Revising,not Writing, Maketh a Writer

Thematingseason

"As the days went by, these unsettled outlooks became more unsettled, those V-shaped depressions even V-er.  It was on a Friday that I clocked in at Deverill Hall.  By the morning of Tuesday I could no longer conceal it from myself that I was losing the old pep and that, unless the clouds changed their act and started dishing out at an early date a consierably more substantial slab of silver lining than they were coming across with at the moment, I should soon be definitely down among the wine and spirits."

I don't claim to be an expert writer, but writer I am by profession, by virtue of which I once gave a lecture to some kids in college about what constitutes science witing and what are the must-dos and  dare-not-dos of science writing.  The above paragraph that starts chapter 10 of The Mating Season by P.G. Wodehouse violates every single "rule" I layed out to the students - never write long sentences, never use too many clauses and phrases in the same sentence, always use active voice, do not use platitudes and adjectives that do not qualify the noun objectively, to name a few. My heart should ideally bleed at the total disdain for my rules.  Yet, every book by PGW I re-read for the teenth time since adolescence makes me love them more.  The easy flow of language, the exaggerated use of unexpectedly apt words, the complex sentences that take a couple of reads to untangle and understand, and the intricate plot that involves knots within knots that are unravelled beautifully - I am yet to read another humour writer who has appealed to me as much as PGW. 

As tempting it may be to believe that PGW is a genius whose writing just happens by chance,  a read of his last, unfinished novel Sunset at Blandings proves otherwise.  It is surprising to know that PGW starts his novels with only a semblence of a half-baked plot, and writes up the bare skeleton of the story, berefit of language sophistication, satire and the tongue-in-cheek that is so characteristic of him. It reads rather like a poor story by a wannabe writer without any talent. I believe that all his novels start this way. And yet, after many many revisions (I read somewhere that each novel goes through 14-20 revisions before it goes to print) the half-baked boring story metamorphoses into the side splitting, one-of-a-kind stories that bring Bertie or Bladndings castle in front of your eye..

I am typing up this post on my husband's micro-mini HCL tablet PC, where my fingers don't fly like they do in my safe and trusted monster of a desktop computer, and I can wager that I would post it without a single re-read.  I have a long way to go to even aspire to write like my hero.