"Writing is rewriting." — Ernest Hemingway

It's a good thing Ernie told us this, because I and every other writer never would have figured it out on our own.

"Got tight last night on absinthe. Did knife tricks."
—Hemingway, in a letter to a friend

Yeah, yeah, I know the story about the last chapter of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms—that he allegedly rewrote it 39 times before he was satisfied with it. I say "allegedly" because I've also read accounts in which he rewrote the last page 39 times, and others in which he rewrote the entire book 39 times. More likely he drank 39 cocktails, shot 39 clay pigeons, caught 39 marlins and rewrote the same word 39 times.

Why am I blathering on about Hemingway's editorial habits? Because I'm in the middle (exactly the middle) of the SEVENTH draft of my new novel, and I'm getting a little tired of rewriting. I want to be...oh, I don't know...WRITING something new, otherwise known as CREATING. I've been poring over individual sentences for two weeks, and the resulting effect on my eyes and brain is similar to snow blindness.

A hacked-up page from the novel.

Recently I read a quote by bestseller Michael Crichton about rewriting and his sense of despair about it. I was impressed that he'd gone on the record about this dreaded subject because I've found that a lot of very successful authors like to keep the production of their works a mystery to convey that it really isn't all that hard. This is what I call the "writer as auteur" or the "folks don't want to see how the sausages are made" school of thought.

Anyway, here's what Crichton had to say (which doesn't bode well for me—there will probably be an 8th draft—I'm used to it):

"Books aren't written—they're rewritten....It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it."

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go decide whether to use a loose or periodic sentence in the paragraph I'm working on.

Hopefully I won't have to rewrite the f-cker 39 times.

"One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in." — Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Chapter XVII

I've always been a fan of Thoreau. Until recently, I owned five or six copies of Walden, including a fine hardcover version this terrific guy gave me, but my wife made me donate half of them. My interest in Thoreau began in high school, when every junior in America is required to read "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For," and while my classmates were rendered comatose by the 19th century prose, I was entranced. As a kid who had grown up in the countryside (first Maine, then rural New York), I spent ALL of my time in the woods. Finally I was reading about a guy who thoroughly embraced Nature, just like I did, and I was determined to learn more.

My interest in Thoreau was part of the reason why I decided to study philosophy and religion in college. The ideas of spirituality and harmony with nature that Thoreau touches upon in Walden excited my eager young mind. While still in school I started writing a play about him, as well as a biographical sketch for a humor book that was never published.

After college I was a reporter for my hometown newspaper, until one particularly vibrant autumn, when I once again felt the stirrings of Thoreau. I decided to quit my job so I could spend the entire season walking in the woods around Millbrook, learning the names of all the trees.

Sixteen years later, I'm still enamored of Thoreau, and I still enjoy walking in nature as much as I always did. Yesterday was the first non-winter day of the year, so I took a long walk to see what I could see. What I saw was the cusp of spring.

It was cold when I started out, and I was dressed in layers: T-shirt, Oxford shirt, heavy wool sweater and wool topcoat. A mile into my walk, the sun appeared at my back (to the southwest) and heated up my shoulders. I had to remove the coat and carry it, then remove the sweater, put the coat back on and carry the sweater.

The roads were dry—even the dirt ones I walked on—but the shoulder was a squishy mixture of mud and last fall's leaves, which actually made walking easier on the feet.

A waterfall in Glacier National Park.

I passed two waterfalls on my way out of the village, and both gushed as loudly as the ones I saw while hiking through Glacier National Park in March six years ago. Heavy, jagged icicles clung to the shaded corners of the falls, and I wondered how long they would last. The last signs of winter. Would they make it to April?

The snow has all melted, a fact that the squirrels were happy about. I observed a pair of them chasing each other around a fat oak, scolding me and each other, then racing into a knothole. Pheasants, one of the stupidest birds on the planet, strutted in the road at a nasty curve. As I approached, they flapped away and hid in the brush.

There is an alive stillness in the early spring. While crossing a meadow between two roads, I stopped, closed my eyes and listened. In winter you hear nothing but the wind or far-away traffic. But as the air begins to warm, you hear the first signs of life. If you listen really closely, you can almost make out the ground itself stretching, the grass readying itself for another growth spurt. This silence isn't clouded by the buzz of insects, which will be the case in another few weeks. It's a brief interval between the absolute nothingness of winter and the full-blown glory of spring.

I passed an old-timer who was pouring buckets of sap into a steaming vat beneath the trees, and I was carried back 25 years to when I helped my great-uncle Holland make maple syrup. The old man saw me staring and we shared a nod. It takes a hell of a lot of sap to make just a quart of syrup. I remember that well. I walked on.

