rough draft

“When you aim for perfection, you discover it’s a moving target.”

~George Fisher

I began this blog to chronicle a significant shift in my family’s biography. Daisy and I were determined to take our teaching online, and write the daylight away. This is an undertaking that has required both our full time commitment and every ounce of collective courage.

We have closed our preschool, and are now inhaling our few final weeks. Next year, we’re moving west. Well not really, we’re only a handful of blocks from the lip of the Pacific now, but I feel like we are in the 1800′s, when land was cheap to anyone willing to stake a claim and start construction.

Question: How much is a domain going for these days?

Answer: Two morning’s worth of Starbucks.

Writer Dad was a rough draft, rolling along with rhythm and regularity for the last four months, but it is now ready for its first revision.

Writer Dad has been a marvelous stage to step upon; a podium for any thought I was willing to balloon into five-hundred words or so. Behind the curtain, it has always been about my family; the legacy I leave and the stories I wish to pass. Writer Dad focuses on fatherhood with well written tales about those things that orbit my existence, and that is what Writer Dad will continue to be.

Not having a niche is nice, and I have enjoyed it immeasurably, but it is now time to not have a niche in more than one place.

In early 2009, the first of several new stages will be set, and I will spread my voice to another venue. Writer Dad will continue to do what it has always done, only better from the benefit of extra breath. Writer Dad will leave the desk in favor of a favorite chair. I will post only when I have something to say, probably around three times a week. I plan to do a lot more with a little less, and though I still have plenty of things to chat about that have nothing to do with fatherhood, come January, I will share them elsewhere.

For December, things won’t be too different. I look forward to sharing a few special announcements and giving you the best of the rest of the same. The Bloggers I Heart will return at the end of the month to tell us what the holidays mean to them, and I’m trying hard to line up a guest post from Santa, but his internet has been all wonky and we can’t seem to keep our ichat connection (yes, Santa uses a Mac). I am working on it though.

Writer Dad

Namas Daisy is opening presence here.

Your Baby’s Born in the Rough Draft. You raise it in the Rewrite.

“Murder your Darlings.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Writing is easy. Really. It’s just tap tap tapping on the keyboard, or scribbling your thoughts inside a notebook, as the ideas rain around you.

At first, the random shavings of thought don’t have to make a whole lot of sense, as long as you’re getting them down. It’s the rewriting that’s really difficult.

That’s when you must murder your darlings.

It’s in the rewrite when you have to stare at your work, and get your self love and self hate to hold hands and play a bit of hopscotch. That’s when you have to decide what’s important and what needs to be dragged to the trash and wiped from the hard drive.

Right now, I’m crawling my way through a rather tedious section of the novel. It goes on and on and on some more while doing absolutely nothing to drive the story. Back in the first draft (when I had no idea where I was going, or even why I was writing) I fell in love with this middle class family.

Apparently, I also fell in love with every single movement of their day.

I especially liked this section that followed the family along as they did some shopping on the day after Christmas. Apparently, I liked it so much, I proceeded to vomit my affection all over the keyboard.

They wake up, they go shopping, they go to lunch, then they drive around for a while before finally going back home, having themselves a fashion show with their new purchases, and eating dinner. Nothing relevant happens until dinner, and if that sounds boring… well, then thanks for believing in me. The actual text reads with the amount of excitement normally found in a chess game played by mail.

Now, imagine that scene stretched to three-thousand words, and you’ll get an idea what the chapter’s like.

The funny part is, I loved the chapter before I wrote it. I loved it in my head before I fell to sleep, and I loved it the next day in black and white. But I am loathing it something fierce in the rewrite.

I read it over yesterday.

Twice.

Normally, I like to steal a glance at myself whenever I’m passing a mirror. Not yesterday, I was too ashamed.

Thirty pages and nothing happens that’s necessary for the reader to know. That’s like promising to take your kids to Disneyland but telling them you have to drive through Arizona first.

Get to the point, Writer Dad.

Okay.

The section now reads: ”They went to lunch. Later, at dinner…”

Much better, right?

Writer Dad

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Have a great day.

Writer Dad in Rough Draft

Writer Dad

Your Baby’s Born in the Rough Draft. You raise it in the Rewrite.

That’s when you must murder your darlings.

Apparently, I also fell in love with every single movement of their day.

I read it over yesterday.

Twice.

The section now reads: ”They went to lunch. Later, at dinner…”

Writer Dad

A Promise to My Family

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