Just Another Writing Birthday

I spent my twenty-first birthday in the University Research Library writing a paper on King Lear.

It was the Friday before finals and my 20-page Shakespeare paper was my whole grade. Since I was taking four English classes that quarter, most of my grades were based on papers. This was the final one, due Monday.

(Pity me. I took twelve English classes my senior year at UCLA in order to graduate in three years. That meant on the first day of each quarter, I already was 1000 pages behind on the reading!)

I got up at 6 am and went to the library where I slaved away with paper and pen (this was pre-computer, mind you!) until five o’clock when my parents took me out to dinner. My father wanted to buy me my first legal drink. (I had a glass of white wine).

My mother had made a popcorn cake (don’t ask), we sawed ourselves slices, gulped them down and I said goodbye about eight o’clock. Delighted to have some space from my words and thus a potential ability to examine my paper with fresh eyes, I picked it up and read it straight through.

I tore it in half and threw it in the trash.

I was back at the library at six the next morning where I consulted the text, thought a little more (prayed some) and then returned to write of the mad king and his daughter Cordelia.

(Writing this just now, I realize my fascination with Cordelia steadfastly loving an ill father stood me in good stead twenty-five years later with my own father. I’ve written before on how literature subtley prepares us for life experiences. See here and here.)

The same thing happened to me this week on another, much higher in number, birthday. I had another Monday deadline and plenty of writing to do. I came home from church, sat in this computer chair and wrote for ten hours.

Writing on a computer in 2012 is a comparative breeze. Does anyone use whiteout anymore or even know what onionskin paper is?

I thought I had my fourth and fifth chapters done late in the afternoon. I handed them to my husband to read while I made dinner.

We enjoyed our meal (red wine this year), skipped the cake and discussed the paper, er, chapters.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “Your heroine has come completely alive but you made your hero dull. How could you even do that?”

Hey, it was my birthday. How could he say something like that to me?

I reread the chapters and saw his point. So I highlighted and deleted the first two pages of chapter four–not quite as dramatic  as tearing up my 20-page paper, but just as disheartening.

I thought about my story, consulted my books and saw what I needed to do.

Back to work.

On both writing days, starting over was the best solution. I had done the hard work–thought through my ideas, scribbled down notes, marked up the text and knew what I wanted to say. I just hadn’t put it together in a scintilating way that got to the meat of the story.

This is where experience helps. I knew the text and the story. I had spent a lot of time thinking and planning. I just needed to trust the muse, or God, to take the paper and story where they needed to go. As long as I didn’t panic, stare at the clock or distract myself from the task at hand, I knew I could do it.

Back at UCLA all those years ago, the Saturday rewrite went well on lined paper in blue ink. The Sunday typing on onionskin paper with white out handy produced a twenty-page discussion of a daughter’s love through thick and thin that produced closure for an old man at the end of his tortuous life.

I got an A.

This Sunday, the four-hour slugfest produced a much stronger chapter that showed my hero in action. I know him well, I just wasn’t letting his over-the-top character blow open my novel so early.

I sent the proposal to my agent at 11:54. We’ll see how my hero manages in the assessment of other professionals.

Both nights,  I went to bed exhausted–even though I did nothing more physical than write all day. I guess the creative genes take something more out of you than is evident to a casual observer.

To celebrate all those years ago,  my roommates took me out to the movies. We saw a brand new film at the Graumann’s Chinese Theater. My English major brain went into overdrive analysing and delighting in a story of a young man’s search for meaning and purpose.

Who can ever forget seeing Star Wars for the very first time? 🙂