Digging out

When I was younger, I would occasionally complain that I'd been born in the wrong century, long after the age of patronage. I just knew that I'd be able to produce my works of prolific genius if I didn't have to attend to the plebeian task of working for a living and was instead ensconced in a small room beneath the eaves of a manoir somewhere on the shores of Lake Geneva. There were at least two assumptions implicit in that complaint.

First: that my talent would be so self-evident that I would inevitably attract the attention of a patron of wealth and taste who would be more interested in fostering my work than buggering me in the garden (though I was prepared to accept the second in furtherance of the first). Second: that, unencumbered by the demands of employment, I would actually use my copious free time to write in a serious way. Both assumptions were rooted in a complete ignorance of what it actually takes to produce a novel and the kind of overconfidence that never permits itself to be tested.

These days I lay claim to partial ignorance and just enough confidence to pursue my foolhardy quest. I have much more theory at my disposal than experience, but the practical is slowly gaining ground on the theoretical.

Sometimes it's a little thing that demonstrates both how far I've come and how far I've got left to go. I managed to tidy up my writing desk, then realized I had to do the same thing with my hard drive's file space. A word processor is a fabulous tool, but I'm convinced that the computer affects my writing and revision process (which is why I've got a 1946 Royal Arrow under my desk--I'll be typing at least one draft of the novel on it). Being able to Save As... as often as I like means that my novel's working directory is littered with multiple copies of various chapter versions, excised bits that I saved for later, at least two "complete" versions of what I've got so far, and a couple of workshop submission packages.

A mess, in short. I was working on a chapter last night and realized that it was missing entire paragraphs that I distinctly remembered adding to it at some point over the past year. Then, instead of writing on, I got distracted by tracking down the missing portions.

I resolved to get the mess sorted out. For whatever reason, opening up file after file on the laptop wasn't conducive to getting that task done. So I printed out everything in the directory, which is what you see here. It looks more impressive than it is (at least half of it is duplicate material), but it's still the first time I've seen all of what I've written so far in one pile.

This is just the latest skirmish in my ongoing campaign to remove impediments: ignorance, overconfidence, disorganized real space, disorganized virtual space, and so on. Taken separately, they're minor roadblocks. Collectively, they'll stop all progress.

Onwards!