Tag: It Begins

A Storm of Words

A storm of words struck. Three thousand, thirty-one hundred more were added when I’d finished after typing and revising, but that was it. The muses said, “It’s done. Type, the end.”

Really? It’s done?

Well, no. Writers know that more remains after typing the end on a draft. Like having a baby, delivery is just another step in the process. There’s the afterbirth and then, life.

(And yeah, writing a novel isn’t as painful as childbirth. I know it’s a weak simile. The point isn’t about pain, but process.)

There’s uncertainty, finishing a novel, for me. Officially, this is the fourth draft. Unofficially, many parts of it were written multiple times, worked and reworked, trying to mold it into something that follows the three c’s: comprehensible, compelling, and coherent. I don’t know if I succeeded. I’m flush with the emptiness of finishing and the uncertainty of what I’ve finished. I’ll need to re-work all of this tomorrow that was done today; that’s my practice. Then I’ll go back to the start and begin again, reading, reviewing, revising, looking for holes, confusion, and weaknesses. Many likely abound.

I like the characters. They’ve been good to me. I’ll miss them, if this is done. I’ll miss their voices saying, “And then I say this and think that and did this, and then that happened to me.”

Looking back on a couple posts that I wrote about the process, it’s fun to note how cracking some aspect of it seemed more satisfying than finishing writing it. It sort of makes sense, as writing a novel, for me, is a puzzle to be solved. Working on it is the challenge. Finishing it means that the challenge is done.

As always, writing a novel has been an entertaining experience. I want others to read and enjoy it. I want it to challenge their thinking as it challenged mine, and to provide them an escape as it has provided me. That’s a whole other process, getting it out there where others can enjoy it. That’s a more daunting challenge.

Final counts. Time – started November 1st, 2019, finished March 1st, 2020. Wrote almost every day, as I was forced to take time off for holidays and illness. One hundred eighteen thousand words, three hundred ninety pages, and uncounted hours of thought.

Yes, and final working title (who knows if it’ll hold?): Other Moments, Different Times, a speculative novel about life and memory, with science fiction nuances.

The coffee cup is empty but the coffee shop has become noisy with socializing and music. It’s cold outside, despite the sunshine, but it’s time to walk and reflect, time to stop another day of writing like crazy, at least one more time.

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Tension

Have found a better working title that I’m using on the novel in progress. It pleases me and hopefully fits. I’ve checked, and it’s available.

Meanwhile, I deleted a large chunk of previously written chapters, including the original ending. That ending no longer fit as first, my understanding of the concept evolved, and then my understanding of the characters and the story expanded.

Looking back, I see how involved I became in understanding the concept during the first draft. Understanding it consumed me to the detriment of the story. The characters evolved, but the story stalled.

In the second draft, I attempted multiple ways to clarify and sharpen the story. First was to expand some roles. When that didn’t work, I took all of that away. That worked better. Encouraged, I chopped more of that aspect away. That completely worked. The story came into much sharper focus.

I invested a great deal of thinking about the story and tehe concept at that point, and came to realize that what I’d learned from the concept was being misapplied in the story. In other words, the story wasn’t about what I originally thought.

Encouraged again, I kept on, but had to keep reminding myself of what the story was about vice what the concept was about. That caused a certain duality of thought and approach.

Fortunately, when I entered into a character’s skin and wrote in their voice, they had a deeper understanding of how the story was to advance versus what the concept is about.

As I’ve entered writing the final chapters, I’ve needed to draw up to think deeply about how it all ties together. Then I began writing at a furious gallop. Because this is the climax of so many story lines and arcs, it all began hugely tense. Typing in deep concentration, I had to stop and rock (and, weirdly, wring my hands together), or get up and walk around to release tension, or stop, close my eyes, and breath deeply. I found I could rarely type in more than ten minute bursts. The bursts left me feeling exhausted, forcing me to pause, regroup, and then press on. Meanwhile, my muscles and nerves strum with tension.

Closed to finishing then? Doubtful. I’ll get this raw stuff out of me. Then the holes will leap up, along with continuity and logic issues. Once they’re fixed, there will probably be pacing matters to attend.

In many ways, this final process reminds me of practicing and practicing, preparing for something. Then, finally, the moment arrives when it’s time to put the practice aside, take the stage, and make it happen. Writing this final piece of novel has that same sort of butterflies as acting (did that in high school plays), making a speech, playing in a big sports game, or making a major presentation. The tension just feels immense.

