Tag: writing process

The Rhythm Method

 

Recently traveling, socializing and visiting with family, I wasn’t able write as frequently as desired. I didn’t think that would be an issue. I’ve developed a source of pride about being able to sit down and write anywhere. I learned, yes, and no. After thinking more, I recognized that I follow the Rhythm Method.

There are a few easy steps to my process.

  1. Deep thinking.
  2. Realization and visualization.
  3. Writing in my head.
  4. Typing and editing.
  5. Editing, revising and expanding.
  6. Repeat

What I learned during these past few weeks is that if I’ve accomplished steps one and two, I can do three, four and five. Those first two steps are most critical to my entire process.

Deep thinking. This is all about connecting the dots by reviewing what I’ve written and what I expect to write, and discovering plot holes, new directions, and character issues. I usually do this while I’m walking or doing mundane chores, like yard-work or washing and waxing the car. It’s personal and private; others’ presence tends to mute it, although it will come alive while reading, or watching movies or television shows. Traveling with my significant other and visiting with family kept this repressed.

Realization and visualization. Deep thinking is significantly abstract. It can revolve around a setting, character’s appearance, plot twist or concept. Becoming a compilation of thoughts, ideas and insights, more concrete understanding emergences. From those come sentences, scenes, paragraphs and descriptions. I leap into the next step.

Writing in my head. Some people call this phantom writing, but writing in my head is my preferred expression. At this point, my understanding of what’s to come is so solid that I begin seeing it in a finished book. It’s a strange and eerie experience. My wife once read to me a quote from someone that said that everything that’s created already exists; we’re just creating it for this life experience. In this phase of the Rhythm Method, I can seriously believe and accept that.

Typing and editing. This is the easy stuff of ‘writing like crazy’. I just let it pour out, trying to faithfully capture what I glimpsed on those pages when I was writing in my head. The essence is most critical. Spelling, grammar, pacing, character traits, and details are all shoved aside to stalk and bring in the essence of the scene. Once I have that, I can return to fix all the rest.

Editing, revising and expanding. This is a deeper follow-up to typing and editing. Often when I finish with the previous phase, I recognize that some decisions I made will affect chapters and scenes previously written. I’ll make notes to vet that belief and fix it. Sometimes more detailed research is required for verisimilitude. That happens in this phase. I’m always on alert in this phase to make the writing active and to eliminate clichés. I’ve also learned that while writing like crazy, I have a habit of telling what I see, and then realizing it and describing it, so I’ll go in to ensure I’m showing and not telling, and eliminate redundacies.

Repeat. Yep, do it all again. My writing process is organic. It often isn’t linear. I’ll usually realize more critical scenes early, scenes that define the essence and tone of the book. Then I’ll need to add bridge scenes. Sometimes I’ll uncover a plot twist. I’ll write it to keep it alive and fresh, but then need to go back in and add the pivot points to help the reader get from there to here. I also tend to write fast, and realize that I like more depth and detail to what I’m reading, so returning to the rhythm Method, I’ll begin with some deep thinking about the characters’ lives and motivations.

My favorite part of all this is that typing and editing phase but the entire process excites me. The first steps are about creativity and problem solving. It is fun. But typing and editing makes it real. Editing, revising and expanding turns it into a draft manuscript. Repeat it enough, and I’ll end up with a novel or short story.

And that’s what is most rewarding.

What of you, writers?

How do you write?

6

Five Chapters

I’m starting five chapters today:

Virus

Everything

Nothing

Ice Cream Headache

The Others

With each, I’ll put up the chapter title as a place holder. I’ll add the date beneath it in parentheses, and then a summary of what the chapter is about. I’ll highlight this in yellow and add <TK at the beginning, to help me remove it later. I know what I see and hear as the opening lines for each chapter, and I’ll add those lines. They will probably not be the first lines to the chapter but they’re a nugget around which to build the rest. After that process, one of those chapters will more sharply call, so I’ll take it up.

I always use <TK as an editing tool. Sometimes it’s a placeholder to insert some piece of necessary information, or to clarify or rewrite a passage. Sometimes I know the nugget, the critical piece that I want to immediately write, but know that I need a bridge to the rest of the novel, so I’ll insert <TK and explain what’s required.

