Jennifer Hillier

The sound of silence

Apr 23, 2009 | Uncategorized

I have to bring my A-game for revisions.  Every time.  Every chapter.  Every sentence. There’s no dropping the ball in the third draft.  I’ve had my fun writing organically (first draft), I’ve searched for plot holes and inconsistencies in character and pacing (second draft), and now it’s all about the damned words.  The words have to be perfect. And for that, I have to concentrate.   I can’t be distracted.  I can’t listen to music.  I can’t have the TV on in the other room just so it doesn’t feel like I’m alone in the house.  Because when the TV is on, this is what I write:

“I’m kidding,” Ethan said, his eyes showing a hint of amusement.  “Joke, Sheila.  I wouldn’t come even if I was invited. Isn’t there a hard and fast rule about going to weddings of people you used to fuck?”

She winced at the word.   She had no problem with cursing, but here, in this moment, it sounded unreasonably harsh.

“It’s better that it’s over anyway.”  Ethan ran a hand through his short, mussed hair.  “You should have gone to Freeeeeee Credit!  Report!  Dot!  Com!  I should have seen it coming at me like an atom bomb!”

Stephen King just wrote a great article about earworms in Entertainment Weekly.  (Which I unfortunately read this morning, before I started working.  Thanks for the worm, dude.)   I almost always have one in my head and can usually write regardless, but I can’t get away with it now.  Not for a third draft.  I need dead silence, in my house and in my head.

I’m six chapters in.  I have forty-six more to go.  And I’m already exhausted from having to stay so bloody focused.

They monitor your credit and send you email alerts!
So you don’t end up selling fish to tourists in t-shirts!

Shut up shut up shut up shut up.

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