I don’t have all the answers. A lot of work remains. Days sometimes feel fantastic and exciting; other times, I despair. Many times, I’m reminded of the loneliness of this fiction writing business. It’s like being in a dinghy out on the vast ocean.

But overall, yeah, there’s exciting progress.

Butt is sore from sitting (yes, I have writer’s butt, once again), and the coffee is gone. Time to stop writing like crazy, tear myself out of that state of mind, and go back into the world and fulfill life’s mundane expectations.

Onward.

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Three Months

It’s taken me three months to figure out this story.

Three months, four hundred manuscript pages, and one hundred fifty thousand damn words.

Now I think I have a handle on it. Of course that excites me.

(I also pause to think about the writing process and volume. Is four hundred pages and one hundred K words normal or standard? Is there such a thing? I started on 1 November last year, and here I am, a few days after 1 Feb of the next year (with time off for illness, holidays and good behavior). It’s odd, because it doesn’t seem like I’ve been doing much writing, just a few hours each day of vacuous sitting at the keyboard, but here I am.)

It’s the novel-writing rhythm, innit? Think, burst into flame with the brilliance of a new idea (or insight, aspect, whatev), jump to the medium (notebook and pen, notebook ‘puter, laptop, crayons on construction paper, again, whatever), and write with excitement and intensity until you flounder like a man on the can without any toilet paper (yeah, oh, no). Then think long, hard, and deeply (often while sipping tea or coffee) (or taking walks or doing dishes) until boom, the mini-process begins afresh.

In this case, I had a handle on eight of the ten main characters (after wrestling with one and getting thrown to the mat by them several times), but the other two continued vexing me. Those damn muses — that’s right, I cursed them, I’m not afraid of no muse — weren’t helping. (They seemed, in fact, to be hiding and not answering their phones.)

But once again, after editing and revising (and deeply pondering the distant mountains while draining the last dregs of cold coffee, and watching people walking by, people who seemed happier and more carefree than me) (well, some of them did) (like, that guy doesn’t, and that one), and then walking, driving, shopping, sleeping, reading, and thinking, thinking, thinking, when I took up the writing again, aha, there it is. 

Joy! Eureka! Etc. Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t writing fun?

I did my thing and did my writing, revising, writing, editing, etc., and it all seemed so terrific. I still don’t have it all fully figured out, and proceed cautiously (and hopefully). (But then again, that’s today.) But, yeah, good day of writing like crazy.

Time to turn it off and do something else before it makes me crazy, ya’ know?

 

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Not Necessarily

Is three times a charm? Not necessarily when novel writing.

I’m into draft number three of the current novel in progress (NIP). I call it number three, but I’ve rewritten and rearranged the first five pages about one billion times, and do the same for the first fifty pages at least six million times.

Fast writer, aren’t I?

I suspect those numbers are exaggerations for effect, although it seems like they’re true. I know of some days when I undid when I did he previous day. Makes me think of the novel blues.

I woke up this morning with a gleam in my eye.

Had a masterpiece in my head, I will not tell a lie.

Rushed to the keyboard, to get it all down,

then the muses abandoned me, made me feel like a clown.

Oh, yeah, I have the stumbling through the story, struggling novelist blues.

And if you wrote like me, you’d probably be sufferin’ them too.

Come on, sing along as you write.

As with everything writing, I remain mostly passionate and hopeful, depending upon the hour, day of the week, which way the wind is blowing, and other important portends such as a crow cawing from the top of a tree.

Got my coffee. Time to continue writing like crazy.

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Didn’t Finish

I didn’t finish writing the first draft of It Begins. (BTW, I’ve come to despise that title, even for a working doc. It was always meant to be short-termed. I keep waiting for the real thing to pop up.)

Disgust, anger, irritation, and frustration all stopped me from finishing the first draft. This wasn’t working, it wasn’t what I’d envisioned (or anywhere near it) and more, it wasn’t satisfying, winning a prolonged grrrrr from deep in my throat.

WTH and WTF? I kept trying to write around the issue. What was it disturbing me? Didn’t like that beginning, so I added shit. Didn’t like that, so I took it away again. Rearranged chapters. Deleted story lines.

None hit the magic g-spot. Exasperation hounded me like a hungry cat. Finally, and at last, as I was in the bathroom, a huge freakin’ epiphany struck.

First, I want to note that a much of my best epiphanies arrive in the morning while I’m doing my washing, shaving, and dressing. I think that’s because the tedium of routine permits my brain to enter a prolonged idle. The stream of thought calms and new items percolate in.

