The Story of the I

A day of two halves. 

In the morning I started another round of revisions on Grace. It occurred to me that I might separate out part of the narrative voice and italicise it and by doing so bring to light some subtle but very interesting aspects of the writing of the main character that might otherwise go unnoticed. So that’s what I did. Seemed to be working very nicely and I cycled home for lunch.

Had lunch, watched some tennis with Emma (my wife) and took Elliot (my son) to nursery.

Came back to the computer intending to continue with the italics. Had a quick read of what I’d done so far. Turned out that what had previously been an interesting subtextual undercurrent was now, writ large, completely taking over the whole thing and didn’t have the depth to sustain it – making the whole book into an overwrought piece of crap. So I changed it all back (or reverted to the copy I made before I started to change it in the first place.)

Must be a moral here somewhere. Whatever it is, if tomorrow I spend more time putting things back the way they were than changing them in the first place I think I might have to call time on the revisions and get back to the Schreber book, where at least I’ve still got actual writing to do.