Raymond Said
Baking the Novel
First, decide you’re going to bake a cake (write a novel). To start, make a cup of coffee to drink while you conceptualize what you’re going to bake (write).
Come up with a story idea from your concept. Collect some ingredients – characters, setting, initial incident. Start mixing them together (writing).
Realize that you’re missing some ingredients (like motivation, background, and other characters). Make some coffee and hunt for the missing ingredients.
Coming up with the missing ingredients, you add them in, and then decide to make something different (a variation of the concept that just blows your mind with excitement).
Find and add more ingredients (setting, characters, motivation, story twists).
Realize that you forgot to turn the stove on (yeah, you overlooked some huge aspect and now have a gap in the story).
Go to turn on the stove but then stop to pet the cat, and then feed the cat. Smell the kitty litter, and clean it. Also notice that the floor is dirty. Turn on the robot vacuum.
Monitor the robot vacuum, cursing it as it goes around and around a piece of dirt you want it to pick up that you refuse to pick up because that’s why you have a robot sweeper.
Decide to check the mail to get away from the madness. Come back and make coffee, go through the mail (why do they keep sending you this junk?) and also look for something to eat because you’re hungry (even though you just ate, like, three hours ago, but, hey, writing is a strenuous mental activity that drains energy (something that non-writers will never understand!)).
Discover that there’s nothing in the house that you want to eat. Decide to make a shopping list, and then go to the store. (While you’re out, you’ll also stop and fill the car’s gas tank and do any other errands (because you’re efficient).)
Because you’re now too hungry to return home and make something with the stuff bought at the store, go somewhere and buy something to eat right now.
Return home, put away the groceries. Make and drink coffee while thinking about your cake (the novel), nosh on a snack item that you purchased, pick up the stuff that the robot vacuum missed, pet the cat (because he’s following you around and underfoot), give the cat treats (to buy him off), and then —
Brainstorm! Make the frosting because this cake with that frosting would be fantastic (in other words, write an ending because you think it’s the perfect ending).
Remember, you never did turn on the oven, damn it. You missed a huge step.
Realize, this is a layer cake. And you can’t put the frosting on because there’s nothing to put it on.
But you really like that frosting, so you go ahead and make it (write it up) and set it aside for use later, and then — epiphany! — decide every layer will be a different flavor of cake, with a different icing. It’s not really a cake, but a torte, you decide, and then go off to the computer to jump on the Internet to research tortes and cakes.
Check your email. Catch up on Facebook (like, post, and share), Pinterest and other social media, blogs, the news (he said what?) and sports (or fashion). Play some games (because, without acknowledging it, you feel stressed, and games — going for a new high score, or beating others on an online game — gives you instant gratification and validates you).
Turn on the television. Surf channels. Shake your head at the things on television these days. Wonder if some of the actors you’re seeing in the re-runs are still alive. Turn the television off.
Then, oh, it’s late. You’re tired. Another cup of coffee is needed but you’re too tired for that, and it’s too late (where’d the time go?). The rest of the family will be home soon, and there are the things you’re supposed to do with friends and family, going to movies, dinner, cut grass, wash car, clothes, dishes —
Well, you’ll continue tomorrow, you tell yourself. This cake (or torte) is going to be a masterpiece. It’ll blow people’s minds. It’s just so exciting, but there’s so much to do. There are more ingredients to collect, and then it all must be baked, frosted, and put together —
It’s so real, you can see, smell, and taste it. You sit for a while, absorbing the wonder of the cake (or torte) that you imagine.
Tomorrow, you tell yourself, tomorrow will be different. You don’t want any half-baked cake.
Right, you’ll begin by making coffee and listing all the ingredients, and maybe brainstorming all the steps that you need to do to complete this masterpiece, like turning on the oven. Yes, that’ll be the first thing that you do.
Tomorrow.
Embedded Plans
A friend asked my wife, “Is Michael always so affable?”
I laughed, of course. The friend was encountering social Michael. He’s affable, but he has a very short half-life.
To her credit, my wife said, “Mostly. He has his moods. He’s okay as long as I don’t disrupt his writing time. Then he turns into a bear, and it’s not Yogi or Boo-Boo.”
My writing day doesn’t begin until about eleven A.M. I walk before my writing session as part of my process. When I’m writing, I target scenes to measure progress, and not word count. I’m frequently able to think about where I left off, and then resume writing it in my mind as I walk. When I get in and sit down, I usually know what I want to write.
This doesn’t always work because the muses have their own plans. I try to be flexible, but it’s a struggle. I like having plans. Plans provide me with structure and illusions of control.
