Trouble with the Free Fall

I have a copy of a great little book called "Steal like an Artist" by Austin Kleon.  I've now read it over a couple of times and am trying to take his advice.  In essence, his premise is that all art is an exhibition of thievery. Creative originality is putting together all the elements lifted from the ideas and works of others whom you admire and wish to emulate.  This is completely true.  Every character I write is an amalgam of other characters, fictional and real; pieced together like a patchwork quilt.  However, since I am not Margaret Mitchell, no rogue I write will ever be Rhett Butler.  My creation may echo him occasionally, but he will never be the man who waited until the cause of the Confederacy was utterly lost before joining in the fight to save her.  Likewise, I may terribly admire the self-possession and restraint of Jane Austen's Anne Elliot, but I would never have written her romance myself.  If I am skilled enough, I might be able to incorporate something of their spirit into my own characters.  This I understand because we all do it on a personal level.  We see behaviour or character traits we admire in others and we try to recreate them in ourselves.  We are never the same person as the one we wish we were like because we bring our own unique situation and personality to the equation. We imitate because we admire.  We steal from others and make it our own because we recognize something of value.

Where I feel my weakness most as a writer is dialogue. Unquestionably, dialogue.  How to go about stealing it, though? My guess is that the answer is to read and practice.  There are plenty of great novels out there written by writers with a knack for dialogue.  There are wonderfully tight screenplays where the dialogue practically snaps with brilliance and intelligence.  I need to start picking it out and ferreting it away for study.  I need to stare at it long it enough and think about it when I am not thinking so that I can begin to understand what makes it great.

One of the problems that I have while writing dialogue in particular, is that I fail to take W.O Mitchell's advice.  I have trouble with the free fall; which is to say, I have a terrible time not editing as I go along.  Perhaps that is why I worry myself into a different career when I hate my dialogue. (Art auctioneering, etc.)  I recognize the pitfalls of my approach--my failure to steal from his brilliance and experience, as it were.  There is no point finessing sentences if they will have no place in your manuscript later on.  Structure.  Frame.  This is what a first draft attempts to accomplish.  I stretch my first draft until they are completely bent out of shape.  And, every time I think I have a final draft, it still ends up miles away from my so called 'finished product'.   I am currently working on a project that I thought was 95% finished.  I started what I thought would be my final edit.  What an incurable optimist.  It occurred to me today that it might never be done.  There is just so much more work to do.  I take some comfort though, in that thought.  I was listening to a live album of Leonard Cohen on the long drive home from Vancouver  yesterday and I realized that even he apparently felt the need to add to or change some of the tried and true lyrics of his early success.  If he is still editing, I suppose it bodes well for me.  I must steal that trait from him.