I clicked on "Compile" and Scrivener, the writing project management program I'm using to write my novel (italicized because I feel so goofy saying it, the cliché that I am as I tap away on my laptop in this Seattle coffee shop, with my travel mug at hand. At least it's not raining and I am drinking decaf) pulled together a multitude of scenes, a handful of chapters and the lump of Part One into a WORD document, formatted, paginated, appearing to be something so much more than it is.
And now it sits beside me, 159 pages in dreadful Times New Roman font, the 31,900 words I have written since July 7. I just had to see what all those words looked like on 8.5 x 11.
If I flip through the pages and don't read the actual sentences, it looks like a real manuscript. Paragraphs are indented, quote marks indicate dialogue, there are even chapter headings. Scrivener helpfully (hopefully?) created a title page for me, though I do believe I changed the "A" in my title to "The". Hmm. Scrivener. Must fix that. One simple word shifts the meaning and tone of the story.
If I read the pages more carefully, I see scenes that end in mid-paragraph, ellipses where I left a sentence dangling. I see "NAME", which stands in for a character (as in, "NAME crouched next to de Castelnau's supine form") who is a John Doe until I decide what he should be called. I see tenses that shift mid-page, I see notes to myself typed in a scene instead of into Scrivener's handy sidebar. I see what Anne Lamott assures writers they will create in a project's early days. I see a shitty first draft. The first third of a shitty first draft. There is far more excrement to be written before I even attempt revision.
But I see some wonderful things, too: tension and surprise, attraction and intrigue. I see darlings I'm certain I'll have to murder in future drafts - those bits and pieces a writer thinks are the best things they've written, those clever turns of phrase and evocative descriptions that really only get in the way of the story. But they are fun to look at. I'll save the assassinations for later.
I compiled and printed this happy mess out of curiosity, but also out of anxiety. I am stepping out of rhythm with the tango my story and I practice every day. It's holiday time. In a short while (I've since left the coffee shop and type at you now in the dark of my living room, the wee light of dawn still hours away), I will heft a bag full of hiking gear into the trunk of a car and Brendan and I will make our way to the airport, through security, and onto the train that will whisk us to the North Satellite and our flight to Dublin.
I fear I will lose my characters along the way, that the momentum which has carried me these past two months will stall somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and slip beneath its cold, grey waters. So, in addition to my writing practice notebook - a brand new Moleskine with pages so white and fresh my hand trembles in anticipation - I am packing these 159 pages (double-faced, not to worry - tucked into a manila enveloped and slipped in the outside pocket of my carry-on, you'd hardly feel the weight). Just in case.
I may never once open the envelope in the sixteen days we are away. In fact, I probably shouldn't. We take vacations to escape from our current life, perhaps to rest the body or challenge it in new ways, but certainly always to rest and reinvigorate the mind. Getting some distance from my story's cast and setting, from the sticky plot points I haven't determined how to resolve, may be the best way to ensure I'll see this thing through to the end of its beginning. Because that's all it is. A beginning. My obligatory shitty first draft.
So I bid you farewell. It's 3:30 a.m., finally time for more coffee - the full throttle stuff this time. I've got my morning writing to get done, in my brand new Moleskine. Then I've got a flight to catch.