The second strike of intrigue came as I walked, thought, and then started writing. The epiphany showed me that I was pursuing the wrong tack. But as I reviewed what I’d written in the first takes compared to what I thought that I was writing about, it seemed that my subconscious (through the vessels called muses) was pursuing the correct direction while my conscious mind slaved in the wrong direction.

I’d been thinking that I needed clarity. That’s what I’d been hunting, not a problem with the writing, but clarity about the story that I was trying to tell. Now it feels like clarity has been found.

Hope so, but you know, like many things, a victory is achieved on one day, but the same work is required on another. Which was what I think all my writing efforts demonstrated: I knew something was off, and tried writing through it to a solution. In a roundabout way, that’s what happened as the effort helped my thought process. Guess that’s what fiction writing is about, in the end.

Once my clarify was delivered, I felt like I was suddenly shifting into a new, unknown writing gear. Not surprising, right? That’s what happens when you overcome an obstacle.

Done writing like crazy for the day. Off to other adventures. Cheers

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Moving Targets

Quick updates on the writing and submitting fronts.

  1. I’d originally hoped to complete It Begins by January 15th. I’d begun it on November first. Writing had progressed to the point that I really thought I had a chance to finish it by the end of 2019. Now, though, I think it’s more realistic to believe that I’ll finish it by the end of January. Fingers crossed.
  2. More dismaying, I had a target of three hundred pages for the first draft. I’m on page 292, and I can see that it’ll be more than three hundred pages. I’m hopeful that I’ll finish it with less than three hundred fifty pages. I can then edit it down.
  3. I responded to the agents who requested more material on the last novel, April Showers 1921. After I finished editing it in October, I’d submitted it to agents. I’ve had some response but, knowing how long it is before one says yes or no, I decided to submit to more agents. I kicked it out to ten more. I have good feelings about several of the agents, but I tend to be an optimist.

Those are the main things. For background, the completion target of January 15th was simply a spur of the moment decision, a whim to provide focus, grab my attention, and stimulate my discipline. It seems to be working.

The page count was a more practical matter. I tend to write long books (or books that turn into a series of books). April Showers 1921 is six hundred pages and one hundred eighty thousand words. Incomplete States, the series that I completed at the end of 2018, is five novels and four hundred twenty-eight thousand words. I felt like I needed to write something smaller.

It was another excellent day of writing like crazy. Let me give credit to the muses; I couldn’t do it without them.

About the only detail that marred it was that I had to work at a counter in the coffee shop, sitting on a stool. I don’t like sitting on stools. Nothing personal against stools, but I can’t get comfortable on them. Due to that, I ended up standing for most of the writing session. Now my dogs are barking (an expression that I’ve always enjoyed).

Time to call it a day. One, there are other things to do. Two, the coffee cup is empty. Three, I’m very hungry.

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Humaverse

“Listen,” she said. “It’s very simple.”

Although she was a little girl (four, I’d guess, and then remembered, oh, yeah, she told me that before, she is four) with a high-pitched voice, her tone carried a judge’s authority.

“I’m listening,” I said, injecting a hint of jocularity.

My hint gained me an eye-roll. “We remain in a humaverse. It’s only the timeverse that’s changed.”

I conjured up more questions. She stilled them with a small rosy palm.

“Stop. I know what you’ll ask,” she said. “The humaverse is the universe as humans perceive it.”

I pursed my lips to issue another question but faced the all-powerful palm again.

Eyebrows going up, she tilted her head. She did that often, resembling a small dark-haired, white parakeet when she did. “I’ve been through this before. Let me finish. Humans have certain perceptions and observations that create agreed and accepted preconceptions about how everything is supposed to work, like gravity, time, and light, for instance. I’m talking classic physics, of course. Light travels at cee. Gravity is a force that causes bodies to be attracted to one another, as Newton expressed in the most commonly accepted explanation in this humaverse. Time flows from the past to the future and can’t be revisited. Well, it can but you need to shed preconceptions to make that work. Most people can’t.”

Her glance lashed me. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure that you can’t.”

“Hey, that’s — ”

“Excuse me, I’m not finished. So, that’s why it’s called the humaverse. It’s the universe as humans define it. Others can use it, though, but they’re not usually limited by the humaverse’s laws. It depends.”

“Okay.” It depended on what? “And a timeverse?”

