How Long To Sing This Song?

(Sorry, Andy, but you got this song stuck in my head...)

With regards to my novel...

I've been putting off this post because many of you will be asking me what exactly is going on in my head. To be quite honest, I've been wondering the exact same thing lately. The ticking of the clock is a constant threat to me, as if I can look around the corner and see oblivion and obscurity awaiting me.

The short answer is, my novel has never been better.

The long answer is much more complicated. It seems that you can't just take the first act of a three act story and turn it into a full fledged novel with a few quick changes to the text. You see, stories have these high threshold demands - like a beginning, middle and end. And the first act of a story, as needs be, is usually just the beginning. So, when you try to convert one into the other, well... it turns out that you need to create a middle and end. So, the more I wade into this rewrite, the more that I discover needs to be done. I'm halfway through the novel and about half the material so far is brand new. Furthermore, in a three act story you can introduce characters in the first act who don't have anything to do until the third act. Its acceptable. But in a converted novel, you actually have to have a reason for introducing that character in the first act, which means you have to give them something to do that isn't a complete waste of time and space. See, much more complicated answer.

To top it all off, I've been fooling around with college again. Yup. I started back to classes a couple of weeks ago - taking Basic Film Production (a class I need like another hole in my head but that I have to have in order to take anything else) and a course in Film Producing. These classes severely limit my time to write, but then inspire me to want to create. So, as a result, when I have had spare time, I've been spending all of it working on my novel. But there hasn't been as much spare time as there was before.

Now, this may make you wonder how I can possibly think the Novel is in a better place than its ever been. Well, in just about the most convoluted way possible, the story has been strengthened incredibly in the last three weeks or so. You see, while at the library the other day, I picked up a film book to read in conjunction with my film classes. The book was written by a former head of the CAL ARTS Film Program and it was supposed to be about Directing. I thought it might teach me a thing or two about getting those darn actors to do something other than look pretty. Well, I was wrong. I haven't learned a damn thing about acting. What I have learned, however, is how to fix the problems with the novel. In breaking down the problems most beginning screen writers have with their film scripts, I realized that every single problem the former Director was talking about was a problem that I had with the structure of my novel. It was like he had been sitting with me for the past four years helping me write my novel and could recite the problems off the top of his head. Suddenly, in the space of 28 pages of this guys book, I knew where the problems in my novel's narrative lay, and had a solution for how to fix them all.

End result: For the first time in five years, I am confident that I will finish the novel and it will be published. It will still take me some time to finish the rewrite and then to do one final edit (some of the new material is pretty raw and could use some polishing). And then I'm done. Finished.

I know, I know... I should be done by now. Many times over. And it sticks in my craw every time I turn on the computer to start writing again. But the truth is, I started this project with the idea that first and foremost, I was going to learn if a) I could write a novel, and b) how to write a novel. I can confidently say that when I am done, I will have definitively answered both of those questions.

P.S. If you're still reading this and you want more details, go on over to The Thin Line blog. I will make a few comments on some of the changes coming.