![Novel revisions. I’ve been thinking about the photo of half-finished Grand Central Terminal that was recently on the Tumblr radar, the façade already clad in stone, the lower tracks and platforms and the loop for trains to turn around on still exposed, and how the terminal’s circulatory system justified the expense, indeed the existence of the façade and concourse. The second half of my manuscript is color-coded with edits, mine in red, my thesis committee’s in blue and green, but it’s looking over the first half where the tracks are covered over, the new text unmarked, that I fret: does it work?[[MORE]]
I splurged and bought Adobe Fournier to edit with. I’d fallen in love with it, reading Alice Munro’s Dear Life (I first encountered it in her 2001 Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage). I like its irregularity, how close it lets letters cling without words seeming tight, the beautiful dip in its lower case ‘g’, the crook in the serif on its ‘r’. I’ve ended up retyping almost my entire manuscript so far—even the sections where who did what remains as yet intact need thorough sentence work. Fournier is different enough from the typefaces in most web pages and in my earlier drafts that opening my current Word files I enter a space with changed air.
I’ve changed over half my characters’ names. I had too many beginning with too few letters. The oldest of my main characters were born in the 1960s, the youngest in the late 1990s. In 1963 Rhonda (a name I considered and decided not to use) was the 45th most popular female name in the U.S.; by 1994 it was 965th, and after that fell out of the top 1000. Similarly for Beth, Anne, and for men, Donald. Christopher was in the top 10 from 1967 through 2009; Sophia, Emma, Jacob, and Ethan have all jumped to the top since the mid ’90s. Michael and Elizabeth remain resilient. (My thesis advisor said one can’t name characters Mike—everyone is named Mike).
I recently reread Victoria Mixon’s “Everything You Need To Know About Writing A Novel, In 1000 Words.” I remembered it as incredibly spot on, but didn’t realize just how much until I had my own draft to compare it to.
I’m going to be online fairly sparingly over the summer. I’m so wrapped up with this revision, most days it’s the only writing I’m good for, and I have this time—so little—to give it.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/86a9c5d11ceccd2dc87e0ee8cea7faa7/tumblr_mnfadxBv5q1qa0rqvo3_r1_500.jpg)
![Novel revisions. I’ve been thinking about the photo of half-finished Grand Central Terminal that was recently on the Tumblr radar, the façade already clad in stone, the lower tracks and platforms and the loop for trains to turn around on still exposed, and how the terminal’s circulatory system justified the expense, indeed the existence of the façade and concourse. The second half of my manuscript is color-coded with edits, mine in red, my thesis committee’s in blue and green, but it’s looking over the first half where the tracks are covered over, the new text unmarked, that I fret: does it work?[[MORE]]
I splurged and bought Adobe Fournier to edit with. I’d fallen in love with it, reading Alice Munro’s Dear Life (I first encountered it in her 2001 Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage). I like its irregularity, how close it lets letters cling without words seeming tight, the beautiful dip in its lower case ‘g’, the crook in the serif on its ‘r’. I’ve ended up retyping almost my entire manuscript so far—even the sections where who did what remains as yet intact need thorough sentence work. Fournier is different enough from the typefaces in most web pages and in my earlier drafts that opening my current Word files I enter a space with changed air.
I’ve changed over half my characters’ names. I had too many beginning with too few letters. The oldest of my main characters were born in the 1960s, the youngest in the late 1990s. In 1963 Rhonda (a name I considered and decided not to use) was the 45th most popular female name in the U.S.; by 1994 it was 965th, and after that fell out of the top 1000. Similarly for Beth, Anne, and for men, Donald. Christopher was in the top 10 from 1967 through 2009; Sophia, Emma, Jacob, and Ethan have all jumped to the top since the mid ’90s. Michael and Elizabeth remain resilient. (My thesis advisor said one can’t name characters Mike—everyone is named Mike).
I recently reread Victoria Mixon’s “Everything You Need To Know About Writing A Novel, In 1000 Words.” I remembered it as incredibly spot on, but didn’t realize just how much until I had my own draft to compare it to.
