The Big Muff Writer

Heather signed me up for a novel-in-progress class at the Attic writer’s workshop when she signed up for a memoir class for herself. I should have declined; life is so hectic currently, and in the process of being simplified, that a new commitment would just evaporate right off my griddle. But the writing of novels is supposed to take center stage in my creative life, so I agreed to man up and take the class.

I haven’t written a single word for the class yet, which makes me, I think, 14,000 words behind. Oh! And I must deliver a chapter by chapter outline of the book, which has been murky for a year now. Our new assignment is to write something or other in the voice of speaking characters… heck, I can’t even remember now.

These would be exciting, galvanizing exercises to help me dig deep down into my novel, were it not for the fact that I’m still digging out of several personal, medical and logistical crises. I’m still on high alert, a state not conducive for writing. But one of the goals of my efforts to solve these crises is to make time for writing, and thus I force myself to revisit the first chapter of the cowgirl book (tentatively entitled A World To Win) and prepare it for the eyes of my classmates.

The writing’s not bad. Readable, peppy, with a nice restraint on the Big Telling details (no more oil!). But it is the prose of a writer a year younger, one excited about freelancing and writing full time, one who has not yet begun to redefine his authorial voice and approach. In a way I feel as though I’m reading a classmate’s work. Is it still mine?

I am not so seasoned a writer that I have a process for assessing and re-engaging with old work. I fear lapses in style, lost undocumented nuance, quality contrasts between older and newer writing. In the thick of the project I can’t recognize change. My guitar style has always depended on my intrinsic imprecision. Can my writing style get away with the same inattention? It doesn’t have the benefit of 50 watts of tube driven power and overloading germanium resistors in a fuzzbox. There is a sense of discovery with the vintage sound, though, a fleeting, enigmatic window into the past.