Madeleine Overwhelmed Again (or Still)

I am sitting at my desk, trying to proceed with what remains of my novel (yes, Readers, that novel) but unable to proceed with it, because I am feeling overwhelmed, and so I thought that perhaps I should write down in a notebook what I was feeling (or "am" feeling, the tenses are not going to be consistent in this post, Readers, I am that overwhelmed--and the grammar is going to be poor as well), because sometimes that (i.e., the writing down) helps me organize my thoughts and choose what to do next, but then I was overwhelmed by the number of notebooks on my desk, and couldn't choose one (this is an ongoing problem with me--I have so many notebooks with so many notes but rarely look at them, and then when I do look at them, there are so many that I become overwhelmed)... And now I have to begin this again. I've lost my thread. I was using too many parentheses.

That was (is) a very confusing paragraph, Readers. Unfortunately, it is also an accurate portrait of how I am feeling right now. (Am I using "portrait" correctly here?)

(Also, did I use em dashes in previous posts? I love an em dash, but those aren't em dashes above...Perhaps I wrote my posts in Word when I used to write in the Mildred?)

But I left out the most important part of that paragraph! What I was trying to say was that in thinking that I should write down my thoughts while I was sitting here at my desk today, I suddenly thought of the Mildred. And I suddenly thought that I should return to it, that I should write my thoughts there, that I could return to the Mildred as I am finishing my book, that it would be a fitting end to the Mildred, i.e., proof that I finished what I set out to do.

This might be my worst post ever...

Is this helping? Or will this help? "This" being returning to the Mildred after so many years? Perhaps my desire to return to the Mildred means that I am truly going to finish the book in the coming months. I don't even know if this is the correct voice to use... Does this sound like me, Readers? I haven't read the Mildred in a very long time. I can't remember what I sounded like. Is a return going to make me feel even more overwhelmed?

One good thing is that I was able to write even these sentences, or thoughts. This effort at posting (ugh, the tortured language!) has at least made me organize some thoughts, or ideas, or something.

My point is: I might be returning to the Mildred as I finish my book.

I will think on it, see how I feel after this post has been posted. ("This post has been posted"! I am rusty...) Maybe I will mention it to Agnes, who is still by my side (figuratively), though I won't mention it to her yet. If she reads this post, she'll certainly tell me not to return.

Agnes, incidentally, still doesn't smoke. She achieved her goal. I must achieve mine!

Agnes Turns to Drink

Apparently, Mallarmé insisted that no sentence, no sentence of power, should begin with a monosyllable. And apparently the Réalistes (Flaubert, Zola, the Goncourts,) felt this was an overly fussy, even mannerist way to think about syntax. I think it's reasonable to have some sympathy for writers like the Goncourts, for whom Modernism was connected with the immediate presence of people like Courbet, manning the barricades of the Paris Commune and attempting to sever not only the aesthetics but the politics, economics, social hierarchies, and heads of the old order. Again. In other words: there was a great deal of excitement in the Paris of the 1870s.
     Last week not 20,000 but about 150 people were killed in Paris, this time by ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. 

Madeleine Refines Her Process

I am working on Draft 2 of the book. It is a struggle. I thought that by now I would have been at least halfway through my revision. I had it all planned out! I had a schedule and dates and a lot of enthusiasm.

It didn't work out that way, Reader(s).

If you read an earlier post, you already know this. And if you have been checking the Mildred for updates on a regular basis, then you probably figured it out, too. (Why isn't Madeleine posting? I don't have a good feeling about her revision... Madeleine never completes anything! Etc.)

But the truth is I have been working on my revision. But by "working on my revision" I actually mean "refining my revision process." That is to say that revision is hard!

You know what, Reader(s)? I don't like the way this post is going. I feel rusty. The voice is wrong.

There you go--those last four sentences (which were not written with this intention, I swear on Agnes's life) are the best illustration of my revision process. Stopping, questioning, doubting, blaming. 

Anyway, Our Dear Reader had a long talk with me again the other night and I feel re-focused. Stuff that I already knew, stuff that ODR had told me many times before, but this time, Reader(s), I feel like I got it.

ODR's most important bit of advice:

Break it down into goals.
Keep it at the task level.
Limit what you're doing.
Be brave.

If Agnes were a Viennese Housewife

Happy End by Peter Tscherkassky

Madeleine Reminds Herself in Public...

that the point of the second draft, or the goal for the second draft (not the point), is to make it more complete than the first draft. That is to say that the goal is not perfection. The book will NEVER be perfect. No book is perfect. This blog posting isn't even perfect.

Anyway, yes, Madeleine is having a difficult time revising. Madeleine also is shocked that this is her first posting of 2012. It has been so long since Madeleine posted on the Mildred that she can't remember if she posts in the third or the first person. The third person is feeling weird to Madeleine.

Madeleine Feels Overwhelmed

Have I used that title before on this blog? I must have! It could be the title of the blog.

The holidays are over, readers, and I have had this week off from work. I am working tomorrow, unfortunately. Also unfortunately, I had planned to rewrite the first story in my book--my completed first draft--this week, while I was off, to build some momentum going into the new year.

No rewrite, no momentum.

What happened? I don't know. Perhaps, as Our Dear Reader said yesterday, I just needed some time off. Perhaps. But now I am feeling the pressure.

What pressure--or pressure from where?

I am putting that pressure on myself. I know this but I can't seem to stop it! I think it was a mistake to tell people that I finished the first draft of my book. I was just so happy to have finished something, so pleased with myself, but now I feel like everyone is waiting and expecting something in the next few months.

Who's waiting? I KNOW, reader, NOBODY is waiting. Again I am setting myself up. Etc. etc.

These are the conversations I had all day long in my head...

I am most afraid of falling into bad habits again. Our Dear Reader is also most afraid of that.

I decided yesterday not to rewrite until January 1st (which is Sunday!) but still--NO rewriting until then. Instead I am reading draft one, from beginning to end. I read about 50 pages today. I have so much work to do. It is daunting. But there was a moment today when I suddenly felt excited; I suddenly felt that I was thrilled to see how this will all work out over the next few months, how I'll be able to revise these stories.

Then that moment passed.

I was reading some other blog, a food blog, and she was writing about deadlines and writing, and how she's finishing up her new book and she's so nervous about it right now, but she's come to realize that she only calms down when she's writing. I think (I hope) it will be the same for me.

I've set up a schedule, a number of pages to get through each day. I'm trying to be as concrete, as exact, as I can be. That's how the word count worked in Draft 1. Sometimes I hated the word count (oftentimes) but in the end it got me where I wanted to go.

Agnes is home! Blog writing must cease!

Today Is the Day Madeleine Begins Draft Two...

But now the day is over; it's evening, cocktail hour, and I just began my revision. I began it by reading the first few pages of my book. Then I decided that I needed to write on the Mildred--right now--so thus far I have only spent 10 minutes of my day revising my book. The rest of the day was spent rearranging my apartment with Agnes and creating my new office space, having lunch with Agnes and Our Dear Reader, visiting Our Dear Reader's apartment, returning home and catching up with the day's news, checking my email, balancing my checkbook, and talking about starting my revision.

I am recording my day's activities here on the Mildred because I want to make sure that too many days are not spent this way. Or lost this way.

Good news is that I liked the first few pages of the book that I read. "Liked" isn't the right word, really, but after reading them I felt like I could fix them and wanted to work on them. Of course I didn't work on them, I wrote on the Mildred instead, so...

This post is annoying me. I am going to end it now.