As expected, I’m getting hammered this week at work (most of which would have happened even if I’d worked more over the weekend), so the only “writing” I’ve been doing is re-reading Meet the Larssons on the train and marking up the manuscript as I go. I’m not doing heavy editing at this point — I’ve given up on that for now, I want to get the structure right before I do any more at that level of detail — but I’m making edits as I spot them. What is surprising me, now that I’m not looking to rewrite entire scenes as I got but just to outline new scenes and try to see where old scenes might fit, is that now that I’ve hit the second half of the draft, it isn’t entirely godawful. There are pages and pages of prose that aren’t all crap. There are plenty that are, but not all of them.
I mean, it probably is all crap, when measured against some artificial, commercial, “would people not related to you pay money to read this” kind of standard that editors and agents, with their “experience” and “real-world” understanding of the so-called “market,” would use. But I’m reading it and not totally repulsed, now that I’m allowing myself to enjoy it.
This is new. This is good.
The Unfocused Life 
Yeah, not “entirely repulsed”. I go through that, too, after thinking “god, this SUCKS.” Funny, isn’t it. And that “I don’t completely suck” feeling lasts until the next rejection letter. Sigh. Remind me why we keep writing? Some bizarre compulsion, I guess.
It must be a kind of screwed up narcissism, I think. Instead of thinking about ourselves all the time and just admitting it, we make up other people and spend all our time on them.
I always find my made-up people much more interesting than myself. They actually DO things rather than sit around thinking about things. And, they get to eat better food. If I let them.
Oh, damn, I *knew* I forgot something in this draft. No wonder they seem so loopy: they spend 500 pages drinking on empty stomachs. That also explains the vomiting scene.
Hey, the first person that must like it is you, right? It’s not like you’d even think of sending it out at some point if you didn’t like it. So, step one is almost achieved. :)
It’s good to read post like this. Makes me feel like there is hope yet for those of us still a few steps behind in the process.
Thanks for being a beacon.