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Recognizing that modern readers prefer their stories in more compact, \u201cbingeable\u201d sizes, I have divided this Brobdingnagian tale into 14 more manageable \u201cepisodes\u201d of about 100,000 words each, and when I publish the series in approximately two years, I\u2019ll do it serially<\/em>\u2014with a new installment coming out every two to three months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve been working on this teen epic for eight years now. Eight years.<\/em> In the time that I\u2019ve been writing, the planet Earth has revolved around the sun eight times; the world underwent catastrophic upheaval from COVID-19; and my nephew, who was five years old when I started, celebrated his 13th<\/sup> birthday (but he\u2019s still into Legos\u2014good for you, dude).<\/p>\n\n\n\n And to power this word output, over the course of these eight years, figuring a conservative average of 5 cups per day, I have drunk 14,600 cups of coffee.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The second draft is done, but there\u2019s obviously a lot<\/em> of work to do on the series. Starting in December, the work will shift to revision, particularly to paring down the mammoth manuscript. My aim is to cut about 300,000 words (or 20%) so that when I finally publish the series, it will be a dozen volumes of 100,000 words each. This will make my series twice<\/em> as long as Tolstoy\u2019s War and Peace<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why am I fixated on all of these numbers, you ask? Well, I\u2019ve written about this on my blog before\u2014and mentioned it in interviews and podcasts\u2014but novel writing is as much a numbers game as it is a words game. In order to write a novel\u2014and especially a long<\/em> novel\u2014you have to produce a lot of words (at least 1,000) a day, and you have to produce consistently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And to produce consistently, you have to drastically reduce (if not eliminate) the distractions in your life. You have to\u2014selfishly and unequivocally\u2014make your writing the center of your universe. This means not engaging with social media. It means not spending as much time with your friends as you might like. It means sacrificing sleep, family gatherings, birthday parties, Christmas parties, movie premieres, vacations, and even knowing what\u2019s happening in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The computer I use for writing does not<\/em> have an internet connection; I have purposely set up my work process and tools to be free of the internet. (Indeed, I enthusiastically agree with novelist Jonathan Franzen who in his \u201cTen Rules for Novelists\u201d writes (Rule #8) that anybody with access to the internet while they\u2019re writing is probably not producing very interesting fiction.) I check my email once a day (on my phone), and I only go on the internet about once a week. There are only two people in the world with whom I text regularly: my wife and Jason Scott Sadofsky<\/a>. I don\u2019t have commercial TV (only streaming), so I don\u2019t watch the news or see commercials for products. I don\u2019t listen to the news on the radio, and if I\u2019m listening to music on the local classical or classic rock station and the news comes on, I shut it off.<\/p>\n\n\n Over the years a few people have asked me what it\u2019s like to be a novelist, to spend all of your waking hours (not to mention your sleeping hours) inhabiting and writing about worlds of your own creation. To answer their question, I\u2019ve given people a number of analogies, but I think the best one is that it\u2019s like being on a nuclear submarine when it\u2019s gone \u201cdeep and quiet.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019re submerged, umpteen fathoms down, cut off from the rest of the world, focused exclusively on your mission. Over the course of those eight years, I\u2019ve probably gone \u201cdeep and quiet\u201d for five or six months a dozen times. This means that I\u2019ve been out of touch, focused on nothing but my mission, for approximately five of the last eight years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While \u201cdeep and quiet,\u201d however, I\u2019ve had to contend with the equivalent of fires aboard my submarine, but I haven\u2019t let those divert me from my mission to write and FINISH<\/em> my epic-length series. Over the past eight years I\u2019ve had to write through tooth abscesses and implants, contracting COVID, a broken hand, getting sober from alcohol (I will have 5 years\u2019 sobriety on 11\/11\/23), car breakdowns, my spouse getting sick with COVID (and taking care of her), moving, house-hunting (without success 3 separate times for six months to a year), computers dying, an uncle dying, “runner’s knee,” and back issues. The back issues became such a problem (even despite my $2,000 Aeron chair) a few months ago, that I had to get a motorized sit-stand desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Invariably, when I resurface after one of these long \u201cdeep and quiet\u201d periods, a lot of stuff has happened\u2014stuff that other people encounter and deal with in their daily lives, but which I know nothing about. When I resurfaced earlier this week, here are some of the things I just found out about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Ukraine is beating back Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Putin is still a major DICK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – The Island of Maui burned to the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – The economy of Venezuela collapsed, and thousands of refugees have been hiking north through the jungles of South and Central America to get to the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – There\u2019s a new Student Loan Forgiveness program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Chad Lookabaugh, the local tennis pro I took lessons from and did workouts with, died suddenly in January<\/a>. He was a great guy, and I\u2019ll miss hanging out with him in the winter in front of the fireplace in the lobby of his tennis club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Inflation is a very real thing; yet, mysteriously, gasoline prices remain steady (hmm\u2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Kids\u2019 cereal icons Count Chocula, BooBerry and FrankenBerry now have a female counterpart (well, it\u2019s about time!) named Caramella.