Not Doing Research and Facing Realities... Maybe

I'm resisting the temptation (barely) to research today instead of write forward, although I *am* writing, and the story is crackling with new bits that I'm capturing in a computer file I call "notes." First these bits are scribbled on purple Post-it notes, for some reason unknown to me, slapped into my notebook, then transcribed later, during a break, to the computer file.

There are so many research questions coming up as I uncover the next layers of this story. When did Howard Zinn write A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES? When was the single "Green Onions" by Booker T and the M.G.'s first available for purchase? Were there night classes at the University of Maryland in 1962? What were the cartoons on Saturday morning television and what was on television on Friday nights in 1962? Were Dixie Cup dispensers invented by 1962 or was that later in the Sixties?

Etc.

I have stopped to look up some answers, but mostly I'm trying hard to stick to the page and make notes about my questions -- none of these answers will change a storyline, and I can just move forward, if I allow myself to. I neeeed to keep moving forward with the narrative.

So I keep a running list beside me at all times. It's all over the place, with questions and ideas both, revelations, too, falling like the leaves outside my window today. Later, when I transcribe my notes to the computer file, I'll look upon them as an archive of the day that helps me see these puzzle pieces in the order they appeared, and I'll be able to see how I integrated them into the storyline. Or pitched them.

I'm trying to tie the original Big Middle to the New Beginning today. Gaaaaaaaaaaa. I can see how much sheer, mundane, muddy work there is to do now, to clean up this middle. And some of it will need to be completely jettisoned, and this just kills me, because I love love love these scenes. And yet... they are no longer serving the story.

Some writers I know spend time writing character sketches and whole imagined scenes that they know they'll never use, that explain backstory for them, or character, or plot. I don't do that, but I do overwrite (in every context) in a first draft. I write much more than I need to write -- I'm particulary a "directional writer." You know the type: she walked to the door, she reached for the handle, she turned it, she opened the door, she stepped across the threshhold, she turned right down the hallway... oy and oy vey, save me.

But I don't worry about this right now -- cutting this sort of directional writing is a task for smaller revision and it doesn't bother me a bit to lose it -- I depend on seeing this stuff and yanking it out of there at some point.

But this is large revision I'm into now, and I need to make every scene count. WHY is it there? What does it matter? If it's just there because I loved painting the relationship between Franny and her brother Drew and the lovely fall day -- well, it's gotta go. That scene needs to impart vital information, needs to move the story forward -- does it? No? Then make it work or let it go and move on -- what do you need and what can you let go? This is how I'm talking to myself today.

I know so much more today than I knew even a week ago, it's almost scary. It makes me think that I've got a Whole Lot More To Do than I bargained for, in this revision.

Help.

What's really scaring me, if I'm honest, is that I may have to throw out the entire second half of this novel. Excuse me while I sink onto the couch and call for a cold cloth for my forehead.