Pen & Paper

On Sunday afternoon I printed yet another draft of The Suicide Collectors. I do most of my drafts on the computer, but every couple of drafts I print it all out and clean my normally disgusting kitchen table off. I sit down, drink soda or tea, and do a line-by-line edit at the table. Pen on paper, so to speak. This draft I sectioned off by stapling each chapter together and piling the chapters into the five parts of the novel. Does this make sense? Each chapter is stapled, like a short story, and it's my hope by dividing them in this new manner I can tell if each chapter works like the self-contained short story it's supposed to be, and then if the chapters add up to a solid Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, and Part Five. This approach seems so simple and brilliant it's hard to trust it, and of course it took me six novels to work it out, but so far it's going well.

How satisfying to sit above a sheet of paper, occasionally breaking into the world below with the quick, precise editorial stokes of an inky god. Of course, my cacti, Spike and Spike Jr., sit on the kitchen table watching me and they must think I'm freaking crazy.

Spike: Yo, look at that monkey boy, scratching his little brains out. That paper won't tell'em anything!

Spike Jr.: I know, I know, right? Ha!

Spike: You know, I wish I could dance.

Spike Jr.: Dude, that would be sweet!

Spike: So sweet.

Spike Jr.: Yeah.

Spike: Yeah....