So I started reading through, and realized suddenly what I've done to myself. I'd thought that this format was maybe about equal with regular prose as far as effort--harder than cut-line-type stuff*, but easier than regular prose because of the simplicity, since each page basically has one idea. But as I read today, I thought, Hey, this ms could be good. It has the possibility of actually being good, if I fix this and that and move such-and-such here and tweak so-and-so. But here's what I also saw: there cannot be one single freaking line out of place, or it sucks. There isn't any room at all for error, because there is no flow to carry the reading along so that you can blip over a bad part and still maintain understanding and interest. You get one page of flow, and that's it. If that page has a misplaced thought, the whole thing is murky and confusing.

Now, that doesn't sound so different from writing cut-line-type stuff. But with cut-line-type stuff, you're focused (or at least I am) on every word already. Here, I'm focused on larger pieces, sentences and paragraphs. It is prose, after all. But it's got some of the worst aspects (as far as being a pain in the you-know-what) of trying to write verse-ish-ly. Doing it this way is harder than if the whole thing had wanted to come out as a normal novel. It's going to take me forever. It's like I'm knitting a sweater with toothpicks. The damn thing's already falling apart by page...oh, I don't know, page 30? I'm not even going to look back to see where I was at the beginning of summer, or last year, or the year before. I don't want to know, because I already have a very good idea where I was, and it was probably about where I am right now only the knitting's better quality now. Jebus. It's times like these that make me wish I drank.**



* The reason I think cut-line-prose is easier is because it doesn't have those prose transitions, which are my downfall and take me twenty times longer to figure out than any other writer I know. Other people might find regular prose easier.

** I do drink, in theory. Just not in practice usually, because what's the point? It costs too much, I'd rather use the calories on chocolate, and I already shoot my mouth off too much as it is.