In an effort to make up for my severe lack of rece…
In an effort to make up for my severe lack of recent progress, I spent most of today working on my book. The thing about this particular stage of editing is that I can no longer gauge my progress by word count. I’m polishing and tweaking now, and it looks as if the final copy will be around 250 pages long, but that’s no longer the point. The point is: will anyone want to read it? As I read through the thing, and I’m biased, not only because I lived it and wrote it, but I’ve been staring at the same damn stuff over and over again, sometimes I think “Who would want to read this?” Other times, of course, I think “Damn, this is great shit!” But in the end I lack the objectivity to really tell, especially with a project this big. It’s such a large piece I find it difficult to see it in its entirety. I could keep editing and tweaking such a large block of text indefinitely without any clear sign that it was “done.” Yet sooner or later, preferably sooner, I am going to have to wash my hands, set it adrift, and move on. That is, at least until I sell the movie rights and decide whether John Cusack is right to play me or not. After all, he did a pretty good job of capturing the essence of my time at the newspaper in Being John Malkovich:
I’m debating whether or not to call in sick tomorrow. I definitely don’t feel at all well today; my nose is stuffed up, and I’m beginning to cough and feel achey as well. Not good signs. I ended up emailing the director of the play yesterday and telling her that I was too sick again for rehearsal today, and anyway I have fallen so behind with everything that I couldn’t in good conscience keep calling myself a member of the cast, so I suggested that she find someone else while preparations are still at a fairly early stage. It’s too bad, as I enjoy acting, but circumstances just aren’t permitting me to be in this one. I might even have to call off the eye-zapping, or at least postpone it until I feel better. No matter what happens I think a visit to the doctor tomorrow would not go amiss. The worst thing is that I feel exhausted and tired but not at all sleepy. I just lay in bed feeling horrid, but without the blissful unawareness of actual sleep.
