Revision Season #8: Placeholder Magic
On the sex to grief pipeline, writing the wrong words, and a hearty welcome to candle season
Hi Friends!
I want to start by thanking those of you who either upgraded your subscriptions to paid or sent me some application fees after my last newsletter. Very kind, very much appreciated. In that time, I’ve submitted two more residency apps, and a few more are due in October, and I can feel you rooting for me, and it helps.
At the desk these past two weeks, as I rewrote some sections and encountered an embarassing number of uses of the words “angry” and “tender” (an apt encapsulation of my characters, yet once again, not so apt these words can appear 600 times in a 400 page book), I’ve been thinking a lot about placeholders. I’m not talking about the verboten in my workshops and in my own work tk that some writers use to indicate they just don’t fucking know right now, but the words or sections of any length or even characters or literal places that I knew weren’t quite right when I laid them down and did it anyway.
Writing is a slow process not because it’s hard to literally type a hundred thousand words or so but because it’s hard to figure out exactly what to say in those words. It requires a willingness in fact, to say the wrong thing. Despite how many writers feel about doing so, early on, it will do to say anything, actually. When I teach generative workshops I am a huge proponent of this method of not being stuck on a perfect first try (a ridiculous expectation in most other endeavors), as I believe that we need to work through these tries to get to the goods, that our obsession with a near-perfect first run is the block more so than any self-declared stupid attempt at it.
However long or large or mortifying they are, I’ve come to see placeholders as a necessity rather than an indication of failure—to comprehend my characters or project, to know what I’m doing, even. In revision, rather than being frustrated with having laid down the “wrong” words or passages I’m about to discard, I’m grateful for their service as placeholders, the work they did that allowed me to move on when I could not figure out what I needed to at the moment. In revision, I use these placeholders—the moments I can see are not wrong so much as off—to get to the “right” words or passages. They can be used as a test case—they ask that question I’m always writing: TRUE?—and so written against, which is helpful, or integrated into other parts of the book in literal content or understanding, a line inserted elsewhere or a situation that becomes part of a character’s motivation or an event referenced but not seen. Yesterday I read a section of a chapter so overstuffed with various attempts to get at the same thing I could feel the frustration of the earlier writer who could only run in circles around it and wanted to tell her it would be okay; we’d get to it with time. I could see, too, what I was gesturing towards and now have more capacity to understand because the placeholder—that earlier willingness to dump it all on the page—let me write through to the larger story and understand it better. Thanks, placeholders.
On to the revision list!
What I’ve Done
Made a tiny character (literally, as she’s 5 years old) a bigger character (metaphorically). She’s been gaining momentum from the second I set her down on the page and named her what I did, which is Louise, in tribute to Louise Bourgeois.
Finished chapter 7, annotated and edited chapter 8, and annotated 3 out of 4 sections on 9.
Written a new section, again, again a short one, in chapter 8. Once again it felt great to be writing something new but also to do so in the context of the knowing the novel and so being able to write with more clarity and purpose than I would at a first draft stage. Placeholder magic!
Cried again, but for different reasons. These recent chapters have a lot of sex in them (this is no spoiler, the novel revolves around an affair, though this is perhaps an early warning for about the content if that makes you squirmy if you’re say, related to me or prefer content about office supplies), so while I’ve been uh, deep in that it was easy to forget that this is also a novel of grief, and I had to write a section, the new one I mentioned above. I’d written it by hand, as I often do, and it felt right, strong, like it belonged, but it wasn’t till I typed it into Scrivener, refining and threading it with the rest of the novel, that I could see I’d written something deeply sad, a portrait of a character in a lot of pain with very few answers. It was I think the thing I mentioned above, that I am closer to the material now, can get there quicker, and this there for this section was a deep grief that surprised me even as the whole of the book is awash in it. Is it weird/solipsistic to cry at one’s own work? Probably. But of the many weird things about being a writer is how often a book and its characters especially can feel outside of you, as though you are not inventing but recording, dare I say channeling. As though the story exists, somewhere, in someone, and by writing it into fiction you’re just the medium for what is true even if it isn’t precisely factual, doesn’t belong to a single person or their story.
