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    Did I finish Act 2? I did! Doing so left me more pensive than ebullient. Check out my feelings and thoughts in yesterday’s diary entry . Once I finished Act 2, my brain relaxed some. At least it’s done. Draft 3, to commence in June, will make the novel even better.  

    Act 2 is in no way, shape, or form, complete. After two drafts, the manuscript still is not in shape for anyone to read it (except me). I don’t feel bad about this. The story is complex. Creating this novel reminds me of the old Mouse Trap game from sixty years ago. Before everything is set up and ready to go, it’s all just a bunch of plastic junk, every piece uninteresting. But when it’s configured properly …

    On to Act 3 and completing the second draft of the novel. I must confess that I do not remember exactly what happens in the act, and I certainly don’t recall the sequence of scenes.  On the other hand, some of the moments of Act 3 I dearly love. The two-hundred-year-old barn burning. Kelsey’s romance with—well, I’ll tell you later. Tyne almost getting killed, and her fascinating selfishness at the end of the book. Revising Act 3 will be for me like listening to oldies songs you can never get enough of.

    Am I experiencing fear and trepidation? Am I wondering if I can shape up this ending so that it, and the entire novel, works? What about all the foreshadowing that needs to be done and tweaking of scenes that needs to happen so that the novel is unified?

    Am I up to it?

    I believe I am, and I have to believe I am. If I don’t believe in me, who will? The ace in the hole is the plan to hire a developmental editor when the novel becomes as strong as I can make it. It will be worth the thousands of dollars to hear one fiction expert on this planet say, “It’s ready,” or “Here’s suggestions that will make it so.”

    I will now take a break from writing this diary entry, and skim over Act 3. I’ll report my thoughts and feelings once I’m done.

                                                                                                        INTERMISSION

    I’m back. I relocated from my too comfortable living room chair, on which I cannot juggle a laptop and a binder with 592 pages in it, to the kitchen table. Open up to page 462.

    I skim the 130 pages that are Act 3. Halfway through, it’s like a 10 car pileup has just rocked my brain. All these names—I don’t recognize them. Why are all these new characters in the last part of the novel? Once again, I’ve forgotten that the first draft of the novel is told in multiple points of view. Some of this will have to be condensed, or completely cut, because Kelsey can’t be there to see it. Six or so scenes I didn’t recall writing.

    Then, I got to the climactic scene too quickly. I remember it taking forever to write the first draft of it. This is the first time I’ve read it, and it goes by in a flash! Maybe I need to stretch out these last scenes.

    I’m filled with questions. How will I make all this work?

    My gut feeling, however, is quite different. Fundamentally, it feels right. There’s going to be cutting and rewriting aplenty. I’ll need to go back into the other 75% of the novel to add a lot—like the fact that Zeke is very close with his football-team cousins, who also help when Zeke needs someone’s teeth knocked out. Bottom line, though: what I need is here. Like I imagine Michaelangelo must have said when people saw his huge uncut chunks of marble: It just needs some shaping.

    O snail Climb Mt. Fuji. But slowly, slowly! – Kobayashi Issa

    Okay then! Rather than digging into the ms now, I will play some electric Blues guitar. I am a big believer in letting my subconscious handle problems while I am sleeping or off doing other things. I will be in Rochester NY for the next two days, attending my youngest son’s graduation. But then, on Sunday I will take out the 1^st draft again, read Act 3 carefully, and write down a 1-2 sentence summary of each scene. I’ll start keeping a list of what needs to be foreshadowed. Scenes that can go, I will cut on Sunday. I will group the scenes into chapters by my gut feelings, each chapter ending on a climactic moment. I may not group up all the scenes Sunday. To borrow from King Lear, “I see [things] feelingly.”

    Then on Monday I will start playing with each sentence in each scene.

    I’ve told people that I agree with Tiffany Yates Martin on how to revise. She suggests her “triage method.” Don’t revise first page to last. Work on the worst moments of the ms first, and slowly bring up the quality of the entire book that way.

    But I haven’t locked down this story enough to separate the wheat from the chaff. From my POV, it’s all chaff. Perhaps I’ll try the triage method with draft 3.

    Last thought: I expect the 2^nd draft of Act three to take two weeks longer than I expected. New completion date: Monday, June 16^th.

Bloomsday. The day the novel Ulysses takes place. While they’ll be toasting James Joyce with Guinness in Dublin on the 16^th, I’ll be lifting a bottle of Gatorade Zero to Kelsey and the inhabitants of River’s Bend, PA.  

    Check here for an update on how the revision is going, Monday 5/19.