Monday 10 June 2024
After last week’s hectic and emotionally challenging revisions, I found myself completing the revision of BOOK 5. I removed significant portions of it. I like its current status; however, the concluding paragraph, I think, will need an additional revision session. I need to see how BOOK 6 turns out before I deem BOOK 5’s revision completely done. These entries also mark the beginning of BOOK 6’s revision, which I was looking forward to because there are several “Mount Everest” moments that require more development. I agree with King Arthur when he described those moments as emotionally important, requiring more writing to understand its importance. Moreover, since BOOK 6 is the longest chapter, its emotional intensity needs to be forceful—and dare I say memorable. “You need to write in a way that the reader will feel emotionally exhausted after reading about your own emotional exhaustion after visiting Russia”: King Arthur demanded. I foresee at least another week of revisions of BOOK 6.
Sunday 2 June 2024
Went through BOOK 5 again, focusing once more on transitions. Having cut nearly half of the content, I observe a more reader-friendly section. Transitions are perhaps more important in BOOK 5 than in other sections because BOOK 5 is the most “historical” section because it provides a detailed account of the Katyn Massacres, the survivors, and the realpolitik consequences of having the Nazis “discovering” the Katyn Forest death pits and blaming the Soviets for this war crime. Because BOOK 5 largely was written before and after Steve’s passing, I feel more attached to it, thus making the necessary cuts and rearrangements more difficult, emotionally. Hence the strained process I went through lasting over week.
Monday 3 June 2024
Began revising BOOK 6, the section focusing on the summer study abroad course King Arthur and I co-taught, bringing several Army cadets to Poland and Russia to study the Katyn Massacres and visit the largest known death pits in Miednoje. Compared to last week’s strenuous revision process working on BOOK 5, I find BOOK 6 so much easier to revise. There are significant cuts I need to make in BOOK 6, but, unlike BOOK 5’s cuts, BOOK 6’s cuts don’t unsettle me. Why?
Omitting the numerous tangents in BOOK 6, thus freeing up space to dive deeper into the “Everest moments” King Arthur insists I must write, I see now—as he does—those cuts may be interesting sidebars, but don’t propel the main story.
Again, my morning revision schedule works quite well. Due to the excessive heat here in New York, Laska decided to sleep longer than usual, thus granting me more morning time to work.
King Arthur was right about offering my descriptions and my admiration for the Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East. This powerful memorial needs more attention from me. I enjoyed adding more written content about it.
Rereading BOOK 6 as I was revising it, I relived those moments. And that is the test—whether the writing can elicit strong emotional reactions from the reader…. Can you “see” and “feel” the experiences being narrated. Emphasize the “Everest moments”!
Tuesday 4 June 2024
Following King Arthur’s guidance on revealing more my emotional state during the aftermath of the attack on the cadet in the Moscow Metro, I revised heavily that section, the so-called “The Dark Night of the Soul” chapter. He recommended I share more fully my doubts. Reveal my decision process ultimately to go to Miednoje. Earlier this year when we discussed the revision plan for this section, he suggested I end the section with a “cliffhanger,” not fully revealing that I had made the decision to go.
What started as a monologue about why I should lead the cadets to Miednoje, became something else…a philosophical debate with an unknown, or unidentified philosopher. In the process of writing, I couldn’t decide who should be that “mysterious voice.”
Only later in the evening, when I resumed revision work, that the idea came to me. After all, the next important section in the narrative was the chapter called “Laying Emerson to Rest.” “Of course, him—Emerson.” It did sound like him during the dialogue with the “mysterious voice.” The insight overwhelmed me, and I almost stopped working on the revision. Sensing a breakthrough, I persevered.
Rereading the Emerson chapter, I realize some of the language sounds stiff and confusing. Instead of correcting the phrasing directly on the computer, I decided to use my old method of handwriting new content and crossing out old content with the pen on a printed-out draft. It felt easier doing it that way. Challenging Emerson (again) was tiring, and I only made it halfway through. Enough! I’ll save it for tomorrow.
Wednesday 5 June 2024
While revising, I rediscovered an earlier insight I wrestled with during the completion of the first draft of the Katyn manuscript: stream of consciousness isn’t a practical or reader-friendly technique. Stream of consciousness is too raw, too private; only the writer understands the jumbled words and phrases. This writing technique may be satisfying to the writer because he’s lived through that experience in which the stream of consciousness is dramatizing. When someone else reads it, confusion—not clarity—emerges.
Before turning in the original manuscript to King Arthur, I warned him some parts of the draft have stream of consciousness moments. His immediate reaction: “uh oh!” While revising the Emerson chapter last night and this morning, I, too reacted, “uh oh!” Stream of consciousness may seem more authentic; however, the reader needs to understand what is being said. There must be some filtering; otherwise, the writing is chaos.
King Arthur’s editorial advice: allow the reader to get in your mind, feel your emotions, but doing so must be handled sensitively but clearly. I don’t want to lose the reader. If the insights or experiences are complicated, simplify them. As a writer, I can be poetic and philosophical, but shouldn’t, mustn’t be esoteric. Hence, revising from the sentence level all the sections that have stream of consciousness content. He’s right I need to cut and rewrite these parts; however, I haven’t yet abandoned the idea of stream of consciousness.
Is there a better way of using the technique of stream of consciousness but make it reader-friendly? Tomorrow I will experiment.
Thursday 6 June 2024
The focus of today’s writing/revision session is EMOTIONS. King Arthur demanded more. He insisted that the reader needs to feel emotionally drained, to suffer alongside me during the critical moments of the summer abroad trip to Russia—to the Katyn Massacres cemetery in Miednoje. Listening to music helps. I realize now I did hold back when writing this chapter last year.
Friday 7 June 2024
Morning headache.
Normally I would have taken the day off from writing; however, I conducted an experiment: write and use the pain of the headache to achieve certain emotional intensity. In the section where I narrate the summer abroad trip with the cadets to Miednoje, King Arthur in his editorial notes stressed that I needed to “show, not tell about” the eeriness of the Miednoje cemetery. There were painful, terrifying moments at the cemetery. And my head is pounding with pain. WRITE! Use the current pain to dramatize the terror I felt while in the cemetery.
Huh! It actually worked. Sure, the writing took longer, but I like what resulted from this writing session. I slowed the pacing in the prose, too. Choosing every word carefully. If I hit a dead-end, I stopped, took a break. Also, while typing, I used different color font to highlight certain lines.
Saturday 8 June 2024
Revised last night’s material, especially when the summer study group arrived at the cemetery. Show the eeriness! Became my mantra. This demand was challenging to accomplish. I found the photo albums from that trip, and studied them, paying attention to details, little things that triggered me to feel that “eeriness.” I know… I might not sound so clear or convincing here; after all, I don’t want to give away everything. That’s the point of the book, of publishing the book eventually. I think the fact that this morning’s writing session drained me is a good indication I’m on the right path of showing, not simply talking about, the eeriness.