Tag: writing process

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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River of Words

Coffee is cold. A quarter of the cup remains. Writer’s butt has set in. Hunger pangs trouble my stomach. Time to drink down the last dregs of cold coffee and head home to fill other needs and fulfillment.

It’s been an invigorating day of writing like crazy. Like, the stream of words is a swollen, raging river of scenes. I just needed to dip in and hang on. Third book of the Incomplete States trilogy is taking shape. The first drafts of the first two books are being mildly reshaped to fit what else is developing. Excitement pushes me to keep writing, keep writing, but pragmatism says, stop for now. Don’t worry. The river of words will keep flowing.

Cheers

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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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Writing Explosion

Don’t you love it when you experience a writing explosion?

Yeah, baby.

Writing explosions are less predictable than earthquakes, weather, and volcanic eruptions. Not even a rumble presages the eruption.

It happened to me as I was walking and writing in my head. Reviewing what I’d written and was preparing to write today, I experienced a gleeful epiphany that exposed an entire scene. I laughed aloud with pleasure as I walked along the city street.

A domino effect was triggered. Other scenes and pieces of dialogue emerged. When I sat to write, I had to go retro with pen and notebook to capture sufficient vestiges of the insights and scenes to help me write them all. Then I powered up the laptop, slugged down gulps of hot, black coffee, and typed with driven intensity.

Afterward, it felt so damn good. Sublime. Flood gates had exploded open, releasing streams of insights into the trilogy’s third novel, and its structure. The final sentence came to me. I felt like I was channeling Philip K. Dick with some of the scenes, and Philip Roth on others.

When it was done, I was grinning. Once again, the coffee shop and other customers seemed like a foreign land, because I’d not been there, in my mind. It’s such a fucking web I’m weaving.

I love it.

Has it always been so noisy in here?

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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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Messy Creativity

After yesterday’s writing like crazy session, I walked away preoccupied by the random messiness. It’s like, I’m baking a cake and have some of the ingredients, but I’m not sure which ones I have, and what else is needed.

Or, it’s like debugging code without knowing where you’re at in the program.

It’s like walking through a strange room in the dark with little idea about which way to go.

Yes, I’m a pantser when it comes to writing. I’m an organic writer. Unscripted, or semi-scripted. I suppose the outlining writing tribes would tell me, “Outlining can solve your problems.”

That’s perhaps true, but I like my messy creative process. It’s fun to be surprised by a scene’s direction. I have no doubt that writers that outline will say, “Having an outline doesn’t mean that you can’t be surprised by what you write and how a scene turns out.”

Okay, you have me there. I just like the messy process. That’s one possibility. The second is that I’m not patient enough to write an outline. I become too impatient. Likewise, perhaps I’m too undisciplined to use an outline. More likely, it’s all of these things. But I believe that after trying to write outlines first, and suffering, I just stumbled on this messy process, and find it works. In the end, what works is what matters.

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

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Beautiful and Terrifying

In today’s writing metaphor, I’m weaving a trilogy.

I’ve been writing here in the coffee shop for two hours. I still have three-quarters of my drink remaining.

Sitting down to write, I opened a floodgate to the dam of words – sorry, another metaphor – and they gushed out. Again came an unanticipated scene, and a surprising pivot. With it came more tangible substance about the third novel, and what’s to happen in it. And with that, I began writing the third novel of the “Incomplete States” trilogy (previously known as “Long Summer”). Still have some to write with the first novel to complete the initial draft, though. I was reluctant to do it, and that’s when the weaving metaphor arrived.

Novel three didn’t have a working title. Creating the Word doc, I just called it Book Three. I didn’t want to slow down to think of a title. I just wanted to get those words into the computer. Between books one and three, I wrote one chapter in book one, and the kernal of a chapter in book three, about thirty-two hundred words total.

It’s been an excellent day of writing like crazy. It’s fucking exciting, even though it’s also sometimes beautiful but terrifying. I put it like that because I see and know the scenes and the arcs, but I don’t know the words and the details, and I worry that I’ll lose them before the trilogy is finished. It became such an intense experience that sometimes I needed to get up and walk around to vent enough energy to focus and type.

It’s fun and exciting, too, being in these stories with these characters, on vivid other worlds and starships. Sometimes, it feels like I’m there, experiencing it through them, and then returning to this life to record what happened. Crazy, right?

Yes. I guess that’s a side-effect of writing like crazy.

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Bookends

I was stymied in my writing yesterday. I’d written a bunch (technical writing slang for “many words and a long time”) yesterday, and made great progress. But —

As great comedians have noted, there’s always a “but.”

My but came because I didn’t write the scene I’d intended. I wrote the setup for the scene, and then went blank. I knew what happened after that scene, so I wrote the other end of it. Now I had bookends, with blank space to fill in the middle. I knew the subsequent scene to those scenes, and began writing them in my head after I’d stopped physically writing. But that scene I’d set out to write? Still blank.

I sporadically considered the scene’s elements, setup and outcome through the evening as I walked, ate, read books, and fed the cats. Nothing firmed. It was like Jello that wouldn’t set.

Come this morning, though, as I rose, fed cats, checked on the solar panels invertor, and made coffee, the scene swam into view. Confrontations and dialogue developed. Unexpected actions by the characters joined. As the scene expanded and crystallized, changes required to the setup, outcome, and the subsequent story being written in my head emerged. By the time I’d finished showering and shaving, and was dressing, words rushed into my head. That’s exciting and fun.

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

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