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Sadly (because I own a good amount of Tesla stock), Elon Musk seems to be behaving like Veronica\u2019s dipshit rich brother in the Archie comics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – The makers of products\u2014especially food\u2014are up to their old tricks again with shrinkflation<\/em>: charging you the same (or more) for less product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – The U.S. government shut down, or is\/was about to shut down, or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – And instead of Cracker Jacks, it\u2019s now all about Cracker Jills<\/em> (good riddance, Jack; you and your friggin\u2019 mutt on the package had like a 90-year run, and towards the end I COULD NEVER FIND YOU F-CKS anywhere!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s my point? Although it\u2019s a bit of culture shock to resurface and learn that so many things have changed while I\u2019ve been preoccupied\u2014on my mission as it were\u2014I don\u2019t regret a minute of it. For the past eight years, I\u2019ve been happily ensconced in 1986\u201387 America, specifically in the world of teenagers at that time. I can\u2019t tell you anything about what\u2019s going on right now, but I can tell you that in October 1986 the U.S.\u2013U.S.S.R. talks at Reykjavik broke down, and that in November 1986 the Iran-Contra scandal came to light. I can tell you that in September 1986 the song \u201cVenus\u201d by Bananarama was at the top of the charts, and Huey Lewis and the News\u2019 \u201cStuck with You\u201d was rising on the charts as well. I can tell you that in October 1986, during the season premiere of Dallas<\/em>, it was revealed that everything that happened in the previous season\u2014when Bobby Ewing died\u2014was a dream in Pam Ewing\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For eight years I\u2019ve been inhabiting a world when the U.S. was on top, when China was just a country with almost a billion people that rode bicycles everywhere, when the U.S.S.R. was crumbling, when Ronald Reagan was President, when \u201ccellular telephones\u201d were extremely rare and were bigger than military walkie-talkies (see the beach scene in the original Wall Street<\/em>)l, when The Cosby Show<\/em> was #1 on TV, when phone booths were still available, and when\u2014GASP\u2014there was no internet<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve been submerged here for quite a while, though, and so it\u2019s good to come up for some 2023 air. With this in mind, I\u2019m giving myself the entire month of October off. What am I going to do? Take naps. Hike. Swim. Lift weights. Run. Climb a mountain or two. Stretch. Play with my dog. Seek out typewriters at vintage stores. Visit vintage clothing stores for apparel for my editor alter-ego (to debut in November or December\u2014stay tuned). Listen to jazz and classical music (anything but \u201980s rock and pop, which is all I\u2019ve been listening to for eight years). Have some great meals out. Go to Boston. Go to the Adirondacks. Buy a set of cross-country skating skis for what I hope will be a record amount of snowfall this winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And last, but not least, read about 20 books (a dozen of them will be re-reads) during the break so I\u2019m not thinking about my teen epic, including Lolita<\/em>, Robinson Crusoe<\/em>, The Odyssey<\/em>, Goldfinger<\/em>, The Longest Day<\/em>, High Adventure<\/em>, The Great Gatsby<\/em>, A Farewell to Arms<\/em>, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers<\/em>, Editors on Editing<\/em>, Immediate Fiction<\/em>, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius<\/em>, a book about fonts<\/em> entitled Just My Type<\/em>, and books on grammar and punctuation as I prepare to undertake my favorite part of the writing process in December\u2014revision, editing and polishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right now, however, I\u2019m archiving my work on this draft and printing the completed draft. It\u2019s staggering to see the stacks and stacks of pages I\u2019ve produced to bring me to this point\u2014the dozens of legal pads of longhand notes and pages from the novel; the hundreds of pages typed on one of my typewriters and scanned and OCR\u2019d into the computer; the dozens of spiral notebooks of character sketches or scene ideas; the reams of \u201980s pictures and research files. All of this material is being boxed up and stored out of my purview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I printed two copies of the novel. One copy is stored in my basement, and the second is in the trunk of my car. Each copy is 2,915 legal pages (single-spaced). These are solely emergency hard-copies\u2014in case all of the 10\u201312 hard drive and USB stick backups of my writing are suddenly wiped out by an EMP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the past 30 years that I\u2019ve been revising my writing, I\u2019ve always<\/em> made hand-edits on printed pages, then entered those changes into a word processing file. But having just finished the 2nd<\/sup> draft, when I engaged in that process for literally thousands of pages<\/em>, each page with dozens and dozens of small edits on it, I realized that if I want to finish this colossus sometime during my lifetime<\/em> (seriously, I want to publish in the fall of 2025), I can\u2019t use this paper process anymore. It triples the amount of time that revisions take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No, sir\u2026this time I\u2019m going hi-tech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For this part