I started and wrote five chapters in parallel before. Why five? I’m not certain. It’s not anything magical nor planned. Ideas are germinating. These all sprouted at the same time. I want to cultivate them so I can press on.

I suspect eight or nine chapters remain to be written in ‘Long Summer’. That includes the five I’m starting today.  I suspect that means I’ll write about thirty thousand more words. I won’t bet on whether I’m right but the beginning of the end of the first draft is cresting the horizon.

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

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The Cards

He was awake before I was, feeding thoughts of the novel into me.

“Ready?” DeeMichael shuffled the deck.

“No,” I answered.

DeeMichael proferred the cards. “Draw three cards.”

“I haven’t had my coffee yet.”

“Just draw three cards.”

“Why three?”

“Because I have three in mind.” DeeMichael shuffled and then he cut the deck. “Three is a lucky number, always in threes, all that crap.”

“Can’t it wait until after I’ve peed, drank some water and made coffee?”

“Jesus H, you could have been done already. Will you pick three cards? You’re ruining the mood.”

I cursed him a dozen ways that I’d picked up as a senior NCO and selected three from the fanned out offering.

“Let’s see them,” he said, putting his hand out.

Sulking and dispirited, I replied, “You know what they are.”

DeeMichael beamed. “You’re right, I do.”

I didn’t want to ask but felt the tableau wouldn’t end until I did. “What are they?”

“We’ll finished the card started yesterday, and then — ”

“The one called ‘You’?”

“Did we start another one? Fuck, no. So it has to be that one, right?”

“You say so.”

“Then we’ll work on ‘Untrue’.”

I knew he was excited about ‘Untrue’. Bleedover between the writing and real world had informed me about what was going on. “What’s the third one?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It’s about the Monad, but that’s all I know. Come on, get up, get dressed and take Tucker to the vet so we can start writing like crazy. Hurry, you’re burning energy.”

Sighing, I nodded. “Right. Time to go write like crazy, at least one more time.”

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Playing With A Full Deck

I’m riding on last week’s epiphany. To explain, only now exists. How now takes place and the scenes associated with it can be treated as a deck of cards. This has empowered my writing imagination. The principle isn’t mentioned in the novel, except one person notices it and treats it like a metaphor, but for me, understanding that each scene is another card permits more intelligent thinking and treatment.

The characters’ and their traits also open up. Pram’s decisions surprised him. He always thought he would put his team first. That it’s a challenge for him to do it opened up a window onto himself that he didn’t know was there. From this, he discovers weaknesses that he hid from himself but also grasps the observations others made about him. It’s a struggle to be stronger and more idealistic. He admires his team members even as he ponders betraying them. Exploring the scenes and permutations, I play with the frequency in which decisions are not value based or driven by logic or principles. Emotions, whims, weariness and frustration color and shadow choices. Sometimes our nature is stronger than ourselves. The battles with ourselves can be deep and endless.

None of the characters are inherently evil or good. Each seek to make the best choices they can, sometimes demonstrating callousness about others’ welfare, but justifying it through logical and philosophical acrobatics. Things happen fast. They make mistakes, and as now collapses on them, what’s going on isn’t always clear for them. Brett, in the center of this, is more removed from these debates and decisions. Being in the center puts him in a bubble where he can rarely see past the impacts on him and his existence.

Handley has been great fun to write. She surprises me. Her role grew. Her metamorphosis and the development process drove her into new territories. New skills were discovered, as was greater strength and determination. In all of this, I ended up asking and pondering, do we have one core person who dictates our behavior? One true being? 

Back to the Wrinkle, River Styx, Avalon, Lucky Gypsy and Mo Faux. Back to Handley, Pram, Brett, Richard, Forus Ker, and Philea. Back to the Travail, Humans, Sabard and Monad. Back to space.

Back to writing like crazy, at least one more time.

0

This Now

I read the epiphany once again. A separate, small document, fifty-three words, it has become my North Star, guiding me through the novel’s climatic seas of life, space and time. Since writing it five days ago, I open it every day. I’ve made one change to it since its creation.

This Now comes together. Now appeared to be a single playing card but when I grasped it in thought, Now revealed itself to be a deck of cards. I fan them out, seeing and understanding how this Now forms and exists. Beautiful. I think of the Chronicles of Amber and the Trumps of Doom, and smile. This is not the same, but thank you, Roger Zelazny, for your amazing imagination.

