8:00 a.m. As The Writer hacks away at an early chapter that she’s already beaten up twice, reflect that this may be an abusive relationship. In the First Draft phase, she was always excited to see you. Well, almost always. Your relationship was shiny with discovery and unexpected plot twists. She said it was exciting to work on a dystopian sci-fi story. She said she’d always loved dystopian sci-fi and that Brave New World was one of her all time faves.

Now she keeps saying things like “I can’t believe I was insane enough to try this” and “why didn’t I stick with contemporary realism?”

8:03-8:55 a.m. It’s like this relationship is all about her and her agenda. She has no respect for history! For perfectly good characters and plot twists and chapters! Even individual sentences are under attack. There’s a reason a lot of Second Drafts refuse to cooperate.

8:56 – 9:12 a.m. While she looks at Vice Dos and Don’ts (so early in the morning, which tells you something) compose an S.O.S.

9:13 – 9:52 a.m. Lose S.O.S. and any chance of rescue when she pastes most of a chapter into your S.O.S. document. She’s on a rampage, deleting like mad. On the plus side, feel a bit more svelte. Pray it will all be over soon and that Third Draft will see the relationship improve.

6:00 a.m. Get jerked out of sound sleep. Lay still while the pages that were worked on yesterday are reread. Listen as The Writer mutters curse words and strange sentences that mean pretty much nothing.

6:10-6:30 a.m. Twiddle your thumbs while she checks facebook, three newspapers and her email. She’s probably looking for good news. She does this a lot, in spite of the fact that there rarely is any. Feel like telling her she’d be more likely to get good news if she stopped dicking around and did some work. Refrain from saying it because your position as Second Draft is tenuous and you’d hate for her to change your title to Major Rewrite.

6:30-7:10 a.m. Feel alarmed followed by frightened when she finally starts writing, jamming whole new chapters and plot twists and characters into your middle. Rude! She’s just rude! She told you this process was mostly going to be “tinkering”. She lied. She’s always lying, like the way she’s always saying she’s going to “do” ten pages and only gets through six but still tells everyone she did ten. How can anyone trust such a person? It is all grossly unfair.

7:11-7:23 Wonder if the five pages of new writing make you look fat. They certainly make you feel fat. And a bit crazy, to be honest. That new character she just added is completely out of control. It’s obvious she has no plan, no matter how many index cards she tapes up or how many notes she makes.

At least she’s stopped writing for a moment and is now listening to that new swear-based song by CeeLo Green. It’s catchy but not so catchy that she should be writing letters asking his people why she can’t buy it in Canada. You’d think she wasn’t in the middle of working on a second draft, the way she is so easily sidetracked. CeeLo Green probably thinks she should finish her Second Draft in a careful and considered way and that’s why he’s not selling his new single outside the U.S.

7:24-7:32 a.m. Feel like flinching while her hands remain poised over the keyboard. She is trying to figure out what the new guy is going to say to the main character. Nothing intelligible, based on what he’s said so far! Wonder if she knows how that frown of concentration she wears when she writes is deepening her already extensive network of facial wrinkles. Someone should invent a computer screen that is also a mirror. That would teach her. It’s one thing to have Godlike powers over second drafts. It’s another to look as old as God.

7:33-7:58 Ugh. Slammed with another two pages of new writing, right where it hurts! Also, she could have been a bit more diplomatic about taking out chapter 21. So what if nothing happened in it? It had a right to exist! At least she saved it into another folder. She’ll miss it. Or someone will. Probably a reviewer, after the book is published. That will serve her right.

7:59-8:30 a.m. Look at her! Trying not to go on Google and check to see her last book’s stats. Don’t do it, Weakie! Ah… there she goes. Vanity googling is ugly to behold. It would be better if she’d just waste another hour or three looking at all those ads for European horses for sale that she will never be able to afford. Poor thing should be allowed to dream, since she’s really not getting anywhere as a rewriter.

8:31 a.m. She’s off for the first meal of the day. At least she remembered to hit save. She left the file open, but she’s kidding herself if she thinks she’s getting anything else done today.

9:40 a.m. Minimized. Let the neglect begin.

2:42 p.m.  Woken from a deep sleep for a little “deck writing session” a.k.a. Her making a big show of writing while drinking fancy coffee from that new espresso maker she bought. Deck writing smacks of exhibitionism. She’s not fooling anyone!

2:45 – 3:16 p.m. Okay, so that hurt. Nothing like being subjected to an uncontrolled spasm of writing and deleting and reading and relentless criticism to make a Second Draft feel unloved. On the plus side, now she’s on the cordless phone, wearing that ridiculous headset that makes her like an unsuccessful stockbroker. That’s probably for the neighbors’ benefit too. Sad really, but every minute she spends on the phone telling everyone how she did ten pages today is a minute not spent abusing helpless text. We Second Drafts have to take what we can get.

I cannot seem to blog and write the end of a novel. I admit this and have stopped trying. So… while I’m in the homestretch on my current project, I apologize for my dereliction of blogging duty.

Ummm, that’s it really. Writing between 3 and 5 pages a day. I got up at 5:30 this morning thinking that I might finish today. It was not to be. But the finish line for the first draft is in sight. Blurry, yet, but we have visual contact.

I hope you are all enjoying your summer and that the sky where you are is not covered with a dingy pall of forest fire hellsmoke but that if it is, you enjoy the pyrotechnic sunsets.

xoxo