of the process my darling wife just bought me a new Microsoft Surface tablet, which will enable me to read the novel anywhere and either make edits on the device or at least put in short comments, flagging spots that I need to fix. Anyway, I\u2019m excited about it because I have a feeling it\u2019s going to make this part of the process much more efficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The moment I got the tablet, I gave it a serious test. The hardest part of the process was getting it updated, logged in, etc., but once that was done I loaded THE ENTIRE 1.54-MILLION-WORD NOVEL onto this thing that weighs about a pound, is smaller than a sheet of paper, and only as thick as 20\u201330 sheets of paper (maybe). It\u2019s incredible<\/em>, and I am confident that it\u2019s going to revising the 3rd<\/sup> draft much, much more efficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My plan for this coming draft is as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Take the month of October off completely<\/em>. Dedicate my days to working out, eating well, going places with my dog every day, going to thrift stores, going out to lunch with friends (all 2 or three of them). On rainy days, I\u2019ll consolidate the papers (random notes, reference materials, etc.) and come up with a master list of \u201980s-related \u201cstuff\u201d that I want to make sure I work into the novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Starting November 1, I will read (without editing; not an easy task for a novelist) the entire series. This reading will be done in three main ways: a) on the tablet, b) on the printed hard copy, and c) with the \u201ccomputer lady\u201d reading the book to me as I walk on the treadmill and work out\u2014maybe even as I\u2019m hiking! While reading, I will NOT be making revisions; this first read is to try to get a view of the entire forest, to step back and see the vista without becoming obsessed about one or two trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than making edits to the manuscript, I plan on keeping audio recordings (this is where the tablet comes in) of notes of errors, things to fact-check, and overall impressions of each day\u2019s reading, chapters and episodes. Keep audio recordings of all this stuff so I don\u2019t stop reading to make edits. Do a journal entry every evening with that day\u2019s impressions\u2014what pages I covered, my gut impressions of that day\u2019s material, and my thoughts on what will need to be revised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Starting December 1, literally putting on my editor\u2019s hat (stay tuned), I will begin the revision and editing. I\u2019m giving myself one year to revise the entire series. My plan is to quickly \u201cswoop\u201d through the entire series three times in a year, starting by making the largest revisions (any big CUTS that need to be made) first, and gradually making my revision and editing more granular as the year goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The main way in which this draft is going to be different from the process I\u2019ve used with all of my previous books is this: there will be NO hand-corrections made to a paper draft that then need to be entered into the computer. In the past, this is the part of the process that has consumed the most time. Honestly, I really, really prefer this leisurely, tactile method, but I don\u2019t have the luxury with this behemoth novel\u2014not if I want to release it in late November 2025. With the tablet, I\u2019ll be able to read and\/or listen to the book and make edits to the file itself. <\/p>\n\n\n Honestly, though, I\u2019m a little sad that I have to give up the paper editing. Especially in the fall, when one of my favorite things to do in life is to sit on my deck with a hot cup of coffee, a crisp stack of pages, and a red pen. But there will be other, shorter novels for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most important thing for me in the coming year is to just get the sonovabitch DONE. I\u2019m breaking the year up into three 120-day \u201cswooping\u201d periods; during each 120-day cycle, I plan to \u201cswoop\u201d through the entire manuscript, starting with identifying large sections that can\/should be cut, and making my revisions and editing increasingly granular with the next two \u201cswoops.\u201d My plan is that by next December (2024) I will have gone through the entire 14-episode series three times. And then, in 2025 and 2026 I\u2019ll polish each episode prior to publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Check back here in late October or early November for the debut of my editing alter-ego.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About five months ago, I bought a countdown clock that sits directly below my computer monitor, and for 157 days it\u2019s been ticking down. It\u2019s been ticking down to my self-imposed deadline for the second draft of my behemoth epic novel (a series, actually). Last December, I set a deadline for myself: I would finish … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,19,337,77,7,10,14,233,15],"tags":[637,638,639,644,609,642,339,340,531,640,645,643,641,636,93,355,392],"class_list":["post-9018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chris-orcutt-books","category-fiction","category-novel-writing","category-novels","category-personal","category-technologyandinternet","category-writingexperiences","category-writing-life","category-writingtools","tag-1980s","tag-80s","tag-adventure","tag-deadlines","tag-epic-novel","tag-male-romance","tag-novel-writing","tag-novel-writing-process","tag-novelists-work-day","tag-romance","tag-second-draft","tag-submarines","tag-teen-romance","tag-teens","tag-writing","tag-writing-life","tag-writing-process"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9018"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9048,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9018\/revisions\/9048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/sub.jpeg\")
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