I'm doing First Pass edits on Taking Midway. I've written about this step in the publishing process before. The pages arrived a week ago in PDF form, typeset and paginated to look the way they will in print. My job is to proof for corrections, not rewrite the book. This massaging is my favorite part of the process because I also use it to correct clunky sentences and word repetitions. "Echo" is the copy editor's term for a word used too many times. With Midway, I used the description "mighty" sixteen times. After a while even a casual reader will get the feeling I've been lazy so those have to be corrected. I'm down to two mighties now. I took utter delight in substituting "Brobdignagian" for one of them. Editing can be fun.
But not too much fun. Like I said, this isn't time to rewrite the book. Corrections should be functional. And even though my edits aren't due back in New York until January 3, I'm sending it back tomorrow. The temptation to make edit after edit would be too great if I used all of those two weeks.
Coincidentally, I read an interview with James Salter recently. He's gone now, but he is one of my favorite writers. His spare style is impossible to mimic but it is a great inspiration to do a lot with a few words. A long while ago, Salter did a most unusual thing. Dissatisfied with one of his early novels, The Arm of Flesh, he rewrote it completely almost forty years later. Crazily, the publisher published Cassada, as it was retitled. Salter said he did the rewrite because the original read like the work of a student and as he grew as a writer he knew how to make it better.
I resist the urge to reread my early stuff because I know I'll feel the same way. I wouldn't rewrite Into Africa because that required ten complete edits before it went into print. I'd change a line or two in Training Ground. There's no changes needed for the Killing series because they're not those kind of books. And by that, I mean works for hire, which takes editorial decisions out of my hands.
But there is one book I would really like to rewrite: Chasing Lance. It's my travelogue about the 2005 Tour de France. I came back from the Tour and wrote it in forty days to beat my deadline. It's a very popular book and sold quite well. One of my favorites.
The story is told as I drive around France for twenty-three days, as much about wine and history as a bike race. Bob Babbitt drove with me the first week, Calene joined me for five days in the Alsace and Switzerland (a memorable dinner at Jay's in Metz, followed by a night in an old hotel with a lumpy mattress), and Austin Murphy was in the car until the finish in Paris. I was the last to arrive at my hotel that Saturday night before the finale and they had given away my room, so they gave me the penthouse suite, complete with a perfect rooftop view of the Eiffel Tower.
But to keep it simple, I didn't mention Babbitt or Callie at all. Austin was the perfect foil and I built the road trip around him. If I could get a do-over, I would add depth and a little more humor by adding them. At the time I wrote Chasing Lance, whether due to the deadline or my inability to tell a more complex story then, I took the easy route.
I don't see me covering the Tour again. Ten years was enough. But I'd really love to right that wrong by penning another road saga. Something fun and not ponderous, just an adventure involving travel, hotels, history, and a fast car. RIght now, with winter setting in, that sounds like a blast. Maybe follow the Springsteen tour around Europe...
Now wouldn't that be a blast?
How did we get here? This started as a blog about editing. Let's just say Calene's back home and my creative mojo is flowing. One way or another, I'll write another road trip book. And this time I'll get it right.