Booksquare

There is something comforting about writing a novel in secret. Nobody knows how often you trash the entire thing and start over. Nobody sees all your blips and bleeps and complete screw-ups. It’s a very nice feeling, this freedom.

A while back, we brought Greg Sandow to your attention — he’s the guy who’s writing his book in public (well, on the internet; presumably that still public). While Greg’s subject, the future of classical music, is not the stuff of fiction, his process will be familiar to all. Including the part where he’s starting over:

(This is the first episode of my second version of this book on the future of classical music. It’s the beginning of the introduction to the book. Like the older episodes, it’s an improvised first draft, and will very likely be revised, maybe extensively revised. But I trust it’s a draft of something tighter and more focused than the last version — a draft of a book that starts by asking (much more directly than the first version ever did) what’s wrong with classical music, and then goes on to say how I think the problems might be fixed. See the outline at the left for more details.)

• Book 2.0, Episode 1: Starting Again