When the muses throw me off with their reveals, I often need to stop to see where they’re taking me. Since my writing time is precious, I’ll frequently go back and edit what I’ve written when that happens. That keeps me engaged in writing while giving my subconscious mind the opportunity to meet with the muses and hash it out. (There’s not actually any hashing out. The muses know where they want to take the story. It’s up to me to do as told. I like to say we’re hashing it out because it gives me the illusion of it being a collaborative effort.)
My writing session only lasts about two and a half hours. Plans are embedded around it, especially walking. Walking is my number one form of exercise, and it helps me process information.
My walking plans change by season. That’s not just spring, summer, autumn, and winter, but the embedded seasons of hot, fucking hot, cold, fucking cold, wet, and smoky.
We’re into the fucking hot season now, defined by jokes like, “Look, the temperature has dipped. It’s ninety-seven.” The forecasted highs range between ninety-nine and one hundred two for the next ten days.
For all the seasons, I break my walking down into bite sized goals. My overall walking goals remain about twenty thousand steps and ten flights. During the FH season, I try to make fifty-five hundred steps before I start writing at eleven. After I write, I then target ninety-one hundred steps. That gives me four miles by three P.M.
After that, plans are flexible and adjusted according to what else the day requires. I frequently end up walking about two and a half miles in the evening, leaving the house about eight forty-five and returning an hour later. Because we live in a hilly area, my flights go up to about sixty one these days. (I can do that during this season because we have more hours of daylight. This doesn’t work as well when it’s cold and dark, so I adjust.)
For all that, they are just plans. They rarely survive reality. In the end, I ride the wave of the day, seizing moments and narrowing my focus as needed.
Okay, today’s therapy is finished. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
The Turn
The turn I’ve encountered with my muse and the characters develops into a complex scene. I struggle to see the setting and put the pieces together.
It’s not writing block. This is like trying to solve a complex logic puzzle by assembling and analyzing disparate bits of information. Part of me is bucking against the muse, because it’s work, and I feel like I should understand it before I write it, while the muse just encourages me, “Don’t worry, just type.”
Part of this is laziness of the whiny, I-don’t-wanna immature sort. It’s groan-inducing work to think about how this fits into what has happened and seeing how these twists and turns affect the ending.
Part of it is annoyance of the sort experienced when you think you’re almost done and then experience a last-minute delay.
A friend comes by. I haven’t seen him in a few months. He apologizes for interrupting me,. I brush that off, and we chat. (His interruption secretly relieves me.)
His wife died of lung cancer almost two years ago. He’s been at a loss and he’s now seeing a grief counselor. He’s visiting his son and grandchildren, and his brothers. One brother lives down in Healdsburg, he said, which surprises me. I thought this brothers live in Chicago and New York. Yes, the one that lives in Ithaca still has a place there, and still teaches one semester a year at Cornell, but has decided to live in California for most of the year.
We chat further and exchange offers and promises. Who knows if we’ll keep them?
Returning to writing, I realize that his interruption was fortunate. As my muse knows, I over-analyze. Part of my issue when I do that is I fall into the weeds of the details. Down there, I can’t see the larger parts and picture.
I know and recognize this from my days as an analyst. It was always useful, after being presented with a problem, collecting and compiling information, to walk away and let my subconscious mind work on what it’s seen without the interference of my conscious mind and its foibles. Because I knew that worked, I cultivated the methodology and was successful with it. Collect, compile, regard, walk away, and then come back. The break always allowed me to see with sharpened focus and new clarity.
It happened today with the writing as well. Resuming, I understand where the muse is taking me and what I need to type. Lesson learned, once again.
Now I can write like crazy, at least one more time.
The Writing River
I’ve often compared fiction writing to boating on a river. Sections can be treacherous, tumultuous, and troubling, while other stretches are smooth but fast moving pieces. Then there are those that are slower and languid.
I’m on a fast, smooth stretch this week (knock on wood). A character in concert with a muse knows where we’re going and has assumed command. All I need to do is keep up with her and type, and then revise and edit for continuity, pacing, and grammar.
It’s not always like this – I’ve had lots of other experiences – so I’m accepting this, and carrying on. I don’t see or hear any rapids ahead on this writing river, but I never know what I find after the next bend.
Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Computational Hardness
I was reading about John Nash and ending up on a quest to read more about computational hardness. Computational hardness struck a chord with me about the series I’m writing, Incomplete States.
