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Two to go. - Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway [entries|archive|friends|userinfo]
Marissa Lingen

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Two to go. [May. 24th, 2010|10:13 pm]
Marissa Lingen
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I have two chapters left on this draft. Not even two full chapters--each of them has some stuff written on them already. It's been the weirdest way to finish a book I've ever had. It's remarkably calm. I'm ready to finish, and the stuff is there when I reach for it, but there's no "running downhill ahead of the rolling rock" sensation that mostly comes at the end of books. It's just, well, okay, this is where I am now. I'm being where I am. I feel sort of like John Cusack's shrink in Grosse Pointe Blank, in a self-mocking way. But it's an affectionate sort of mockery, I guess.

I think the hardest parts of this book are behind me. I have lots of notes for fitting more awesome into it in revision. But right now that sounds like fun. And it sounds like something I know how to do. It feels like I can take my printout and my notecards and my colored pens and make this happen really quite reasonably. (As long as I don't try to tell myself one of my least useful writing lies, which is "I can print this out as soon as I've fixed one or two more things." I often try to delay printing out. I shouldn't. I can recycle the paper, but being miserable and unproductive for weeks and then printing it out at roughly the same stage anyway is not more useful.)

Maybe I'm not really calm. Maybe I'm just tired. That's all right. I'm tired and finishing anyway. It's not a long book, but it's taken a long time to write. I've been working on bits and pieces of this book through most of the vertigo, through all of the grief for my grandpa, through everything else the last few years. And you know what? I think we will get there. I think this draft that's coming up is a milestone, not the be-all and end-all, but I think it's a milestone towards the book I actually meant to write.

So that's a thing, maybe.

Would have preferred that the Stanley Cup final did not feature the Flyers, but never mind, we can't always get what we want. And perhaps now I can stop referring to poor Mr. Halak as Gurney, now that the Habs are out of the playoffs. I also would have preferred that Carter not go get Darby O'Gill and the Little People to watch as a potentially useful reference, because now I have to see what he finds out from it, so I have to watch it. But you know. Great artists must suffer in order to put cheap early-period Sean Connery jokes in their work. Or something like that. I'm almost sure it's something like that.
LinkReply

Comments:
From: ex_truepenn
2010-05-25 03:42 am (UTC)
This would be the "suffering" part of "suffering for one's art."
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[User Picture]From: mrissa
2010-05-25 03:49 am (UTC)
This is not the dignified and ennobling kind of suffering, I have happened to notice.
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From: ex_truepenn
2010-05-25 03:53 am (UTC)
No, unfortunately. It's the other kind.
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[User Picture]From: alecaustin
2010-05-25 04:45 am (UTC)
I have always suspected that the dignified and ennobling kind of suffering is something that only happens to other people. Or perhaps we merely like to imagine that it happens to other people, so we can dream of someday graduating to a better sort of suffering.
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[User Picture]From: mrissa
2010-05-25 11:31 am (UTC)
Well.

On the one hand, I got the kind of chronic illness/disability that involves falling on my butt a lot. Which is not so much with the dignified/ennobling. And the butt, being evolutionarily weeded out for such things, is the best case scenario for falling; everything else I could fall on is worse.

On the other hand, it's a sort of Mary Sue illness/disability in some ways, in that it doesn't make me grow protuberances off my nose or make my clothing unflattering in any way or prevent me from writing and tossing off witty bons mots. So I think I probably got as close to the dignified kind as was available. I mean, there's consumption, but they sort of leave off the accounts of the racking, hacking cough when they're talking about the beautiful complexion it gives people.
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[User Picture]From: pameladean
2010-05-25 04:21 am (UTC)
I am so excited about this book, I can't even tell you.

P.
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[User Picture]From: mrissa
2010-05-25 11:32 am (UTC)
Thank you, dear.
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[User Picture]From: sartorias
2010-05-25 04:24 am (UTC)
That is such good news, that you are heading toward the finish line!
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[User Picture]From: reveritas
2010-05-25 04:26 am (UTC)
I'm happy for you, but I'm more (hmm) happy for ME because then I GET TO READ IT.

;)
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[User Picture]From: mrissa
2010-05-25 11:32 am (UTC)
Not for awhile after I finish the zeroth draft. But you are indeed getting closer to being able to read it, that's true.
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From: thoughtdancer
2010-05-25 09:49 am (UTC)
go go gogogogogogogogo

:-)
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From: diatryma
2010-05-25 12:08 pm (UTC)
The coffeeshop I go to has a trivia thing-- get the answer right, win a Cash Prize! Last week was lots of Stanley Cup things. Made me think of you.
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[User Picture]From: aamcnamara
2010-05-25 01:15 pm (UTC)
Yay for two chapters left and yay for the revision sounding reasonable. Not so much yay for early-period Sean Connery, but I'm sure you'll get through that too.
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[User Picture]From: dd_b
2010-05-25 02:18 pm (UTC)
That does sound like the end is in range from where you are. And it doesn't even seem to be across a fire-swamp or anything like that.

So you just keep on going!
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[User Picture]From: timprov
2010-05-25 03:08 pm (UTC)
What are the three terrors of the hockey book?
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[User Picture]From: mrissa
2010-05-25 03:15 pm (UTC)
Well, there's the research sands, and the dialog spurts, but you've cleverly spotted those, so we'll know how to avoid them in future.

Plot twists of unusual size? I don't believe they exist.
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[User Picture]From: dd_b
2010-05-25 03:52 pm (UTC)
Oh,good, the expert has dealt with this one. Because I'm afraid I didn't previously know what the three terrors were.
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[User Picture]From: columbina
2010-05-26 03:47 pm (UTC)
There is a proper mindset to watch Darby O'Gill, I'm told. Leonard Maltin went so far as to list it as one of the most underrated Disney films ever. However, there is general agreement that Connery is not one of the film's strengths, to say the least. (I myself have never seen it.)

I will be interested to hear your reaction, when you make this sacrifice for your art.
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[User Picture]From: mrissa
2010-05-26 07:22 pm (UTC)
If there is one, I certainly didn't find it.
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[User Picture]From: hypatia_j
2010-05-26 11:22 pm (UTC)
> ...there is general agreement that Connery is not one of the film's strengths, to say the least.

Yes. This.
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