Drafting, pt. 4

Time: 2:53
Music: "Sun Drugs" | Stars of the Lid
Mood: fractured

As is typical of a mid-semester week, I haven't had time to work on my book* other than think about it when I lie down at night, hoping that sleep will come before any reminders about what I didn't do that day.

Distraction #1: N gets home. I haven't started cooking lunch yet. I get up to do so. While's she's in the shower and the olive oil is heating up, I sneak back to the computer and:

It seems that perhaps the biggest difficulty in drafting this book is the pebbles of voices that have crumbled and rolled since I started. Having started the actual writing two years ago (and the thinking four years ago, or, maybe, a lot longer), each time I sit and do a significant bout of writing, it seems my voice has changed in some significant way (one hopes, for the better).

Distraction #2: The sizzle of the oil replaces the splash of the shower as N turns the knob. I get up and drop the onions and carrots in, thinking that I should've waited on the carrots, but my time keeps shrinking.

At this point, I see the book as having changed the pitch and depth of its voice four major times, usually some sort of semester-to-semester break involved. However, there are weeks, like this one, where teaching takes up so much time that it seems the voice I started last Friday is already miles, worlds away.

Distraction #3: I can hear N hanging up her towel, the sound of the vegetables screaming louder and louder and until, ok, ok, I'll be right there.

In one sense, the shifting of voice is good news: it means that I'm not content with how things went the previous time, so I should take some things out, add a few more, see how they feel, taste together. I wonder what I'm losing/gaining, hoping that I'm divining the right measurements.

Distraction #4: Lunch is on the table--a mish-mash of veggies, cheese and tofu we call, appropriately, a 'scramble.' N says, "Can I start eating?" and I say "mhmm" while I type out what will have to be the end of this. The distraction getting the final word.
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*metablog moment: the same reason I haven't had time to post anything this week.