Tag: novel writing

Assignments

Getting ready to write begins with walking, in my routine. This is when I’m preparing to make the physical transition and focus energy. As my wife has observed, “You’re always writing, aren’t you?”

Yes, the writer(s) within rarely sleeps. He/she/they – we’re not sure of Writersville’s precise population – are always busy. Every sensory, mental, or emotional input can play a role in triggering ideas. Some ideas directly pertain to works in progress. Other inputs spill into a massive mental junk drawer for possible later use.

Splash writing gets the most attention. Something splashes in, and I write it out in my head. Later, I sit down and type it out.

I like writing in the late morning or early afternoon, and typically leave the house about ten to ten thirty in the morning.  My writing period, of sitting at the computer and typing, is not long. This is exactly how I’ve worked all my life, thinking long about things that I need to do and then using intense, short periods to execute. I usually write for about ninety minutes. Output isn’t huge, a thousand to three thousand words. My norm is sixteen hundred words or so. Back when word counts were measurements of progress, I counted. I no longer count, but I have an awareness, probably due to habit and repetition, of how many words I’ve done.

When I start walking, I put away thoughts of life problems, plans and issues, and turn to writing. That generally takes about eight minutes. This, along with the weather and other plans, dictates how long I’ll walk before writing. My preference is to walk at least ten minutes, but I’ll also use my Fitbit to decide how long I’ll walk. More recently, I’ve taken to walking about two miles before writing, so my walking and exercise is spread more evenly across the day.

But this is about writing, not exercising, and how I prepare to write. Sometimes, what I’m planning to write is more involved, requiring deeper, more prolonged thinking. So more time as I walk will be spent on it. But perhaps eighty percent of the time, I know what I’m going to write. For that other percent, maybe fifteen percent will come from the unfolding process that I sometimes employ once I sit down.

Finally, there’s that less four to five percent that’s a greater struggle. On those days, I’ve found it best to put the writers to sleep. Give them the assignment, and tell them to come back to me when I have something.

Then I walk. I stream music in my head. Note changes to the town, and the weather. Drift through thoughts and observations about lives and bumper stickers, or think about other novel concepts in progress. I’ll think about catfinitions, and possible blog posts.

Doing this today, I thought about how much the process really is like a teacher or manager giving out assignments, and then taking up the results later. Freeing mental energy by engaging in mundane issues and matters, or larger problems about which I can do little, frees the writers to use that mental energy and write. Then, sitting down, I’m generally well-prepared to begin. Well, eighty percent of the time.

The trick to all of this was that I’ve learned to be flexible about my approach, because I know more than one way will work. Deviations are acceptable. Even not writing, but thinking about writing, is acceptable, although it’s accepted with a grimace. Fortunately, that probably happens less than one percent of the time. In other words, of one hundred times sitting down to write, I’ll not actually write one time. And that’s cool; it’s not a reason to panic or to be afraid that I won’t or can’t write.

All this is evolved from those first efforts of sitting down with a notebook and pen, and mumbling to myself, “What can I write? What can I write?” The evolution has been helped greatly by the insights others provided, like Annie Lamott, Natalie Goldberg, Orson Scott Card, Stephen King, Damon Knight, and Elmore Leonard, and a plethora of blog posts and articles. Part of this, too, comes from understanding that my writing is a weaving process. Little of what I first write is how it appears in final form. That doesn’t matter, either, so long as I reach a point where I tell myself, “Fini.”

The other part of my process is that I like to have a cup of coffee or coffee drink when I write. Oddly, I’ll drink a quarter to a third of the cup in the initial writing session, and then the beverage will be forgotten until that point when I think I’m done for the day. Then I’ll pick up the cold cup and drink the cold beverage while I reflect about what I’ve done and what will come next. Drinking cold coffee disgusts my wife, but it doesn’t bother me at all.

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

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Side-tracked

You ever get side-tracked in your writing progress by reading what you’ve already written in your draft (or beta), becoming bewitched by the story that’s already done?

Yeah, it’s sort of a love/hate thing, isn’t it? Love it because, hey, this is your child, and it seems pretty damn good, even if you’re the proud parent. Hate it because, damn it, I need to write more right now.

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The Movie Dream

I dreamed last night people were watching one of my novels from the trilogy in progress. I wasn’t certain if it was on television or at the movies. I could see and hear scenes, and see people, including me, watching them.

Conversely, after waking and thinking about it, I wondered if that was how my novel is delivered to my brain: as a movie that exists somewhere else that I’m watching and recording. I suspected that idea because some of what I saw seemed new to me. I was enjoying it and wowed.

Whichever and whatever it was, definitely time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

See you at the movies.

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Stalling

I was stalling this morning. I knew what I wanted to write. Several scenes were queued in the writing stream, ready for release.

But I was stalling. Why? I like to think I was limbering myself. So I checked news, stocks, sports, weather…idling my writing mind, passing time…ahem, stalling. 

