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

First Draft Dodger

Call me a bad blogger. Go ahead! I deserve it. The truth doesn't hurt, at least in this case. Can't say
the same for others and I've got the scars to prove it. But if you want to learn the answer to the universal WHY of it all, it's because, well, I've been busy.

At long last, loves, I have completed the first draft of a L-O-N-G gestating project, one that has taken me 22 mother-lovin' years to complete. In the last year, I made a final attempt to reach the finish line and, as of a week ago, I done, done, done it. Since I hand-wrote everything initially, it came down to 18 notebooks and Buddha knows how many notes of varying sorts from scribbled on scratch paper to a half dozen mini cassette tapes to who knows how many files on my laptop.

I can confirm that it was 22 years ago because I noted the date in the front notebook numero uno: June 25, 1997. (It's not called Cheap Thrills any longer) Actually, this project goes back even further when I first conceived of the story back in the late 70s. Back then, it began as a screenplay and hasn't wavered from that conceit one iota. I've always envisioned it as a film and that, above and beyond a finished novel, is the main goal. Whether it crosses that finishing line is only a matter of me.

"What's taking so long?" you might ask if you gave a fig. Once again, it's a matter of me. I could go into the whys and what-fors of what-wasn't-supposed-to-be-but-has-become my life's work, but that would be a self-confessional that you wouldn't want to read and I wouldn't want to write. In other words, boring as H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEY-STICKS. And nothing more boring than that. Besides, it's not like I haven't done anything in all that time. I have a few books and plays under my belt. So there.

This one, however, is THE ONE. Hence, all caps to stress my point. But time waits for nobody and if I don't get on the ball, it's going to THE NONE. This last year has been a struggle. I've lost my way more than once, writing a little here, a lot there until I got near the conclusion when it all seemed to drag me down into the ground. I almost gave up, sometimes several times in one day. But I persevered and now I have something to show for it all. I've taken every opportunity I could in the past 12 months to reach this particular goal, missing deadline after deadline that I set for myself, writing whenever and wherever I could. sometimes only ten minutes at a time at home, at the library, at the library at work and even in my car. I told myself that if I wrote one sentence, one paragraph, one page, it was more than I had before.

Enough of patting myself on the back. I have to get back to work.

Oh, wait. What's the book about?

Sorry to be so bloody cagey about this. I am protecting this thing like the last of an endangered species. I'm not ready for the big reveal yet. I have too much to do until then. I will give you a few nuggets, even though I am trepidatious to do so. Let's just say it involves a low budget funeral home and the things we do for love. Can that please be enough for now?

I'll close this exercise in paranoia to say that I've reached the end of the beginning. The beginning of the end is to be continued.

Save your breath. I'll say it for you.

What a weirdo.

Needless to say (like everything else in this post)...

TO BE CONTINUED