The Grating American Novel

 

Oh, sweet joy in Heaven above, progress has been made on the long-gestating novel I have been working on for the past several years. Have I mentioned this before? of course I have, but unfortunately nobody read that blog post from 2019, so here is a link for that particular post entitled 

FIRST DRAFT DODGER bring you up to speed on what the bloody hell I am babbling about NOW.

FIRST DRAFT DODGER

The advancement of this lifelong project is thus: 

From this....                                                                  ...to this.

I have transformed 18 notebooks of hand-written material that began in 1997 into approximately 400 of typed, but unformatted pages. Not a small feat by any means, especially since (for most of it) I was 

re-writing while I was transcribing and...

I type with two fingers. It's twue...it's twue...

Yes, indeed, as if writing a novel isn't enough of a chore in and of itself, I am handicapped with double digititis. Okay, it's not really a thing, but it should be. I'll even be the poster boy. I've mentioned this before in another previous post.

TWO FINGER SALUTE

In order to move this along before I kick the bucket, I tried utilizing voice to text technology. In fact, I dictated about 3/4 of this on my phone in the form of an e-mail, then cut and pasted it together on a document. Yeah, all well and good except most of it made no sense whatsoever.

For example:

She told the whole truth school story from top to bottom and back again. When I gave her testimony I was basically a supporting character in steel I was pretty much revolves around me. I left Chantel run with it and she spent it like an Olympian track and field gold medal winner. She showed what she could do rainforest the man of the hour my pop hunts Rasmussen. think about begging for ant farm.

WHAT????????????????????????????????????? I've read spam that makes more sense. 

So this grand experiment o' mine uncovered even more obstacles for me to face. Not only did I transcribe my scribblings with two fingers, I also had to decipher this goobledeegook into something coherent utilizing the handwritten scrawlings from my notebooks, all the while listening to the music of Brian Eno. (What else? Speed metal?)

Why do I do this to myself? I am either a masochist or a moron or both, two great tastes that don't taste great together. 

Maybe, just maybe, there's a method to my madness. Yeah, that's it. I'm actually an eccentric genius and all the pieces will fall into place and my work will be heralded as a....

Oh, who am I kidding? I've gone out of my way to make this as difficult as possible for myself. This bloody book is becoming my life's work and that's not what it was ever meant to be. It was to be the stepping stone to everything else, but instead has been really goddamn close to becoming the legendary albatross around my neck. 

And yet...I'm Captain Ahab and I'm going to get this white whale before it kills me. Stupid albino fish. Just remember, Moby was a Dick.

Yeah, I have mental issues. However, writing this book is my therapy. Ay, there's the rub and it ain't no damn shiatsu massage, that's for dang sure. But so what? Progress has been made. Can't I revel in that for a hot minute? 

Enough of this ridiculous self-flagellation. I've had to take a break in order to take care of some pressing matters (taxes, Covid vaxes, and, y'know, life). Now it's time to dive into the deep end of the pool for perhaps the most difficult re-write of them all. And I know from the bottom of heart of hearts that it's going to be sink or swim. If it's the former, I'm not going down without a fight. I'm shooting for the latter, reaching for shore with this goddamn manuscript in my hand, praying that I can keep it afloat and not let the pages get wet. 

I know that doesn't make any sense, but what do I care? It's not going in the book.

Land ho.

TO BE CONTINUED

I've written other things. Yes, with two fingers. Check out my website:

    WRITTEN BY SCOTT CHERNEY