I know some of the stalling was due to uncertainty. While I knew these scenes, I wrestled with another aspect of the trilogy. That sort of excursion always slows me, no matter what project I’m working

My stalling ended abruptly with one line that I read:

“Browns find out how far down the rabbit hole goes”

A new angle of dialogue and thought were ignited. Like that, I went from stalling to impatiently writing.

Then I paused to write about it and share it with you.

I asked myself about that: why was I posting about it? But writing’s point for me it to help me think about what I was doing, and why I was doing it. I spare you deeper words and insights, because I’m writing for me, and doing just enough to unleash my thinking.

Okay, time to write like crazy, at least one more time, even if it is a new year.

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The Pacing

So here I am, forced to pace around the coffee shop again, because I can’t keep up with the speed of thinking and typing. Words are firing at me like a Gatling gun is at work.

I’m writing the third book of the Incomplete States trilogy, and I love its direction, but then my mind snaps back to book two, and I think, I need to add this, this, and this to book two.

That’s when I’m set into pacing in an effort to separate thinking about the two books, and organize thoughts and define changes to the plots and arcs. I catch glimpses. That’s sufficient for now, because I know that I can walk away, and let my brain work on it, and when I come back, it’ll provide answers and directions about what I need to do and how to go about it

Now, though, done. Spent. I want to keep writing, but I understand that I must balance that enjoyment and activity with the rest of living and being. So, time to stop writing like crazy.

For now.

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Beta Chapter

A chapter was ‘completed’ yesterday. It was one of five chapters in progress in this portion of telling the story. I often work like this, because events happen in parallel, or results from one chapter affect the others.

Finishing the chapter, I didn’t think of it as a first draft as much as I thought of it as an alpha version. Playing with that idea, I decided a chapter isn’t a draft until the whole novel is completed as a draft. Beta is better, because it’s pretty complete, but subject to other possible changes, unknown at the point of first completion, because I’m an organic writer, and I don’t know what else is going to happen. Things that happen later can often force changes to chapters and scenes already written.

Calling it beta is something that just came to be yesterday, stolen from the software development world. Once I completed that chapter, I walked around, mumbling to myself, “Now what? What comes next?” I had no idea. The chapter was done, a pivot point established, and I no clue where it was pivoting to. Yes, I know the book’s ending, and how the trilogy ends, but that’s like saying that you know what a country is like because you know the country’s shape.

Coming in to write this morning, I still didn’t know was to happen. Walking, I distracted myself by thinking of other things, like cryptocurrency and politics. Then pop –

Write this. This will demonstrate that. Then write this, and this, and this.

Suddenly I had a chain of beginnings and kernels of scenes. Computer fired up, coffee swallowed, I bent my head and typed streams of words. New alpha chapters were started. One of them reached beta. Even as I wrote them, I saw another pivot developing, but could not quite see how it all fit together. But, as I’ve learned, it’s best for me not to worry myself about it, but just to write to it. Writing to it will take carry me forward as needed. I don’t seem to consciously understand what’s happening, but on some sub-conscious level, the words and scenes are all known, like the book is already written somewhere else, and I’m just opening the pages and copying them.

Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But it works. I’ll take it.

It’s odd, but I want to keep writing because it’s been fun and productive, and I feel like I’m riding a terrific wave, yet, my writer’s sense is telling me to stop. So, I’ll acquiesce to that voice.

Great day of writing like crazy. Time to go eat lunch.

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Arrows & Cut-ups

After writing and editing yesterday, I came across an article about the book, “The Naked Lunch”. It’d been decades since I read it, so I researched it to refresh my recollections. And I was curious about how the Beat Generation came to have that name, so I looked it up.

Before that, I’d been thinking about how my “Incomplete States” trilogy reminds me of “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant,” mostly on a reflection of the complexity and patience required to read through and develop the plot. Then, reading about Burroughs, I found descriptions of the “cut-up technique,” and that struck home with my trilogy’s structure. I don’t use a full cut-up technique of slicing two separate pages and combining them down the middle, but the vignettes – “routines,” as Burroughs called them when discussing “The Naked Lunch” – works as a beginning to explain my trilogy’s structure. My trilogy is a cut-up of lives and routines.

And of course, there’s a little bit of “The Chronicles of Amber” in here, too, and some “Foundation.”

After that thinking, as I wound down for the day, I played with my arrows of time again, creating and labeling new diagrams based on the original diagrams. That was a reassuring exercise, reminding me about time’s fluid nature, and the basic assumptions I used as the trilogy’s concept. The reassurance was needed because I’d veered toward panic about some decisions made when finishing the first novel. I want to be true to my vision, and not mislead readers, and I was afraid that I’d gone astray.

In the end, I felt satisfied that I hadn’t. Maybe I was just rationalizing that to myself. More likely, the stab of anxiety is a natural reflection of the challenge of coping with the trilogy’s complexity.

