The Elegant Variation: THE END OF THE BEGINNING

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April 15, 2006

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

After a bit too much lollygagging, I finally finished a draft of my novel this afternoon.

As anyone who's been there will tell you, this doesn't mean nearly as much as it seems to - there are numerous revisions lying in wait before the work has any real hope of seeing the light of day.

But it is a major milestone, and I've been working on this a long time (almost three years to the day), so I'm just gonna bask in the quiet of it all for a little while. Thanks to all who dropped me encouraging notes along the way. They helped more than you know.

Posted at 07:30 PM in Personal | Permalink

Comments

Congratulations on getting to the end. Now take some time off, be good to yourself, and go back for the harsh revisions. :)

Posted by: ed | April 15, 2006 at 08:40 PM

Congratulations, and good luck with it.

Posted by: macleod | April 16, 2006 at 04:41 AM

Respectful suggestion: take some time before you dive back in. The distance helps. And best of luck with it. The revisions are the best part. No terror of the blank page.

Posted by: John Shannon | April 16, 2006 at 09:48 AM

Have a drink on me. AW

Posted by: Antoine Wilson | April 16, 2006 at 10:45 AM

All of the above.

Posted by: goethe girl | April 16, 2006 at 01:54 PM

By the way, just read of the passing of one of my favorites, Muriel Spark.

Posted by: goethe girl | April 16, 2006 at 01:57 PM

Good stuff Mark. Enjoy the intermission before the final acts.

Posted by: genevieve | April 16, 2006 at 04:51 PM

Woo-hoo!

I raise my glass to you! Hurrah!

Posted by: Anne | April 16, 2006 at 05:18 PM

A glass from here, too. Congratulations and I hope revisions are painless.

Posted by: Dave Worsley | April 17, 2006 at 04:41 AM

Excellent! Keep on keepin' on.

Posted by: Doug Worgul | April 17, 2006 at 06:58 AM

I say drafting a novel is an accomplishment in itself, and much harder than what you have left to do--it's so much easier to work with words that are there than it is to come up with something from nothing. Way to go, and have fun revising.

Posted by: Kirby Gann | April 17, 2006 at 08:03 AM

Well done! bask in it for a bit. Then dive back in.

Posted by: empirestateview | April 17, 2006 at 08:17 AM

I'd like 67% of whatever.

Posted by: STBEWOTEV | April 17, 2006 at 09:12 AM

Congrats, Mark! I know the feeling and say ditto to all the suggestions above (relax, give yourself a break, etc.) adding only the obvious: stay away from your draft for as long as you possibly can, before diving back in.

Coincidentally, I finished the "final" draft of mine two days before yours. You might be amused by this post about that completion:
http://livingromcom.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/04/in_the_realm_of.html

Posted by: mernitman | April 18, 2006 at 12:31 PM

I just caught that cryptic post ('67 percent') up there...rather chilling!

Posted by: Steven Augustine | April 19, 2006 at 11:16 AM

Congrats! Now the fun begins pace yourself and remember patience and perseverance, perspiration and preparation lead to publication or so we are told. Best Steve

Posted by: Steve Clackson | April 21, 2006 at 01:01 AM

Congratulations, Mark.

The feeling's a strange one, getting to the "end" of something that's just getting started. I especially like ed's advice to "take some time off" from the novel. There should be a service that takes first drafts away from authors for 45-60 days, and refuses to return them under any circumstance.

Posted by: Mogolov | April 24, 2006 at 06:28 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

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The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

April 15, 2006

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

April 15, 2006

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism