Norman Green

WHAT’S YOUR HURRY?

Once upon a time I was a project engineer, and at times the places my projects took me to were not the garden spots of the world. In that profession your focus tends to be, ‘get it built, get it working, get out.’ What I remember most about those times is that every time I showed up at a new project, I walked into chaos. Nothing worked, the contractors were all worried about getting their money (or getting sued), the customer, normally a large corporation, was suffering from a serious case of buyer’s remorse, and the customer’s project engineer was usually sweating his job, if not his career. My approach was to pick out one thing that didn’t work and fix it. It didn’t make any difference what it was, even something like the machine room exhaust fans. Hey, they didn’t work yesterday, now they do. Now what’s next?

The years I spent in that environment developed in me certain traits that helped to keep me sane. I got good at tolerating chaos and insanity, at working under pressure, and my ego developed a hard shell so that I didn’t really care too much about the slings and arrows that came my way, at least until the thing got finished and began producing frozen pizzas or whatever. Toward the end of any project, my life would more or less be ruled by my punch list, which was a compendium of complaints and issues I had to resolve before the customer would sign off on the deal and I could go home. The last, say, five percent of the way, all I could think about was getting done, getting out, getting to the next one.

It’s a wonder I’m still here.

In any event, I think the project engineer’s mindset has infected my writing process, at least to a degree. The beginning of any project is chaotic and I don’t have a problem with that, out of chaos, brilliant stars are born, so says the I Ching and I believe there’s something to it. Hey, we’re just getting started, anything is possible, I’m really gonna nail this one, this one is gonna be the ish, baby…

All fine, so far.

Toward the end of the process, though, the project engineer butts in and his influence is not always constructive. Maybe my manuscript is pretty well developed, but I’ve got my punch list (my agent or editor has given me a list of complaints), and all of a sudden I’m in a big hurry to get everything knocked off so I can get on with whatever is next…

Not good. What’s your hurry, Greenie?

I am in the final phases of my current project, which I am calling ‘Benbow Street Shakedown.’ I already sat down with my agent and we talked over our respective impressions of the story as it was and I walked out of that meeting with a list of suggested changes.  Just fix A, B, C, and D…

My punch list. Yeah, I thought, I can knock these out in no time.

I didn’t do it, though. This time, I sat on it for a couple of weeks. That is very unusual for me, I tend to be pretty goal-oriented, c’mon, man, let’s get this DONE… Na-ah. This time I looked at the whole thing from a different place. I wanted to think about what my focus on getting to the finish line might have cost me. In my rush to tell this story, which characters got short-changed? Who needs more face time? Have I made things clear enough, have I showed you my imagination’s colors, have I left you room so your imagination can do the same?

I think one of my problems as a writer is that I am too focused on finishing. I have to admit that I spent much of my life with one eye on the exit door, and even if I don’t do that any more, I am still too ready to hit the bricks and head for whatever’s next. A book, though, is not a machine and there is no quantifiable end point. You cannot count the frozen pizzas coming out of the machine and declare it (and yourself), having hit your targets, to be done. You could actually make the argument that a book is never really finished at all, that a painting is never finished, a movie is never done, in the can, give me my check I’m leaving. I would be willing to bet that most writers, painters, directors, when viewing their past work, think most of all of what they would still change.

So how do I know when I’m done? I don’t know if I have an answer for that.

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