I’m going to be online fairly sparingly over the summer. I’m so wrapped up with this revision, most days it’s the only writing I’m good for, and I have this time—so little—to give it.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/765f2cfa2055ed71e2899b35522d3661/tumblr_mnfadxBv5q1qa0rqvo4_500.jpg)
![Novel revisions. I’ve been thinking about the photo of half-finished Grand Central Terminal that was recently on the Tumblr radar, the façade already clad in stone, the lower tracks and platforms and the loop for trains to turn around on still exposed, and how the terminal’s circulatory system justified the expense, indeed the existence of the façade and concourse. The second half of my manuscript is color-coded with edits, mine in red, my thesis committee’s in blue and green, but it’s looking over the first half where the tracks are covered over, the new text unmarked, that I fret: does it work?[[MORE]]
I splurged and bought Adobe Fournier to edit with. I’d fallen in love with it, reading Alice Munro’s Dear Life (I first encountered it in her 2001 Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage). I like its irregularity, how close it lets letters cling without words seeming tight, the beautiful dip in its lower case ‘g’, the crook in the serif on its ‘r’. I’ve ended up retyping almost my entire manuscript so far—even the sections where who did what remains as yet intact need thorough sentence work. Fournier is different enough from the typefaces in most web pages and in my earlier drafts that opening my current Word files I enter a space with changed air.
I’ve changed over half my characters’ names. I had too many beginning with too few letters. The oldest of my main characters were born in the 1960s, the youngest in the late 1990s. In 1963 Rhonda (a name I considered and decided not to use) was the 45th most popular female name in the U.S.; by 1994 it was 965th, and after that fell out of the top 1000. Similarly for Beth, Anne, and for men, Donald. Christopher was in the top 10 from 1967 through 2009; Sophia, Emma, Jacob, and Ethan have all jumped to the top since the mid ’90s. Michael and Elizabeth remain resilient. (My thesis advisor said one can’t name characters Mike—everyone is named Mike).
I recently reread Victoria Mixon’s “Everything You Need To Know About Writing A Novel, In 1000 Words.” I remembered it as incredibly spot on, but didn’t realize just how much until I had my own draft to compare it to.
I’m going to be online fairly sparingly over the summer. I’m so wrapped up with this revision, most days it’s the only writing I’m good for, and I have this time—so little—to give it.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/f152afec588dcea579a27fb2afd72b91/tumblr_mnfadxBv5q1qa0rqvo1_500.png)
Novel revisions. I’ve been thinking about the photo of half-finished Grand Central Terminal that was recently on the Tumblr radar, the façade already clad in stone, the lower tracks and platforms and the loop for trains to turn around on still exposed, and how the terminal’s circulatory system justified the expense, indeed the existence of the façade and concourse. The second half of my manuscript is color-coded with edits, mine in red, my thesis committee’s in blue and green, but it’s looking over the first half where the tracks are covered over, the new text unmarked, that I fret: does it work?
Read on →Sarah Wrote That
Storm after storm today.
Some Benefits of Rationing
No one said times were good, but words
got us a long way. Some said out east,
some back east, and rightly or not we guessed
which skies they were pointed toward and which
they assumed we, too, ignored. Wonder was
at all times preferable—had you ever seen
such silent contrails? Something
in the sense of a late decade.
You could reach all the back shelves
with years to spare. Most likely
tastes were as canned as they seem now
but they were the latest we had.
Daylight held hours after the sun.
We turned off TVs. Someone had a Frisbee and
someone sparklers, and the same kids cycled past
until only their voices showed in the dark—
no sound of traffic, and I thought how it would be
if in fact everyone was where they were going.
photo: Doug Wilson, “Smog Covers Tacoma, Obscuring the Foothills Below Mount Rainier, 6/1973” | Documerica Project
On this coast houses are clearly references.
One winter was for a long while like the last.
No one meant to vacuum away the old calendar.
Still, by the time I wanted the habit
it was gone. Now every method shifts
with practice. The best chords are suspended.
They sustain the absence of a root. The tone
of this moment takes seven or eight dubs. Each replay,
the note I want seems like the first note.
