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identity memoir revision writing process

Archeological Time

Today I started tackling my Countess of Paris story, which is about my father’s family lore, and how people perceive me, and what it’s like hanging out in 5 star hotels for one week a year. I’m in archeological dig mode, where I see what I’ve written and I try to perceive the story beneath the words, the emotion that was surging in me when I picked a particular phrase, and to make sure that this emotion properly animates and is captured in the language. So I did a bunch of rewriting at the beginning of my story, and I think I need to string a couple of themes through, and then totally redo my ending, and then poof. Done. Sounds easy, right?

So I’m back to stealing Stephen King’s metaphor, because he desperately needs the publicity, which is writing as an archeological dig.

Or maybe this kind of writing and editing is more of a distillation process. You start with watery fumes and you try to obtain a purer essence, one pass at a time. So wish me luck. I feel like I’m on a roll. Or at least I’m faking it until I attain it.

(So much so in fact that in a fit of 7:49am delusion I signed up for NaNoWriMo, which is a yearly challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s a lot of words, and I don’t think I have the time for it, but just imagine, how fun it would be if I actually pulled it off!)