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Nov. 19 -- 2009: White Orchid hotel, Chinatown, Bangkok
Dear Diary: worked five hours today and got seven good sentences. The GEN (Great Expat Novel) featuring Thai-farang arena events and emotions continues apace. The end is in sight and it's a narrative barnburner. At this rate I'll be done in another fifteen years. I didn't guess it would go this quickly but when you have talent like mine writing is like squeezing the trigger on a 45 caliber handgun. The bullet goes fast and lean and right to the mark. Or something. Kinda tired. Maybe tomorrow I'll just set a goal of four good sentences in five hours.
I need to pace myself. I don't want to tack weld the GEN (Great Expat Novel) together but have each sentence be a continuous weld of literary genius. Or something. God, I'm just exhausted by today's production. So so tired. It's hard to be a great published author.
P.S. Note to self:
I really feel as if today's seven sentences represent the Mount Everest of my writing. I think tomorrow I'll call my editor in Banglamphu and read today's sentences over the phone to him. Gosh, I hope he likes them.
He puts the G in Genius for editing. He almost never corrects me. In the beginning I used to wonder if he just did not care, but I have since learned that he almost never makes editing suggestions because I am that good. He's probably jealous of my talent but he never says anything. Can't wait to call him. Seven good sentences in five hours. The line will probably go temporarily silent as it often does when I call him and read my latest work to him.
Knock . . . knock . . . knock . . . knock knock.
Oops, someone is at my door. Wonder who it is. Could be Ling, or Ping, or Ding, or Fing. Have to tell'em I'm just too tired. Seven sentences in five hours. Exhausted.
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May 6, 2011, 20:56
I published my first short story in a magazine in 1981 and I've been trying, with spotty results, to be a good writer ever since. In all that time I've never written any string of words as good as these: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." (George Orwell, 1984)
If I could spend five hours and produce just a single sentence that good, I would be satisfied. If an editor, a man or woman I trusted, somebody well-read and intelligent, whose only goal was to help me be a better writer, agreed that that sentence is as good as I think it is, I would consider it five hours very well spent. I've spent my adult life trying, hundreds of hours at the keyboard, and never come close.