Slightly less of a panic pertained by the end of play yesterday – which was actually in the early hours of this morning. Intensive editing carved 4,000 words out of the manuscript, suggesting that the task is doable in the time. The process now is not so much writing the book, as unwriting it.
That is how Booker and I wrote The Great Deception. We assembled all the material in a vast, chronological narrative, stitched it altogether, and then trimmed it to size. Progress each day is measured by words lost, and I have to carve out about 50,000.
I suppose this is the Michael Angelo technique. His statues were in the block of stone – all he had to do was remove the stone around them to reveal the form. I've got a book tucked in my computer file, I guess. All I have to do is remove the right words and the masterpiece will be done - I wish.
Anyhow, I'm going to call it a night – too exhausted even to crawl through Google News. After two mad days, I'll be back to a sensible rhythm in the morning, and pick up where I left off.
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