The agent loved the pages I sent him. So there’s that in the good news category. I’ve been a little up and down, mostly up, but just enough down that I could have used some good news. He gave me two little notes that he would have been remiss in mentioning and that I kind of already knew, but really, since I’m just working on the first draft right now, I don’t need to worry about. You should worry if your agent says, “I really hate this character and I don’t care what happens to him,” or, “The storyline doesn’t grab me,” or, “This is kind of a mess.” But when he says, “Sometimes you slip into other character’s voices in a chapter when you started with just one, and eventually you will need to choose the one you want to focus on,” that’s pretty much just first draft me-being-exploratory crap that comes out in the second edit.
My conversation with him yesterday reminded me again of how this is totally a first draft, and I should feel free to go nuts before I have to reign it on the second draft, and beyond. Writing the first draft is the most playful of experiences. Sometimes when people talk to me about their desire to write – and why they are not writing – they talk about how they feel like they would just stop at every single sentence and want to make it perfect. (This is mentioned very frequently to me, and I realize I might have mentioned this here before. Too bad.)
I always tell them that my mantra is, “Write it through.” You can always go back and fix it. You have as long as you like to edit it before you show it to anyone, and then if you manage to sell it, there are multiple steps in the editing process where you can change things. The point is to get it written in the first place! If you’re mired in perfectionism, you won’t get very far. And the best art evolves with the creative process. I think if you wrote it down perfectly the first time something would be wrong.
So, you know, go write something already.
Anyway.
I started a new chapter yesterday, this one about a man with a full head of hair suddenly going bald as everyone around him goes a little bit mad. I met up with my friend A after yoga yesterday and we eventually got around to talking about hair, and men. Her husband has a full head of hair, so he never thinks twice about it.
“If a man has a good head of hair he loves that head of hair so very much,” I said. “I think if a man goes bald, he can become ok with being bald, but a man who has kept all his hair is just a little bit happier about the whole situation.” (I should mention I don’t give a shit either way; every man in my family is bald, and I grew up accustomed to the sight of it. What’s a little skull, I say? I think a lot of chicks dig it, frankly.)
There was more discussion, mostly about how certain male physical qualities influence confidence levels and the way a man carries himself, and I believe I uttered the sentence, “If a short man has a big dick and a full head of hair he might as well be ten feet tall,” because I am a super-famous, culturally relevant, wise and knowledgeable novelist.
Which is why, obviously, I have been put on the Big Jewcy 100 list, and the write-up includes the phrase, “All Thattenberg.”
High art for everyone!