What I’m Doing Now/What’s Ahead
After I send this, I’m going to finish reading and annotating chapter 9. I have one section left to do this on, and then I’ll enter those edits, and then, some time next week, I’ll do the same annotating and editing of chapter 10, which is my final, and shortest chapter, only about 10 pages (most others are in the 40-50 pages range). It’s entirely possible that the next newsletter will be my final Revision Season. 😳 I have a few other small tasks to do after I’m through the line edits—some timeline cleaning, for instance, but the end is really in sight.
Working on finding those right words on a line level. What, as I fill in the placeholder of “a solid look” does that mean—what’s on that one character’s face, in a literal way, and how does the other character read that look, emotionally? For me it’s never about making the sentences pretty as it is about making the sentences say what they mean. If you’ve ever taken a workshop with me you know I’m a stickler for this. And if you have other words for angry or tender, my god, please drop them in the comments.
What I’ve Learned
As I near the end of this round, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I have so much more I want to layer in the book and about how I have to say good enough, eventually. At this stage, there’s still plenty of “oh I’ll catch that in the next draft” (or my early readers will help me catch it), but I’m also starting to think about the things I might not catch in the next draft, or ever, for this book. How in finishing anything there’s an inevitable gap, often large, between what you thought a project might be and what it is, but it doesn’t make the project itself less than. It simply makes it different, and the different book is often the book as you could argue it’s meant to be.
What I’m Afraid Of
Vascillates wildly from nothing at all to the surety that my book is nothing like what it’s like in my head, is a puff of plotlessness and vagueness that will vaporize in the hands of my readers. This swing is pretty much hour by hour. On Monday I browsed a bookstore and was overwhelmed by how many books there are, how many I myself will never read or even want to, the sheer arrogance that my work deserves attention or dollars. Yet I also know the most dangerous thing a writer can do is step back and try to make the writing of a book add up—financially, satisfaction-wise, any which way. Not because we are not after those things (please don’t ever tell a writer they are fine not to make money because that’s not why they do it, an entirely different newsletter but also for now, just please, don’t) but because thinking of those things while you work is a way to dig so deep into the worst case scenarios that it makes working impossible. My solution? Get back to work, where I can focus on problems I can actually solve.
Religion of Office Supplies Report
I’ve been so into my Giant Post-It (used once) I’ve forgotten to call out my beloved transparent sticky notes, which I’ve been using a lot these past few weeks, especially in sections that are really muddy with my notes. Sometimes I need to take that little square and write the narrative purpose of the scene and tack it on the top page so when I’m entering edits I don’t lose my way. I’ve been into the yellow ones for this but I use the clear ones, too.
The last newsletter made me take my actual Synonym Finder off the shelf, which definitely is great and definitely something I started reading for fun as I looked for words so I’m back to mostly using the online thesaurus.
It’s candle season, baby. Temps are dropping, sweaters are coming out, and I need to light things on fire. The current title of my book includes the word burning, and while it may not stick (I have other titles I’m equally excited about), I do associate working on this book with candles. Last year it was a series of them from Hauswitch with wooden wicks—the sound of them burning is as close as I’ll get to having a fireplace in my apartment—and this season’s candle is one from the New York Public Library (NYPL if you’re a local), and is scented after the Rose Main Reading Room, one of my favorite places on Earth, though it does not smell like the actual room, which is probably a good thing. The candle was a birthday present from my friend, the artist Payton Turner, who has previously given me the original painting of these chairs that she incorporated into her amazing wallpaper, Too Much NYC Stuff, and into this perfect print of iconic NYC objects.
Where to Find Me
Working on the weekends, trying to catch up to my initial schedule, which I’m still behind on.
My fall classes are live, you can find out about them here. Right now there are only two spots are left in group coaching, if that’s something you’re considering.
Getting my first colonoscopy, ugh, but yay, science, yay, preventative care—my gastroenterologist told me colonoscopies reduce the risk of colon cancer by 80%. That’s a big number. Get yourself (yes, I almost did say shit) screened.
Mourning my gluten free challah fail again. Though I thought both my Rosh Hashanah desserts were eh at best this year, I am usually better at the sweets than the breads, but I will keep trying, damnit! Mastering gluten free bread is one of the many things I think I’m going to practice when I’m done with revising which is so ridiculous I shouldn’t mark that publicly.
Back on Instagram, as minimally as I can be, to promote classes.
Light things on fire but don’t let them burn too long.
Talk Soon,
Danielle
Have been loving reading these as I'm also deep into my own revisions - such a stressful but also inspiring time! It's so useful to watch you go through the process and read your thoughts on it.