Laurie J. Marks

The first time I did a reading at a convention, my prose stumbled gracelessly out of my mouth.  So I began reading my drafts aloud during revision, until I began to hear the rhythm in my mind’s ear while the sentences were being composed, and now I can’t help but hear my words as I write.  Still, considering that I have led an extremely literate life—first read to, then reading to myself, soon writing and experimenting with rhyme, reading-writing-reading-writing, majoring in literature and writing, operating literacy programs and teaching English composition, while reading and re-reading thousands of books—all that, and still I’m fairly plain-written.  Lately, I’ve been reading some beautifully-written books, and often must pause to acknowledge my envy.  I can compose complicated sentences that hold their shape even as the phrases pull wildly in all directions, but my words are rocks.  I build with them, but they are rocks.  Tiffany windows they are not.

Speaking of builders, a loveable crew of Ukraine-American builders cut a gigantic hole in my roof this week, which was conceptually horrifying, but by evening they had transformed that hole into the framework of a dormer, and they even vacuumed before they departed.  It was pretty darned inspiring.  To be a builder rather than a stained glass artist/poet is not a bad thing.

Selling a Beginning

In the paperback era, people bought books by hanging around in bookstores and looking at the books.  (Or by reading book reviews in published magazines.) The title of the book tried to get them to look at the cover; the cover manipulated them to look inside and read the first word, and that word did its darnedest to get them to read the second word, and so on, until they either put the book back or bought it.  Now, people can read about ten percent of an electronic book before they pay to read the rest (or not).  Nevertheless, the beginning of a book continues to be complicated by competing needs to sell itself while also introducing the protagonist, launching the story and–in the case of fantasy or science fiction–orienting the reader to an alien setting.  Once, I counted the numbers of times I revised a particularly difficult first chapter. Thirty revisions.

As the matter of fact, between starting and finishing this blog post, I revised the first page of the first chapter of the current book yet again.  While I was writing out my rationale for each change, I realized that I hadn’t done a proper job of revising, and had tweaked the details rather than re-seeing the whole.  So I dove into it again, but again I was fixing rather than seeing it anew. Then I went to my art class, which met in the park since it was a rare beautiful day, and my teacher talked about artists that paint outdoors and then bring their paintings into the studio and completely redo them, either painting the new on top of the old, or starting over from scratch. Yeah, I thought, that’s what I need to do with this first chapter, and I haven’t done it yet. Not even close.

When I began writing this draft in May, I intended to for it to be an exercise in world-building, as a break from the dry work of plotting my plot on index cards.  But after I had written a few pages, the story suddenly launched itself, and kept barging forward despite the explanation and exposition with which I had loaded it down.

The Dangers of Drafting Without Remorse

Drafting without remorse poses some dangers. When revising, I may follow a pattern that I’ve invented in haste, and that I should not continue to follow.  While writing about my revision process, I realized that I might not be in the right mindset for revising. I need to keep inventing; it’s too early to be fixing text. So I think I’ll try some sort of warm-up exercise to train my brain in the desired attitude of inventiveness, and then, like the artists my teacher was discussing, start again on a new sheet of paper, and write experimentally.

Meanwhile, in table form below, are side-by-side versions of the first page of my draft novel.

Chapter 1, Paragraphs 1-5 (Title: Carry it with you or it will be stolen) First draft	Chapter 1, Paragraphs 1-5 (Title: Carry it with you) Second and third drafts
You can stand naked in the street and beg passers-by for the scrapings of their soup pots.  At night, you can sleep in the filth of an alley with neither bed nor blanket.  In the right season you might survive one or two lonely, desperate months.  But if you would rather live, then you must possess things, and those things will be stolen unless you carry them with you.  Even then they may be stolen; depending on your reputation and the thieves’ desperation.	You can stand naked in the street and beg passers-by for the scrapings of their soup pots.  At night, you can sleep without shelter on a pallet of trash.  In summer you might survive one or two lonely, desperate months, but it is autumn now.  To survive you must possess things, and those things will be stolen unless you carry them with you.  Even if you carry them, they may be stolen; depending on your reputation and the thieves’ cleverness.  Put your things in a satchel, tie it shut, and wear it crossways, keeping your hand on the strap.  The first time someone tries to steal from you, fight to kill.  People will learn to respect you, then.
Some things are so commonplace that their only value is their utility—cooking pots, for example—but even they might be stolen out as punishment for owning nothing else worth taking, or just out of spitefulness.  This type of theft sometimes happens to me because I’m skilled at appearing to own nothing.  It’s a skill I developed when I was a thief myself, because all street kids are thieves.	When I was a street kid, I learned to seem like I had nothing.  Now, after thieves have scoured my lodging, sometimes they steal my cooking pots out of spite.  You don’t have to carry everything.  Some things are commonplace and their only value is their utility—cooking pots, for example.   You don’t have to carry everything.  Some things are commonplace and their only value is their utility—cooking pots, for example.  You can leave those behind, bearing in mind that on a couple of occasions, after thieves scoured my lodging and found nothing worth taking, they stole my cooking pots from spite.
I rent lodgings now, but when I go out, I cannot lock the door.  There are no outside locks in Rubbishtown, just bolts that close from the inside.  In the heap, we do find locks that might be usable, but it is unimaginably unlikely that the lock will be found with its key. We can’t manufacure them, of course.  Bolts, though, are easy to make.	However, I cannot lock the door, for only storehouses are locked in Rubbishtown.  We do find locks in the rubbish heap, but keys are rare.. Bolts, though, are easy to make, and therefore most doors can only be secured from the inside.
I pay the rent, and I pay for coal, doctoring, and shoes.  The kids provide food, and although they promise not to steal, they probably do so.  This is the economy of Rubbishtown: We sell what we find; we steal what we need and can’t find.  If you want us to have better morals, give us better lives.	Also, you will never own very much.  From my various enterprises I usually earn enough to pay for lodging, doctoring, and shoes.  The kids sell whatever they find in the heap, and with that money they purchase food, but on unlucky days they steal.   This is the economy of Rubbishtown: We sell or use what we find; we steal what we need and can’t afford.  If you want us to have better morals, tell your friends to give us better lives.
No—I’m just yelling at you while pretending to explain how to survive.	No—I’m just yelling at you while pretending to comply with Judge’s orders.  How is this useful? I may be angry with you the rest of my life, and if you die before me I’ll want to resuscitate you so I can shout at you some more.  But doing it in writing is a waste of paper.

Writing a book is complicated. My goal in this blog is to reveal just what that complication looks like, and how a combination of lassez-faire and stubborn persistence can get there, however inefficient and messy the process. I don’t know what will happen next with this first page of the first chapter–I’m chasing a feeling, an intuition that comes and goes like a distant candle on a windy night. A candle I may or may not ever find. Maybe it’ll be some other candle. Or maybe the sun will rise, and the candle will turn into a bright world, and I’ll be standing there with my mouth open.

Gosh, I hope so.