in a labyrinth desperately searching for waymarks when what I actually need is the oversight of a cartographer.  Some people might argue that no map is required to find your way through a maze, you just need a friend who’s got a keen ability to smell cheese – but I don’t buy that.  The cheese could be a trap.  And what if my story happens to be lactose intolerant?  That cheese smelling friend might just ruin everything for you.  You need to get the hell outta there and pull way way back so you can see the entire labyrinth from a GPS POV.

Sometimes seeing the whole picture at once isn’t even good enough.  I need to look at a different picture entirely and then look at the first picture again a little later on – my reason for hiding the pages I write as I write ’em.  It’s also my reason for having other things to do other than just writing a collection of stories.  Otherwise I’d be looking at the collection as a whole too closely and risk fucking the entire project up and wasting all my time.  So, in addition to the short story collection, I’ve set myself the goal of finishing 10 paintings with 10 iron frames to match each one, depending on what the theme of the paintings are.  I’ve done one so far.  I’ve also set a goal of making 5 iron sculptures.  This way I’ve got things to rotate my concentration off to, allowing myself to focus on something totally fresh for a while so that hopefully when I rotate back I’ll be able to see things from a different perspective.  Get the big pic.  Make the right edits.  Forge the right sculptures.  Not waste paint or any more of my time than I need to.

I’d like to take this moment to send a big shout out to my boy JP – who tirelessly promotes this shit on his FB page like it’s going outta style (it won’t).  Thank you.

Oh and BTW I think I fucked that whole blind man elephant story up and all the voices in my head are telling me to scroll back and delete it but if I did how the hell could anyone make any sense of what they’re reading right now???   ;so I guess it stays.

That huge mockingbird analogy is definitely nixed though.