A thumb’s fingernail travels along the index finger’s nail on the opposite hand. I do this often as I sit and think when the words are marshaling in my mind. It comforts and balances me. I think of the tell in Inception. I remember the words, “Touch has its own memory.” That’s a key aspect of today’s approach. I remember looking at photographs of myself and seeing how differently I see myself in them from what I see in the mirror. It’s another aspect of today’s approach. I think of the lies we tell ourselves and others to survive, to succeed and thrive, and the truths that finally bend us to face a crises. It’s another aspect of today’s approach.

The quad-shot mocha is hot, sweet with chocolate and bitter with espresso, conflicting, complementing currents, perfect for writing about Now.

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

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Fitbit Writing

I’ve had my Fitbit for three and a half months. My daily average for steps is eleven thousand, seven hundred. My daily miles are five point five two. My personal best for daily steps was seventeen thousand, five hundred.

Until yesterday. Yesterday, I achieved almost twenty-two thousand steps and ten miles. I confess, if I’d known I was so close to doubling my average, I would have done it. That’s how I’m wired.

Now it’s the morning after.

I feel great but I question myself about what my Fitbit goal and expectations should be. I will work to reach and exceed my daily goals. I want to attempt another big walking and exercising day.

It’s the same way with writing. I typically write about eleven hundred words a day. I also edit, revise and polish. That’s part of my pantser organic writing process. My writing mind is like a loom weaving the story. I move back and forth through it.

Some days, I catch fire. The most I’ve ever written in one day was five thousand words, five thousand very intense words. Just like walking twenty-two thousand steps yesterday, it felt awesome. The next day, I wanted to do again. Why, if I could do five thousand words a day, every day, I’d become impressively prolific.

But the next day’s writing session was a struggle to achieve my standard output. I fought to achieve one thousand words and felt exhausted and disenchanted afterwards. It’s been like that with other writing days when I’ve doubled or tripled my average. Why, I tested myself to understand.

After thinking about this over the years, I’ve concluded that I do have a finite daily energy level. Exceeding that can happen but it takes it toll on the next day. I don’t know if science and medicine back me up on this, or if others have had the same experience. I know through my military experience of working twelve plus hours a day through illness and terrible conditions that I can draw deeper from the well. But doing so requires me to shut out absolutely everything else.

That was easy to do in a military environment. We had an established mission with a high priority. Other missions and units were depending on us. If we failed, a domino effect began. The stakes were high. So was the visibility.

Our expectations also set us up for success. Everyone outside of ours – family, friends and other unit members – understood our focus. They knew we didn’t have time or energy for anything else, and they gave us space.

But the writing experience is different from the military experience and the Fitbit experience. With Fitbit goals, it’s a personal goal. If I don’t make it, well, that sucks, but c’est la vie. The military commitment was well-established and understood.

Writing, however, is a terribly personal beast that has a hold on me. While the Fitbit goals require physical commitment with some smaller levels of intellectual and emotional commitments, I have all that in me, no problem. The military commitments were drawn at higher levels from those same veins.

The veins of energy and activity required for writing are much, much different. Physically, sitting in a chair, thinking, reading and typing, it doesn’t seem like it should be taxing. Yet, it becomes physically exhausting. Writing takes more out of me than walking all those steps.

Likewise, from intellectual and creative points of view, writing is more of a debilitating challenge. I worked for a decade for IBM as a planner and analyst. I was often presented with unique business cases to analyze and consider for my recommendations, observations and inputs. Those were interesting and challenging logic problems, and required intensely creative problem solving approaches, but still, they fell way short of what’s called for when fiction writing. Yes, my stories, characters, situations and worlds tend toward being complicated and involved. I remain constantly astounded by the levels of commitment I give my writing.

Returning to my Fitbit goals, I understand that twenty-two grand was a terrific result for me. I’ll enjoy it and move on because my goal is not to beat myself every day, but to maintain and achieve an average that will help me toward greater goals of being healtheir. In other words, the daily steps are not an end of themselves but part of a larger process.

So it is, too, with the writing. The word counts, editing, revising and polishing are not the end results. They’re part of a larger process of conceiving, writing, finishing and publishing a novel.

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

 

1

Slippage

Yesterday, forced to curtail writing to do other things and – gads, socialize – I was distant with others. The writing didn’t leave off and the writer didn’t stop, so a secret fog shrouded me from engaging with others. I felt like a few beats off.

