A post that wasn't supposed to be about my dissertation
I'm trying to get back into the swing of things by writing for the fun of it. They say that you should always try to do something you love as a job. That way you'll love your job. In my experience, that's the easiest way to turn something you love into work. Right now, I write for my dissertation (work) and I write for my job (work), and even though I'm pretty good at writing, it can still be pure drudgery.
Take, for instance, my dissertation. In my first draft, I had two chapters. One in which I discussed early twentieth century dystopian visions (ideas about how the world was going to hell in a handbasket) and one in which I discussed the rise of relative morality. My argument was that in the hell in a handbasket chapter, most writers saw the problem as loose morality. In other words, people didn't believe in solid rules about right and wrong. Lack of morals ultimately lead, according to these guys, to horrible social orders. My evidence for this was Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell's Essay "Politics and the English Language," but the chaper relied heavilly on a short story by Jorge Louis Borges called, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." The other chapter, in which the world basically switched over to valuing context dependent morality used lot's of stuff, but among that stuff (Casablanca, Gertrude Stein, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, O'Connor) I used Borges again--specifically to show that he had "converted" so to speak to the new way of thinking. Borges one way in one chapter, and Borges the other way int he next.
Well, my one reader complained. He said that the dissertation was becoming about Borges and that there should only be one chapter with Borges in it, and even then, there was still too much damn Borges. So, now I'm trying to take two chapters, each about 40 pages in length and turn them into one chapter that's about 30-35 pages in length. To do that, you have to do a bit more than eliminate every other word; you kind of have to refigure a lot of stuff.
Now, I am more than able to kill some of the more mundane information. After all, facts that astounded me when I began my dis are now kind of pedestrian. Some of it is just plain wrong. So, I cut all that stuff out. But still, I have to make a fundamental shift in the tempo, and in many cases, the point of my use of Borges. So, basically, I'm forced to rewrite the whole thing. I import blocks of text as needed, but more often than not, those just serve as inspiration for what I'm likely to write after that.
Anyways, I sort of promised I wouldn't write about that crap, and I did. Sorry.
Take, for instance, my dissertation. In my first draft, I had two chapters. One in which I discussed early twentieth century dystopian visions (ideas about how the world was going to hell in a handbasket) and one in which I discussed the rise of relative morality. My argument was that in the hell in a handbasket chapter, most writers saw the problem as loose morality. In other words, people didn't believe in solid rules about right and wrong. Lack of morals ultimately lead, according to these guys, to horrible social orders. My evidence for this was Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell's Essay "Politics and the English Language," but the chaper relied heavilly on a short story by Jorge Louis Borges called, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." The other chapter, in which the world basically switched over to valuing context dependent morality used lot's of stuff, but among that stuff (Casablanca, Gertrude Stein, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, O'Connor) I used Borges again--specifically to show that he had "converted" so to speak to the new way of thinking. Borges one way in one chapter, and Borges the other way int he next.
Well, my one reader complained. He said that the dissertation was becoming about Borges and that there should only be one chapter with Borges in it, and even then, there was still too much damn Borges. So, now I'm trying to take two chapters, each about 40 pages in length and turn them into one chapter that's about 30-35 pages in length. To do that, you have to do a bit more than eliminate every other word; you kind of have to refigure a lot of stuff.
Now, I am more than able to kill some of the more mundane information. After all, facts that astounded me when I began my dis are now kind of pedestrian. Some of it is just plain wrong. So, I cut all that stuff out. But still, I have to make a fundamental shift in the tempo, and in many cases, the point of my use of Borges. So, basically, I'm forced to rewrite the whole thing. I import blocks of text as needed, but more often than not, those just serve as inspiration for what I'm likely to write after that.
Anyways, I sort of promised I wouldn't write about that crap, and I did. Sorry.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
6:33 AM
2 Comments:
Okay, so here's what gets me. I've been keeping up with your blog and your not-so-often postings, and I've come to one conclusion. You have to rewrite a LOT of your works. You had to rewrite your novel, now two chapters of your dissertation? That's a huge bummer. I've just started rewriting one of my own novels and it's like taking a hard punch in the stomach, knowing that all that hard work has been for (not nothing, but) very little.
Writing is rewriting. That's all there is to it. People who believe they are great writers may be, but often they don't know what writing is until someone pays attention to them. People read their stuff and say, "that's great," or something, but they haven't really thought about it. When that happens you'll find people who love your stuff don't get central points. That's when you realize that there are all different parts to this game.
Keep in mind also that my novel is something like 300 pages long written over a span of 9 years. Things get away from you in that time. I forget what time of the day it is in "let's pretend" world. I forgot what's been said and what hasn't. I write scenes that don't work because they're based off of earlier scenes that have since been deleted. Main themes go astray. Artistic rules that I've put in place on page 50 are lax by page 150 and broken completely by 225.
Rewriting is the game. Putting sentences together that sound good, while difficult, is just the first step. My wife consistantly criticizes my spelling and grammar, not quite realizing that I plan on rewriting something five times before its done. Who cares about spelling at that point?
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