Tons of novel edits this weekend, no doubt a byproduct of the long, lazy summer reaching its end. Mornings are cooler, the air drier, and my patience, longer. Amen, my brothers and sisters. Fall knocks for thee.

On average, clearing about 15-20 pages a week. Some weeks net 15 brand new pages — like last weekend — while others involve heavy revisions of existing tracts. The watershed mark is page 250-260. Clear of that point, it’s about fine tuning existing material. But I am not there yet.

The last 2-5 pages will be completely rewritten, and it may take weeks to get that very last mile right. Which is reasonable, since beating the first 30 pages into submission made for one month of sheer madness. And the anniversary of that fest is two years ago this October. Enough writing already. Finish the book!

Since the students return on the 8th, I decided another three day weekend was in order. Jump time for more novel edits.

One thing I’ve always liked about writing is my influence over whether or not it happens. Of course, I have very little sway over what froths up to the screen, whether a passage works, or the aesthetics of my style. That — like stories — ultimately comes from someplace else. But the go/no go decision is mine, and that is worth a lot when the bombs of fate land at the doorstep.

Back in school, the first English class of the year usually opened with a “kids, what did you do this summer, please pretend you care about school now” assignment. While I rarely did anything interesting during break, and it’s been a lot of years since secondary school, with fall looming I feel like scratching out one for me.

Only there’s a small twist. My topic is what I learned this summer.

Ahem. This summer, I learned the following:
1) Take off as many days as possible.
2) Avoid road trips that involve Pennsylvania, and the Comfort Inn in Columbus, Ohio.
4) If a road trip means more than eight hours at the wheel, fly. For the love of God, fly!
5) GPS = good. We named ours Chloe. She might have saved the marriage.
6) Set a reasonable limit on summer time projects. Five proved a bit too ambitious.

Granted the above is a list, rather than a paragraph styled theme. But then I mentioned a twist.

On other fronts, I did the unthinkable last night. Swapped unpublished short stories with a writer. A thing I swore never to do, unless I joined a writing group, which would be shortly after drinking lunch from a gin bottle.

Anyway, the value of this exchange is what it revealed. For whatever reason, or twist of the universe, our styles are very similar. Not that my style is spectacular or unique, but I consider it mine, just as much as this writer considers his take on language the product of many years of writing and reading.

But damn if it wasn’t creepy at points. Reading a line, then thinking, exactly how I would have put that down. It’s almost like meeting a guy in a bar, cracking a few jokes, and discovering both of you are sleeping with the same girl. Either duke it out, or recognize that maybe there’s a reason two paths crossed.

I have my idea, anyway.