Some Vermont kid back in my great-uncle's time making syrup.

The thoroughbreds in the fields were still wearing their horse blankets, and when I approached a fence, a couple of the bolder ones walked over, hoping I had a snack for them. I didn't. I patted their nuzzles and kept walking.

In the corner of a field, I spied a collection of beehives. Foolishly, I went over, squatted beside them and listened for any buzzing. It was faint, but it was there. Soon the bees would be zipping in and out of there all day long.

After a couple of hours, I reached one of my favorite spots along a nearby creek. It's a fallen log next to a bridge, where I like to sit down and eat my lunch. I had a corned beef and swiss sandwich, eating very little of the bread, as I looked out at the bare branches and the pristine sky. Spring was coming. It would be here, full-blown, within a couple of weeks. Breathing deeply of the clean, quiet air, I was glad I'd set out on this little walk, and gladder still for leaving the city behind and getting back to my Thoreauvian roots.

Every time I finish a novel, a wave of dread passes over me because I know, sure as Sunday, I'll soon have to write the synopsis. Believe it or not, I actually prefer going to the dentist over writing a 2-page double-spaced Reader's Digest version of my 75,000-word book. I'd rather clean my office than write the thing, and I have. You get the idea.

Not a lot of pics out there illustrating détente.

After writing synopses (awkward word) for four novels, I've reached a Synopsis Détente. Like the U.S. and U.S.S.R. in the early 80s, I still dislike the synopsis, and the synopsis still dislikes me, but in the interest of our mutual betterment, we've decided to compromise with each other. Whereas I used to sit down and attempt to recount every one of the novel's plot points in the synopsis, I have learned to embrace the limitations of the form by summarizing only the key events.

The most comprehensive book out there on writing the synopsis and presenting your novel to agents and publishers in general is Elizabeth Lyon's The Sell Your Novel Tool Kit. I've read or browsed others, but hers is the one I referred to during my early attempts at the synopsis.

Based on what I learned in her book, and from my own experience, let me give you the most basic guidelines for the synopsis:

• Summarize the most important plot elements in present tense.
• Write it in narrative form, like a story, not in bullet points or in a chapter by chapter description.
• Use active, picturesque verbs.
• Refer to characters by name only when necessary for clarity or brevity (i.e., to avoid cumbersome constructions like, "The doctor's brother's girlfriend...")
• Indent the first line of each paragraph.
• Use 1" margins all around. Try to keep the synopsis to one page single-spaced or two pages double-spaced. (I prefer double-spacing because I think the white space makes it read faster.)


• Add page numbers at the bottom, but don't put a header on it. Instead, use the title of the novel and your name in the first sentence: "AN EXCELLENT NOVEL by Jane Doe is an 80,000-word historical romance that explores...."
• Avoid adjectives that tell. This is the old "show, don't tell" advice. In other words, don't tell the agent or editor reading the synopsis that your novel is a "riveting tour de force" or a "sweeping epic"; rather, let the reader get that feeling on her own through your masterful condensation.
• Try to have the synopsis mirror the tone of your novel. For example, if your novel is a mystery, make the synopsis read like a mini-mystery. Describe the happenings in your book so that they form story questions in the reader's mind: "Will he solve the murder?" "Will Jane lose the farm?"
• Where possible, incorporate snatches of dialogue from the main characters so the reader can get a feeling for them. Honestly, I find this difficult to do most of the time, for the simple reason that you're trying to keep it to two pages.

The last piece of advice I have to offer is one that will help you reach détente with the synopsis much sooner than I did. Simply put, be patient. Unless you're a Mozart-like freak who can churn out a brilliant essay in one pass, plan on writing it in drafts.

In her terrific book Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott talks about the importance of writing "...shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts." (If you'd like to read the complete essay from the book, here's the PDF. Or buy the damn book. It's great, and so is she.) The point here is that you need to suspend your judgment and recognize that there's NO WAY you can be comprehensive AND brief AND scintillating AND compelling in the first draft. Instead, write a draft, print it out and put it in a drawer for a day or two. Then take it with you to a diner (what I do) and edit it.

As a part of being patient, DON'T try to bang out the synopsis the second you type "THE END" on the last page of your novel. Give yourself a couple of weeks to let the novel's events settle in your subconscious. Then when you start on the synopsis, you'll only be able to remember the truly important parts. Oh, and one other thing: don't try to write the synopsis as you write the novel, even if you take it up on the second or third draft of the book. Why? Simple—you're apt to change the story, and if you do, bye-bye synopsis.

Good luck and happy summarizing. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to start a fire in the wood stove with mine.