In computational complexity theory, a computational hardness assumption is the hypothesis that a particular problem cannot be solved efficiently (where efficiently typically means “in polynomial time”). It is not known how to prove (unconditional) hardness for essentially any useful problem. Instead, computer scientists rely on reductions to formally relate the hardness of a new or complicated problem to a computational hardness assumption about a problem that is better-understood.
The basic foundation about the Incomplete States series involves the arrows of time and character interaction through the framework known and accepted as reality. As I played with the concept behind the series, experienced epiphanies, and evolved my understanding of the concept I wrote about on a fictional stage, I struggled with the ending. I didn’t want me (or readers) to finish the series and say, “Well, that was a waste of time.” I eventually conceived of an ending that matched the story-telling, an ending that I could accept as a writer, and would probably be accepted by most readers. By that, I mean there’s a satisfactory completeness, if not a conclusion and closure in the traditional sense.
Sounds like science fiction. You could call it that. You can also call it speculative fiction.
See, at my core, even though I’m an organic writer, I seek order and structure to what I’m writing and doing, something that defines the path(s) that I’m following and establishes goals. That helped me put my ass in a seat in front of a computer, type, revise, and edit day after day for the past two years. Computational hardness assumptions and falsifiability helped me understand that what I was doing as I was writing the interacting, nested, and overarching stories of the six main characters in the four novels in Incomplete States was processing reductions, creating and transferring problems to other problems.
In essence, the problems presented couldn’t be solved, but creating and transferring the problems to other problems helped elaborate on the problem for the me (the writer), the characters, and the reader. Doing this enabled me to eliminate solutions for the three of us, and drive and narrow focus. Through the characters and stories, I would go through best, worst, and average case resolutions for them for a given path being followed.
The beta draft is almost finished. With it done, I’ll have a much fuller understanding of what I set out to do. When I read the million words of output, I’ll see where I deviated or failed. Then I’ll be able to further shape, refine, and reduce the story that the series tells.
It’s been a challenging series to write. It feels like the series has absorbed much of my life energy. As I draw close to completing the beta draft, I’m eager to be done, and sad that this part is almost finished.
This part is the imagining. This part is where I plunged into the deepest oceans of creativity, diving down until I ideas and stories crushed me. Then I surfaced, sucked in a deep breath, and plunged in again.
This part was so much fun.
As I wrote, I created a document called “Epiphany”. It’s a compass to help me sort thoughts and establish consistently on a macro level. I developed thirteen epiphanies as I wrote the series.
The epiphany that grew as the greatest one to keep in mind was, “The key to consistency is consistent inconsistency.” Frankly, it scares me. I get anxious thinking about those words. It seems like an oxymoron, yet, once established, I was surprised how well it works. I imagine readers writing it and clearly understanding what and why is going on. It doesn’t just spring up; I like my readers to think for themselves.
My coffee is at hand and my ass is in the chair. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
The Loops
The characters have become weary and cynical near the end of the Incomplete States series. I wonder how much they influence me and the converse. It’s an interesting loop on its own.
But of course I taste what they feel. It’s necessary. Regardless of my process, whether it’s all deeply in me and I’m mining the story, or it’s being fed to me or channeled through me from some other existence, as it sometimes feels (thanks to the power of focus and imagination), I taste the words, and they affect me.
Balancing the scales, writing and progress continues, and I’m enjoying it. It’s an empowering experience. (The end is nigh!) Thinking about it, it’s almost the opposite of the Doom Loop. It’s the Success Loop. (Weird that as long as I’ve heard of the Doom Loop, I’ve never thought about the Success Loop. I looked it up, confirming, yes, such a creature exists – of course.)
Like the Doom Loop, the Success Loop is a spiral. But where the Doom Loop takes you down (because you expect less, so you try less, etc.), the Success Loop lifts you up. You’re building on what you’ve achieved, adding success. As success is added, success is expected, so you work harder for that success. You learn to know and love the taste and feel of success, and the power and confidence that it generates.
The Success Loop is often a strong but fragile thing in a writer. Like a spider web, it has impressive strength for what it is, but like a web, it’s easily broken. If I’m an average writer and others are like me, we worry about not having enough talent, skill, luck, drive, energy, or time to be the writer that we think we can be, that we want to be. We’re always worried that we’ll fall short.
That’s not bad. Those worries anger and inflame me, often encouraging me, try harder, work harder, and do not give up.
The characters have become grittier as I come to the end. “I want to reach the end,” they tell themselves and one another. “This must be ended.” And they push, and push, thinking that they can succeed.
