Postmodern Trauma - So far so good?

A month into my thankful and appreciative "third-time lucky" post. I am perhaps half-way into my third new draft. Maybe i'm a little more than halfway, but the story keeps growing in my head and it gets longer and longer so maybe i'm a little less than halfway!

I have more or less put in some big pieces about the story of Millie - the real person, and now I'm working on/in the dream-world. Feeling like i'm getting lost in this world that's in Millie's head.

Something like this happened to me the last time I escaped to Xanadu (my 1 week writing retreat). I emerged from the hibernation feeling alienated from my real world and it took me a few days to get used to going back to my previous routine.

The current version of my story is... much more complicated than the first version. It is rich in symbolism and references. And it requires me to do a lot of research and learn things that i didn't know before. Surely what i'm learning and thinking will affect me fundamentally and chemically. I shouldn't be emerging from this cocoon to become who I used to be? I'm not insinuating that i'm going to be as graceful as a butterfly, but lots of things come out of cocoons. Like...cicadas.

Okay.

Now the challenge is time.

A dear and concerned friend consoled me, and told me to take a break, change my pace, that I shouldn't be made to feel like i need to churn it out like that. Sometimes I'm afraid of burning out too. But I am running out of time. 1 more month until the end of NPL. I've already asked for extension from NAC for my draft.

Even if I finish drafting, i don't know how am I going to finish editing in time.

haha.

My reply to my dear friend was with blind optimism - "can one, i can do this. I'm a product of this churning system so i can churn this out." somemore my book is about churning.

The only thing is, for me, it is difficult to write what I write when I don't have enough sleep - so I can't burn the midnight oil. Tsk.

Sometimes I imagine someone asking me "How do you come up with things like that?"
and I will be honest and reply, "because i'm crazy."
"Why did you want to write a book like this?"
"I can't explain it, my craziness compels me to do crazy things. Writing it all down is the least destructive thing I can do already."

And I haven't started with editing. Editing would be sure to drive me even more crazy - like adding fuel to fire. hahaha!

Pressing on: Third time lucky!

My facebook status says this: writing is writhing rewriting.

That's because i decided, yesterday, to re-write my 2nd draft. I wrote my first draft more than 3 mths ago. Word count, about 25k words. 2nd draft, so far, word count, 10k words. Now, restart. A 3rd draft. I'm back to 2k words.

Why?

I must be crazy. Even I think I'm crazy. Okay.

NAC people would be worried? Why? They might ask. Did you not plan properly?

I tried. so hard. I'd sob, remorsefully. Boohoo.

Just read Late Bloomers by Malcolm Gladwell in What the Dog Saw. He quoted Franklin Roger's description on Mark Twain's "trial-and-error method":

"His routine procedure seems to have been to start a novel with some structural plan which ordinarily soon proved defective, whereupon he would cast about for a new plot which would overcome the difficulty, rewrite what he had already written, and then push on until some new defect forced him to repeat the process once again."
Twain fiddled and despaired and revised and gave up on Huckleberry Finn so many times that the book took him nearly a decade to complete.

This is normal, this really is. Some people can write a story and have a day job and be wonderful at both. Some people are born with good grammar. Some people know what they're doing with their lives.
Okay.
Some people are like Mark Twain.

I only hope I won't take a decade.

In case I lose my mind, I would like to say Thanks to my family and Gary, who are my resident patrons, all my friends encouraging my writing, NAC, and even my organisation that for letting me go on No Pay Leave, for allowing me to exist in this bubble of clueless faith, for allowing the completion of one and half useless manuscripts for one and a half lousy novellas that will never ever get to meet the eyes of another person if I can help it.

I assure myself that the quality of writing is not measured by word count. It pains me more than anyone to waste 40k words worth of effort. But that heartbreak would be nothing compared to that if my next 30k words are... Touch wood!

I must press on. key by key. letter by letter. tick tock. Third time HENG! SOON! LUCKY! okay!