Today, sensing the story’s climax and denouement, looking forward to completing the novel, forced new introspection. I can’t hurry this. Why am I trying to hurry it? More correctly, why am I trying to rush the story and curtail activities?

Realizations continue to emerge about what’s transpired and what needs to happen to reach the end without shorting the characters, situations or reader. The concept editor stirred from his fortress of judgement to deliver some withering insights about continuity, logic and my made-up background physics and quantum mechanics. Utilizing an unctuous and belittling tone, he became a bit of an asshole in the process, demanding more information about how chi-particles interact with organic entities and the arrows of time.

“Let’s think about the permutations,” he said at one point. I groaned. Already sulking about what he perceived as an assault on his creative and intellectual processes, the writer didn’t react.

The concept editor pressed us on all sorts of issues. “If there is one now, what are the characters remembering?”

“They’re not remembering anything, they’re experiencing a sense of belief that they’re remembering because they’re experiencing shareover of similar nows that are slightly ahead or behind of their moments of now,” the writer answered with elaborate patience.

It seemed like the concept editor hid a sneer in response. “But if the creatures, like Humans, don’t come to be until a chi-particle inhabits them, they why would they all be experiencing nows now?”

That agitated the writer. “No, no, that’s not how it works. Yes, they came to be when a chi-particle granted them a spark of self-awareness – ”

“Self-awareness that the chi-particles don’t have?”

“Yes, yes.” The writer was almost frothing. “The chi-particles don’t have awareness. They’re driven by their nature and their properties.”

“The same properties and nature that drives the organisms they inhabit.”

“No, no. Take a flea.”

“A flea.”

“If a flea bites you, you react.”

“So the chi-particles are like fleas?”

“For that simile, yes, for the purpose of illustration and clarification, yes. The flea’s nature, properties and behavior causes it to bite and suck, with collateral effects on its hosts. Its hosts don’t respond in like manner, but by itching and scratching, by developing sores and other issues.”

The concept editor appeared doubtful.

“Do you see?” the writer asked.

“I see,” the editor replied. “I’m not convinced, but I see. Finish the novel, and they’ll we’ll see.”

The writer glowered at him. “If you’ll let me.”

An uneasy accordance to continue with the writing was accepted. I tell you, the two of them will be the death of me.

Time to stop writing like crazy, at least for today.

0

Fooled Again

Ah, the writer did it to me again.

Riding the thrill of yesterday’s progress, I jumped into it today with a razor of doubt hanging over me. What if yesterday was a mirage? What if what I’d written makes no sense, or that I can’t connect and continue? 

My head ached with fear about what might go wrong. Asking myself, where was I, I resumed typing. Within a few lines, the writer sprang another twist on me. Damn, I should have seen it coming.

Exuberant understanding burst upon me. Holy hell, this was the deeper truth behind the concept. Wide-eyed, I laughed at the astonishing epiphany. I’d conceptualized the novel and had started writing but had not taken the concept to its summit. Now, in writing, that’s what the writer within me finished doing.

Implications and realizations bubbled through me. A new light flashed on everything written in that novel to that point. Surreal, abstract and stunning, I considered my running joke, that a writer resided in me who actually came out and wrote, and wondered if that was the truth. At this point, it really seems to me like there is someone else in me who is the writer. He understands the novel. He has organized, outlined and plotted it, but only shares with me what I need to know when it’s being written. I’m just the poor, earthen vessel struggling to hang onto the moment.

Even now, done with my daily writing session, I struggle to fully comprehend and cope with what’s been proposed. It stuns and amazes me.

Seriously, maybe I am insane.

Maybe it’s just a side-effect of writing like crazy.

Is there a difference?

2

Today’s Agenda

Between making oatmeal for breakfast and turning on the shower water, I asked the writer, “What are you going to write today?”

The editor joined us. The writer recapped where we were as I washed my hair. The editor reminded him that we need to go back to further revise and add to some previously created chapters because of other events later introduced.

“Yes, I remember that,” the writer answered with affable equanimity. “I will, don’t worry. There needs to be three of these chapters where we’re at now.”

That was the first I was hearing of it. Before I could say that, the writer continued, “That first chapter of this trio is titled ‘Miasma’.”

