  I reworked the first chapter again. Finally, I can at least read the first paragraph without wanting to change anything.
I added quite a bit to the chapter, though, and I'm worried I made it worse overall. I'm a little afraid to read on, past the first paragraph. It's exhausting, picking at this sentence or that. I'm never satisfied. I have ideas about how long the paragraphs should be and whether or not I'm repeating certain words too much, words such as left, right, down, follows, leaves, lifts, first, again, upper, lower, out, over, up, inside, back -- directional words, I suppose, that I seem to use a lot (Too much?
I'm conscious of it, but does it bug the reader? Does the reader notice? I've decided probably not). I go over it so many times, reading it aloud as I go, I have parts of it memorized (I do that with poems, too -- maybe it's just my method, what works for me). It's not like it doesn't read fairly well, as is. It's this nebulous instinct I have to want to make it better.
It makes me crazy. Half the things I change, I change back (at least I'm not a sculptor -- imagine the marble I'd go through!). I take a line out one day and put it back the next. And round and round the track I go. Actually, it's more like bumper cars than a track. A track implies speed (although you don't get anywhere in either case). I'm already looking at the Edward Taylor books I have as research for my next project -- yeah, as if.
Well, why not? I will eventually finish this thing (talk about faith). Last night, around one in the morning, I called my mom (though I shouldn't have -- I was too tired, and I get grumpy when I'm tired), and she asked me how many pages I had. I felt compelled to lie; I couldn't fess up to only having nine of what I consider to be polished pages (with another 30 or so ready for revision, she says cheerily).
After all this time, how can I only have nine pages? I need to move on, I know that. Push through into the next chapter (which I also have a good start on), and the next and the next, and so forth. Just don't look back. It's like crossing a steel beam, only instead of don't look down, it's don't look back.
Of course, ten or so pages a month is a hundred and twenty pages a year, which is a good-sized book every two, two and a half years. That would be fine with me. I don't need to publish a book every year (I'm not Joyce Carol Oates, though a professor compared me to her, which I'm not sure is good or bad -- I'm afraid I haven't read anything by her; the professor, though, meant it as a compliment).
Unfortunately, as the writing gets better (and it is getting better), the depression gets worse. I feel drained. I'm thinking of giving my car away; I can't afford to drive it anyway. I need a pitcher of margaritas, or a trip to Vegas, something. I don't think I'll take the whole summer off next year. I think I'll teach summer school instead. I need the money, and I go batty by myself all day. I'm glad I did this, though. I needed to know just what the writing takes (it takes your soul).
If I taught summer school, I'd get out around one in the afternoon, and that would still leave me plenty of time to write. This fall, I also fully intend to continue working on this book (no, I mean it this time). If I do the early shift (periods one through eight instead of two through nine -- our school is an extended time school), I can be home by four. I'd only want to write for two or three hours a day while I'm working anyway. I could look forward to that time for myself.
I do love to write. I get mad when I reach my absolute limit after six or seven hours (sometimes twelve or thirteen hours) and I can't go on (see what I mean about the nine pages?). I want to keep working, but the screen is blurry and the backs of my thighs are numb. It can become obsessive. And there's a diminishing return after a few hours anyway. That's when I start picking over clean bones. I need to relax, take it in stride. Go for a walk. Find some balance. I went to bed around six thirty this morning.
I made myself get up after about five hours, so I'm hoping I'll sleep tonight, turn my clock back around. Of course, I thought the same thing last night and the night before. I'm groggy as hell; I need more coffee. But I went to bed thinking about the Confederacy of Dunces guy. How he worked so hard on his book and how he couldn't find a publisher and ended up killing himself (I don't know if that's why).
It's considered such a brilliant book -- highly praised post mortem (won the Pulitzer, I think) -- and he fell into such despair. I was thinking how now I understand. I understand them all -- Sylvia Plath, Hemingway. It wasn't because they couldn't write. It was because they could. The demands are so great. Jon says I should try to be more short and pithy with my blog, but I don't think I'm very good at short and pithy -- I'm more the introspective, maudlin type.
In any case, here's a sample from my hope-to-be first novel. Overall, there are five of what I call headline characters in the book: Jason, Adrienne, Phaedra, Nina, and a case worker. They're not narrators, per se, since the book is in third person (i.e., he/she instead of I). But each chapter begins with the name of one of these five characters at the top of the page. I attempt to stay faithful to that character's perspective and experiences (as much as any novelist can -- in the end, it's all me, of course).
In brief, the book's about what you'd call an "underprivileged" family trying to put itself back together, and what's on each individual's mind throughout the story (I love to mix memory with what's happening in the scene -- the past and the present, by our nature, are always simultaneous). The book is called Newton's Cradle (five voices, like the five suspended silver balls in a Newton's Cradle, clicking back and forth -- cause and effect; the word "Cradle" is appropriate for its associations, too). The following excerpt is from the first chapter, from Jason's perspective. (Unfortunately, I can't seem to figure out how to indent, so I had to leave an extra line between paragraphs. I tried editing the HTML, but it wouldn't accept the spacer I put in. Maybe Jon will know). 
