The Hall, the Novel, the Agony

If you want to check out our new hall colors, Nate has posted a new gallery on his site. It's the Dec. 2 entry.

In novel news, I'm still revising. Revising, revising, revising. I'm as tired of writing it as you are of reading it. When I'm done, I plan to send the book out to three friends who are careful readers for feedback. One of them is a short story writer, one is a newspaper reporter, and one is a novelist. All three are published. (And I plan to let three family members read it, although I don't expect feedback from them, necessarily. They just want to read the novel after hearing me talk about it so much.)

The draft I'm working on now has been to fix all the plot and clarity problems. I think that's going pretty well. And I thought I should do one more draft focusing on voice before sending it out to readers . You see, a friend of mine who works in publishing (he's a designer but he has read tons of books in manuscript and has also written two or three books and several plays himself) said his concern was that my narrator sounded too much like the characters. Since the narrator is pretty much the same throughout the book, I started worrying that they all sounded the same.

Should I do a voice draft? I wasn't sure. So I asked Maria, one of the future readers, to look at the first two chapters. In her opinion, they sound distinct. So now I'm not sure about that extra draft or not. Oh well. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Maria, by the way, is the same person who is about to have her story "Red" published. I met her at Bread Loaf in 2004. She and I were placed in the same dorm and had lots of great chats about writing. We've stayed in touch through e-mail, giving each other feedback on stories, chapters, and whatnot. And commiserating about writing.

One of the things that we bonded over: we were both in fiction workshops (different ones) and were both told our work was the strongest in the group. Being the doubting Thomas I am, I, of course thought my workshop leader said that to everyone. I was so doubtful (but also so excited it might be true) that I confided what my workshop leader said to Maria. She told me her workshop leader had said the same thing to her! And I absolutely agreed with that assessment. But then, doubting writers that we are, we wondered if workshop leaders told everyone that.

In retrospect, that is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever had (now knowing our workshops leaders a little better, they are not the kind of people to give false encouragement). But it makes sense to me that I doubted. Maria and I have also talked about the weird mix of arrogance and doubt all writers have.

For me, I feel the arrogance during the heat of writing. While I'm writing I think I am great. Talented. You better step back, bitches, ' cause there ain't no shame in my game. When I'm revising, I think it the book really and truly sucks. Stanks to high heaven, oh lord!

Welcome to writing. And revising.