“It is?” I said. “That’s the first I — ”

“Yes. I don’t know what the other two are named yet. It’ll come to me.”

“Okay, but what’s to happen now? Forus Ker — ”

“The Englis and Exnila.”

“What about them?”

“Do you remember them?”

“Yes, of course, but — ”

“They’re going to show up.”

“They are?”

“Yes, yes.”

“How? And why?”

“Because remember, all the nows.”

“Umm….”

“We’ve only focused on some of the nows. Other nows are happening. We’re going to inroduce them. Oh, yeah. That’s the name of the second chapter. ‘In Other Nows.'”

“Isn’t that a little too cute?”

“No, it’s perfect. Trust me.”

I turned off the water and stood there dripping. “Okay, I’ll trust you. But how do the Englis and Exnila arrive? I don’t see it.”

“I do. It’s coming. It’s developing. You’ll see. Trust me.”

The writer says trust me often. “Okay.” I don’t see that I have another choice than to trust him. If I don’t trust him, we get nothing done. I began drying off.

“Hurry up,” he said. “It’s time to go write like crazy.”

I nodded. “At least one more time.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hey, Writers – Ten Ways of Getting the Writing Groove Back

Find yourself not able to write or otherwise blocked, de-motivated or listless? Here are five healthy tips for getting the creative juices going.

  1. Have sex. Sex is one of the few matters humans tend to focus on while they’re doing it. If you’re thinking about sex because you’re doing it, you’ll free your mind from thinking about how you’re not writing because you’re not doing it.
  2. Eat some chocolate. I hear chocolate is good for everything. I like dark chocolate, myself, about seventy-two percent.
  3. Likewise, light up a doobie. If you’re fortunate, you live in a state where recreational marijuana is available. The fabulous state of Oregon where I reside is one of them.  If you don’t want to light up, have an edible or a tea.
  4. Drink wine, beer, coffee. These work for me.

More seriously, trying to write when you feel blocked is exasperating and frustrating, a feeling like popcorn caught between your teeth or your toe stuck in a hole that’s developed since you put the sock on – and you just bought the damn things. Really, the quality of goods sound these days…grumble, grumble.

I’m usually over-thinking it, over-analyzing where I’ve been and where I want to go. Fortunately, I’ve evolved my writing practices. I’m rarely afflicted to the point I can’t write these days. Hope to hell I didn’t just jinx myself.

Part of that is that I don’t write linearly. I let spray the words and write like crazy. I don’t worry about anything of punctuation, grammar, spelling or story details. All that can and will be cleaned up. Just write like crazy, damn it.

The second part is that I learned it was my inner reader daunting me, mocking my efforts by comparing me to Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize and other winners in literature. I learned how to tell that damn piker to take a hike. They’ll have their time later, after the first draft is finished.

Finally, I learned that I’m writing to entertain myself. That really freed my thinking. I’m a simple fellow with low standards; surely I can write something silly to make myself smile, a horror scene to make myself shudder, or describe a person with such loathing that I grimace with disgust.

But back when I struggled, I had several work-arounds that stimulated my flow. (Now it sounds like I might be lactating.)

  1. Type a favorite passage from someone else’s novel or short story.
  2. Go for a walk or do tedious chores like yardwork or the dishes. These activities don’t require much thinking, freeing the mind up to wander. Hopefully it’ll wander in a writing direction. Besides chores and walking, consider activities like fishing or bowling. They seem pretty mindless, too.
  3. Edit and revise what you’ve already written of the piece you’re working on. That always stimulates my writing energies.
  4. Brainstorm about what you’re writing and where you’re stuck. What does Penelope do now? Brainstorm it. What else is happening in the story? Brainstorm it. How did the murder weapon come to hand? Brainstorm it. Remember, brainstorming is about generating ideas. Don’t self-censor; put it all down.
  5. Draw about the story or character. Instead of working in words, visualize on paper where you’re going or even where you’ve been. Let the details flow. If the murder takes place in town, walk around. If you’re in a starship, look around and see that starship. Describe it to yourself. Make it real. Look at the battle scene; hear it; smell it; see it.

If you’re read this far, you probably realize this is’t a list of ten. Sorry; I just put that in the title because I read somewhere that numbered blog posts are more often read. Actually, I believe I made that up just now.

It’s just part of writing.

 

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