“A timeverse is an agreed upon reality within a humaverse based on the constraints and parameters established by the results from major events of a specific time-period, as humans think it happened.”

“Like…who won world war two.”

“Everyone always brings that one up.” She sounded mystified. “That, and Jesus of Nazareth. But, yes. There are many timeverses. Some people call them alterverses, but they’re not really. To be a true alterverse, enough residual chi-energy to change humaverse rules must be present. I’m talking about classic physics, of course.”

“Of course.” Like I knew, but I didn’t want another eyeroll. If her eyes were weapons… “So…there can be more than one humaverse?”

“Of course. Now we’re wasting time. Yellow will be coming after us. Let’s go.”

Swinging around, she marched off. “Adults,” she said. I wasn’t sure if she talked to herself, me, or someone else. All were possible with this child. “They can learn if they can just forget.”

As I hurried to catch up with her, I thought with cynical amusement, I never will.

1

Primed

Yesterday was a particularly intense writing day. I added twelve pages (and edited multiple sections), shunning other activities to stay in the tube. Ran out of coffee; butt went completely numb. A friend later said, “I saw you at the coffee shop writing. You were so intense, I think you were scaring people. I sure as heck didn’t want to disturb you.”

Yes, twelve new pages are a lot for me to accomplish in one day. My sessions generally top out at five to six. More, though, after ‘finishing’ writing for the day, the muses continued feeding me pieces of story, scene, and characters. Getting in here today, words fill my pathways, ready to find the page, a fantastic feeling.

I’ll write today but not tomorrow (damn coffee shop is closed for some holiday, can you believe it?), and then resume Thursday. I thought, hopefully I won’t lose momentum, and then shrugged that off. Momentum comes and go. Long as I keep putting my ass in a chair and turning on the computer in front of me, progression will continue, not always as a deluge or a storm, but at least at a gentle trickle.

I started this project on November first. I’m at two hundred fifty pages (71,000 words). My goal is to limit it to a three-hundred page draft, and I think that’s within reach. Of course, I have to laugh at myself (and my muses), as sequels (and tangents) have leaped into my imagination stream.

Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

Cheers

2

Boom Days

Boom days are here. I’ve had four or five great writing days in a row. The muses have arrived on time and sober each day and fed me the tale, sharing character details, pointing out the story arc and plot lines like they’re good friends. They’ve been amazingly generous…so far.

Ah, good times. One hundred pages are completed, twenty-seven thousand words, on It Begins, the novel-in-progress begun at the beginning of this month. I know, doesn’t sound like much, but this is the foundation stage. Once things are established, the story starts flowing more quickly. Ten main characters have been introduced. Think of it as And Then There Were None, but in reverse.

Having multiple main characters with separate points of view and varying story arcs complicates matters a little. I solved that (for now, at least, as it’s working) by focusing on one or two characters, writing their scenes until they reach a major plot pivot point where the first three characters stopped. Today, I continue to focus on Selena, the four-year-old. She amazes and surprises me.

I’ll take the boom times. I know from my experience that there will be bust days sooner or later, forcing to take a deep sigh and a long swallow of coffee, gird myself with grit teeth, sit down and type, damn it.

But for now, all is well.

Meanwhile, I’ve not heard anything from agents on my previous offering, April Showers 1921. Three expressed interest a few weeks ago and requested more material. That was sent. Now I wait. Is longer time of waiting good or bad? It’s a Schrödinger situation, innit?

Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

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Fast Start

I love starting a new project. I love the energy that comes with a new writing project. Energizing and freeing, it’s like I’m taking on a new life.

Nothing — I mean, writing projects — ever really starts easily for me, but then, if I can find and dislodge the right piece of idea, it all starts crashing down in an avalanche of story and characters. This is my third day of working on my new novel, working title, It Begins. The first two days were sputtering efforts. I’m a pantser, so I’d muddled some concepts, characters, and settings together. I managed about a thousand words on each day, but they were gritty writing sessions, real plodders. In today’s session, I managed to dislodge the right little piece, and the rest crashed in. All I could do was hang on and type fast. After an hour of that, I’d added over fourteen pages and thirty-three hundred words. Then I stopped and created the book’s bible so that I could keep track of everything.

Now, I’m depleted and hungry. Half a cup of cold coffee remains. As usual, writer ass afflicts me, and both buns feel like they’ve gone to sleep. Time to walk, wind down, think about the next piece of story, and find food.

It’s been a good day of writing like crazy.

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