The little mix-up in my work files yesterday has irritated me, although it hasn't irreparably ruined anything. The almost thousand words I wrote are all still usable, although it will require some shifting around and replacement. I would have sworn I had those galley pages in the proper sequence but obviously that's not the case. I'll have have to double check everything and the only real way I can do that is to borrow the hard-copy books from the newspaper's morgue, the four covering 1993 and 1994. Some extra trouble, but on a project of this nature you can depend on running into all sorts of unforeseen problems. It's the nature of the beast. Anyway, after this morning's writing session I should be closing in on 10,000 words.
I was telling someone yesterday that writing non-fiction is way harder than writing fiction. At least for me. That's not always the case, if you consider straight journalism as "non-fiction" (which ideally it should be, for obvious reasons), but that's a different matter. The on-the-fly news writing is fairly simply because there's a formula you follow, if you know what the hell you're doing. The hook, the lead (or "lede" if you wanna be Internet hip today), inverted pyramids. What gets the wood.
But everything is modern now. Smoke-free news rooms, silent computers, decorum. No grouchy old bastards, fedoras cocked at jaunty angles, hunkered over huge manuals banging out raw copy on rolls of pulp paper jammed into platens. Bottles of bourbon in desk drawers. Ragged yellow light splintering like haze through battlefield smoke. I got in on a bit of the tail end of that era in the sixties, but it was well in its death throes by then.
What I'm doing with this book is certainly journalism, if of a different kind. And it's oral history too, because I experienced first hand almost everything that will be included in the book. It has to be correct, absolutely. There's no leeway for mistakes. That's why it's more difficult.
Well, what the hell. Anything too easy is not worth doing, generally. The more the effort, the more the reward, the sense of accomplishment. I feel a bit of pity for anyone who has never written a book because they will never experience that feeling when the last word goes down. Certainly, that elation -- followed by a odd sense of loss -- diminishes with each book, but it is still there.
Not like 1977, when I completed the first novel. I jumped up screaming, dancing around, laughing. That could have been partially caused by a little whiskey and a little Dexedrine, and maybe a couple other things. But within an hour I was in tears, feeling as though I had lost my best friend. Something had stopped, ended, concluded. It was just a process, but it became more than that in my mind. An addictive personality will get hooked on anything. Even a book manuscript.
Rain has started. A few minutes ago when the front first came in, the sky was dark as night almost, wind up. We have the possibility of severe weather today and tonight and will no doubt see some.
I'd best get my ass in the saddle, while electricity is available. That laptop battery is only good for a couple hours. (The one I'm thinking about buying has an 8-hour battery.)
I was telling someone yesterday that writing non-fiction is way harder than writing fiction. At least for me. That's not always the case, if you consider straight journalism as "non-fiction" (which ideally it should be, for obvious reasons), but that's a different matter. The on-the-fly news writing is fairly simply because there's a formula you follow, if you know what the hell you're doing. The hook, the lead (or "lede" if you wanna be Internet hip today), inverted pyramids. What gets the wood.
But everything is modern now. Smoke-free news rooms, silent computers, decorum. No grouchy old bastards, fedoras cocked at jaunty angles, hunkered over huge manuals banging out raw copy on rolls of pulp paper jammed into platens. Bottles of bourbon in desk drawers. Ragged yellow light splintering like haze through battlefield smoke. I got in on a bit of the tail end of that era in the sixties, but it was well in its death throes by then.
What I'm doing with this book is certainly journalism, if of a different kind. And it's oral history too, because I experienced first hand almost everything that will be included in the book. It has to be correct, absolutely. There's no leeway for mistakes. That's why it's more difficult.
Well, what the hell. Anything too easy is not worth doing, generally. The more the effort, the more the reward, the sense of accomplishment. I feel a bit of pity for anyone who has never written a book because they will never experience that feeling when the last word goes down. Certainly, that elation -- followed by a odd sense of loss -- diminishes with each book, but it is still there.
Not like 1977, when I completed the first novel. I jumped up screaming, dancing around, laughing. That could have been partially caused by a little whiskey and a little Dexedrine, and maybe a couple other things. But within an hour I was in tears, feeling as though I had lost my best friend. Something had stopped, ended, concluded. It was just a process, but it became more than that in my mind. An addictive personality will get hooked on anything. Even a book manuscript.
Rain has started. A few minutes ago when the front first came in, the sky was dark as night almost, wind up. We have the possibility of severe weather today and tonight and will no doubt see some.
I'd best get my ass in the saddle, while electricity is available. That laptop battery is only good for a couple hours. (The one I'm thinking about buying has an 8-hour battery.)
2 comments:
Got my screw up fixed and added more than 600 words. And, found a section I'd completed earlier, which brings my word total now up to about 11,000. So, I'm in the high cotton, as we say down Souff.
Actually, we say "shittin' in the high cotton." But I was trying not to be crude.
Today, Friday, dropped another 1,150 words into the pot. She's coming along pretty quickly. If I can just maintain this pace things will be cool. Should be about a quarter way finished with the rough draft.
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