Hypercompendia

It’s likely an obvious happening, but it seems that your latest work is always your best.  I feel that A Bottle of Beer written in Hypertextopia is the best story, the best written, the best evidence of all that I’ve learned about writing and experienced in life placed into a fictional narrative that I’ve ever presented.  But then again, Gazpacho was the best text and Paths was the best after that, written into Storyspace.

But there is writing mode and there is author mode and the difference between them is the discipline that goes into the production.  Every day I write, and write a lot.  There is no going over, rereading, rewriting, no effort made to extract only the best and polish to gleaming what’s written.  There’s a basic laziness about the writing that carries the burden of ‘fat’ that I don’t find it necessary to trim off for the purpose the meat serves as a meal.  Laziness is the likely reason, though again, for what the writing is intended, there’s little impetus to spend time and effort on the process of fine-tuning a post, an e-mail, etc. 

I started writing A Bottle of Beer on February 26th and rewrote it through yesterday, March 13th.  That’s over two weeks on a single story, and hundreds of hours–since when I’m working on something I usually work to the exclusion of all else unless hunger pangs and a sadly neglected spouse demand that I take a break.  When I see what editing can accomplish however, when in the groove of waving the sword or sweeping away the dust from the dig, it’s a strong reminder that editing is likely the most important part of writing.  At least until a writer can achieve the instinct to write well sooner and the blade is embedded in the first strikes of the story.

So Paths will likely undergo some slash therapy.  It is a story that I do feel is worth the intense editorial scrutiny to make it all it can be.  That way, even if it goes nowhere beyond my hard drive, when it is discovered sitting there some day as my nieces and nephews go through my belongings, they may stop and read it rather than simply delete it forever. 

I need leave behind things that would make me feel proud and bury the garbage before it’s discovered.