Onward. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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After the Fun

I’m at that point with the first novel in the “Incomplete States” trilogy that I’m almost finished. 

Finished is as relative a term as happy. I’m finishing with the fun part of the novel, the writing process. Once the entire trilogy is completed, I’ll need to endure the work processes of having it edited, cover design, and the other accoutrements to publishing it as a finished work. It all reminds me a quote.

“I love being a writer, what I can’t stand is the paperwork.” ~ Peter De Vries

That about sums it up. I love discovering the labyrinths of logic and plot as I stalk characters from the story’s beginning to its end, although it sometimes feel like the characters are stalking me. Yes, there is satisfaction in capturing it all on paper on on a computer; capturing the words help me more fully develop what the characters are seeing and experiencing, and allows a fuller enjoyment.

But the paperwork also includes editing and re-wording, polishing and refining. I’ve learned to enjoy those aspects more, but I’d rather be writing. So ponying up to the computer to finish writing this tome is not that exciting. I know that I’m just finishing a phase of creating a novel and trilogy. More work is required.

Realization that finishing the first draft is nigh reminds me that I don’t have a celebration ritual. I don’t smoke a cigarette or sip a glass of champagne, or throw a party. Other than, “Yea, me!” posts like this, I don’t say anything to anyone in particular. If someone happens to ask, “What have you been doing?”, I might say, “Finished the first draft of a novel this week.” They usually respond, “That’s terrific. What’s it about?” “Well, shit, why don’t you write it and find out?”, I don’t say. I sort of mentally shrug, smile, and present a label. “It’s science fiction.”

I have studied touchdown dances to see if any of those will work. I’m not a demonstrative person, though. I prefer lurking under the surface like a crocodile, only coming out when forced by necessity. Lurking creates less social and emotional entanglements.

Playing with these thoughts more deeply, I conclude writers and other artists, like musicians and actors, might understand my state of mind. I think this because I think they more fully comprehend the process and the unsaid trappings beneath the process. Many people I meet either oversimplify what it takes to write and publish a novel and shrug it off as “No big deal,” unless you’re a name, or they gush too much about what an accomplishment it is. That renders me uneasy. Yes, I recognize the incongruity and paradox inherent in my state. Writers are more likely to just say, “Congratulations! Well done!” And that pleases me most.

What about all of you other writers out there? How do you celebrate — or react, or behave — when you finish the novel’s first draft? 

Okay, time to get going and finish this beast. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

 

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Writing Weight

I have my coffee, and know my mission. I’m in position, and yet, I hesitate.

I know this neighborhood. Been here before.

It’s a big chapter I’m about to begin, a tipping point, the climax to this novel, and the setup to pivot to the next one. I’ve been thinking about this chapter and its scenes for weeks without writing anything, building all the bridges to it, and expanding and clarifying my vision of it. I hesitate to start it today because, it’s a big chapter, an important chapter. Looking into my magic writing mirror, I see a lot of hard work in it.

We have found the crux. I think of writing as fun and entertaining, a diversion from the mundane. The most mundane slice of life to me is the wedge we call work. Work is how I’ve come to see this chapter, so I’m avoiding it.

I’m also avoiding it because I expect so much of it for the rest of the novel. As written before this, I’ve burdened this chapter with a lot of weight. My ambitions, self-confidence, and determination all sag under that weight. That pesky question, can I do it, festers in my mind.

I think many writers go through this. I think this is where some crumble. This is like the big show because, hey, the novel’s end is in sight. Yowza. The end naturally carries greater significance and tension. This is the final exam, the championship game, the big moment. Everything else has led to this point. All these threads must be tied together. I began this manuscript in July of twenty sixteen. A lot of work, and energy went into creating this manuscript.

No, not true. I started this trilogy in July of twenty sixteen, and wrote the first novel, which is the second book in the series. That took from July of last year to September of twenty seventeen. I didn’t start the novel I’m finishing now until October of twenty-seventeen. That was less than three months ago, as I started it on October tenth. So, its three hundred-ninety pages and one hundred thousand words were quickly written.

As is often the case, I started writing in the middle of the tale I’m telling. I seized upon a concept, and visualized settings, characters, and action, and began. Then I approached the logic and the arcs. The answer to why appears a lot as I’m writing in that phase. In trying to answer the question, I figure out that I’ve started in the middle.

That doesn’t bother me. As long as I find a starting point and can create a beginning and an end to the novel or series, where I begin writing is immaterial. I suspect, too, that I’ll end up with several chapters from this one visualize. That’s the nature of my writing process.

And it’s funny. I’ve been through this before. Yeah, I know this neighborhood. I’ve written and finished nine, ten novels? Yet, I still experience this process. It’s fresh every time.

Okay, I’ve unburdened myself. Writing about my fears and doubts, and where I’m at, have again released them, carrying me to the point that I’m ready to write.

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

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