In this case, I know more than them. I know the ending. It’s been written. All of this action is the final bridge to what will be, what already is. What they do now will not affect their ending.
I think that with such confidence, knowing how I’m tricking myself. These are written words. They’re subject to change. Especially once editing and revising begins.
As a final loop, I wonder, has my ending been written? Is what I’m trying to write and achieve all for nothing because my destiny is established and sealed, and nothing will change it?
Maybe, but perhaps not. Perhaps there multiple loops.
Maybe I’ll leap onto one of those.
It’s been a good day of writing like crazy, once again. I’m hungry, the coffee is gone, and, man, my butt feels sore.
Time to go on to other things.
For now.
July
“July,” he whispered. “Feel the passing year’s cold breath breathing down your neck?”
He flicked it aside. “It’s just time. It’s just air. It’s nothing that matters.”
Then he resumed writing like crazy.
It was all that mattered.
Cold Coffee, Hot Writing
It was an exhausting, satisfying, and intense writing session today. All those muses who reside in the apartments of my being were silenced, except one. They knew exactly what I was to write, and one was the designated director.
Barely able to keep up, I hit that flow. The story’s complexities and this path that I’m following demanded that I first edit the two chapters I’d finished yesterday. Then, the muse dictated, start this chapter, and then another, and so on, until five chapters were being written in parallel. Had to be, because of the nature of the unfolding events. I typed, editing and revising, jumping between pages, paragraphs, characters, and chapters as ordered and needed, trying hard to keep up.
Finally stopping, I look up and engage in the coming-out period. Looking out the window, a line from “Uncle Salty” by Aerosmith comes to me: “Ooo, it’s a sunny day outside my window.”
Coming out after writing is always odd. These are the long seconds endured after intense writing when I re-enter life, my existence, reality, whatever you want to call it. I hear music and see other people. An air-conditioner’s chilly breeze teases my bare legs and neck. I feel detached from being there. What feels most real is that my butt cheeks feel sore and numb, and muscle strain stretches across my shoulders.
Still, I feel detached. I continue thinking about what’s been written, and what’s meant to be written yet, and how much work remains. Once the beta version of all four novels in this series are completed, I then need to edit and revise them until I have a first draft of all, something that I feel complete enough to regard as books. That will be a huge chunk of work. I think I’m looking at the rest of the year and beyond.
With those thoughts still strong, I drink my coffee, cold as an iceberg. Three-fourths of that cup remains. It’s time to stop writing like crazy; I can feel that, like the muse has said, “Okay, that’s enough for today. We’ll pick up here tomorrow.”
Still, I feel detached. My fictional world was so much sharper. I was engaged so much more deeply. It took a lot of energy to go that deeply into the flow, I realize. I’ve noticed this before without comprehending it. Going into the flow takes strength, energy, and commitment to induce myself to release enough to accept it.
I’m hungry, too, and realize that I’ve been hungry for a while, and I need to hit the restroom. Yes, time to stop writing like crazy today.
Find A Club
I sat down to write and poured out a paragraph.
Then I stopped to regard what I wrote.
Yech, I said. It was as appealing as a dirty cat litter box.
I don’t wanna write, I whispered in my inner vault, aware of the blasphemy that I was uttering.
Nor did I want to walk. I’d completed two and a half miles. The thought of another step depressed me.
I wanted to be on the beach, basking in sunshine as I listened to the waves and watched them crash on the shore.
I wanted to be reading a book, sitting at a restaurant, enjoying food that I don’t allow myself to eat because it’s not healthy. I wanted to be listening to music and laughing with friends. I wanted to be flying away, driving away, buzzing away.
I didn’t want to be writing, walking, doing yardwork, cleaning the house, or eating healthy.
Just like that, I knew I was into one of my dark moods. It was overtaking me like a terrifying storm.
Nuts, I said. Nuts.
I returned to writing. Every word felt like a struggle. I kept pushing, looking for a carrot to use, urging myself, just finish this paragraph, and then doing it again. I really needed a club. It’s a day like this when I could use a personal training urging me to push myself. Without one, I had to do it alone.
It was a gritty session. I actually counted the words. When it was nine hundred fifty, I said, good enough, and shut down. Then I grit my teeth and braced myself to walk. I wanted at least two more miles before going home.
I know the words that I wrote today will not seem any different from my usual output. It’s just the mood that’s affecting me. Sometimes I don’t need a carrot or a club. I just sit down and write. And then there are days like today, when neither a carrot nor a club seem like enough.
It was a terrible day of struggling to write like crazy, but tomorrow is another day.
Michael Seidel, writer 