Port Douglas
September 1, 2012
Caramelised Pork Belly with Chinese Coleslaw
September 5, 2011
Two Hundred Pages of Editing: Insanity Sets In
August 17, 2011
To edit a novel takes patience, discipline, courage, time, and funds. It’s a labour of love. It’s something you started and are now forced to finish. It’s a crack in a teacup when all you want is a hot drink.
That last one might have been a stretch, but the insanity has set in. Visions of the mad hatter now spring to mind as I stare out the window of my little room (the White Stripes wrote a good song about this). But with forty pages to go, I’m on the home stretch and the end is in sight. Just try not to think about the next draft. Or the mail. There are only so many times a day that one can check it. It mostly ends up being junk anyway, but throwing things away is a task, isn’t it?
In my novel, some of the characters may be experiencing some existential crises. And as I sit in my little black room with the lights off to save power, I feel like a character actor. Am I merely deploying the Stanislavski method to writing? The trick I believe is to ride the edge; for going insane for one’s art might be heroic in some sense, but I have better things to do.