I Hate My Novel… My Short Stories, and also my Signature

I’m down to that place where I hate my novel. I have some of the novel on my e-reader, and it looks… well, disturbingly like a book. You know… the kind of book where people point out typos and misused words, and where you’re not completely sure whether it was written by an adult, or an over-zealous toddler.

My past self has also used the e-reader’s note-taking capability to leave me a series of obscene jokes and asides. I can’t completely decide whether I should cut the things that the note refer to, or if I should emphasize them, and call the book ‘funny’.  It’s a little like having a book with audience partici—pation going on in the background.

Clearly, I thought I was being funny at the time, but there’s nothing like arrowing your way over to the note in the middle of the page, fiddling around with e-reader button(s) and winding up with a sophomoric comment. There are, of course, just enough useful comments in that version of the text that I can’t just throw it away and start over.

Right this second, I’m debating whether I’m throwing too much away out of my revision out of a desperate desire to make it go faster.

I’m down to 39 pages left in that revision organization of mine. And I really do think about taking those thirty nine pages and throwing them all in the trash. The trash-trash, not the probably cut from this book file.

3 Comments

  1. Reply

    We all have what-was-I-thinking? moments. My advice is to keep a copy of what you throw away and store it for a while. Take it out later and decide if it’s worth adding back in. Time and distance make great glasses.

  2. Reply

    I agree. Keep a copy of the original before the cuts, a file for cuts so you can view and break down easier instead of going through the whole to find them. By keeping the original before cuts you can see what you had and what you ended up with and if there is any middle ground that needs connecting. IHO Just opinion, but never make a decision about when you FEEL like that because that will change.

  3. Reply

    I don’t mean to be unsympathetic, but your struggles are very funny. And you’re definitely not alone in how you feel. 🙂

    Maybe those 39 pages don’t belong in your novel. But don’t delete them forever just in case.

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