Resolve

Due to a strategically timed vacation I started my New Year a little late. I'm normally not the type of guy to make resolutions but this year I made one: I resolved to stop doing the dishes.

If you happen to drop by don't get all judgy when you're meal is served on a paper plate with the finest plasticware for utensils and yes, I did just fill a sippy cup of wine 'specially for you.

So the dishes...

Agatha Christie said, "The best time to plan a book is when you're doing the dishes." Heck, she'd know, I mean she only wrote 80 some-odd novels.

The problem for the rest of us mere mortals is all that planning goes to waste if you never actually sit down and write!

After setting aside my last work (tentatively titled The Myth of Parking Enforcement but Paola made such a weird face when I said that it may have to change :-/), I started immediately, feverishly, churning out prose on my new piece. It was still Christmas break so I had a lot of time to get things done. Funny how that works when the job doesn't get in the way.

Work started again though and I found myself slipping back into the old habit of paying lip service to ideas rather than formulating them into the written word on the page.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE WRITING. Rough math suggests I probably crank out about 500 words a day of non prose from social networking, job reports, carefully worded emails and the like but getting into the groove after a long day of doing boiler guy stuff ain't easy.

Usually I'd come home, do the dishes, catch up on all my internet stuff and then write. By this point in my life that means I'm making prose at about 6:15pm. Paola gets home a little bit after that and of course I want to spend some time with her so you can see the dilemma.

I decided that, in the near term at least, the most important thing is to write and so that is how it came to be. I walk in the door, make a cup of tea, go upstairs and hunt and peck my way to victory... or stalemate. In some sports you get a point for a tie, you know, sorry dirty plates.

It was timely that I heard the profile of Isabel Allende on the Writer's Almanac shortly after I made my choice. She starts a novel every January 8th by locking herself in a room for 10-12 hours a day. She doesn't use an outline, she doesn't talk to anybody about what she's writing. and she doesn't look back at what she's written until she's completed a whole first draft.

I've never read her work, if you have please recommend something. If I had the luxury of time I'd be all over that approach.

Something she says to her Creative Writing class, not mentioned in the article, is to write a page every day for a year and by the end of year you will have a book. Blew my mind to hear that. It's something I never thought about too. Anyone that dares to take themselves seriously as a writer should be able to put together 250 cohesive words a day without a strenuous effort.

And if you can't, well you need to at least get to there. Take it from good old unpublished me.

If I can do it so can you. 6800 words and counting...

It's "Finished"

She said to me as she walked out the door. Thinking about it now, I'd thank her if I could find her but I know: There is no finding her. Not where she went.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to writing my novel. At approximately 45,000 words I reached the pivotal scene. My original plan was to use that scene as a launching point to create a maelstrom from which I'd hammer down the rest of the subplots and tie a bow around the fucker.

Well, it didn't go like that.

As I wrote more and more of this scene and believe me I labored, we're talking days of staring at the monitor and coughing up a single sentence then deleting that sentence or one before it on the next day and writing something else.

As I wrote more and more I had hard time removing this excellent question from my brane.

As I wrote more and more of that scene, I realized that I was essentially writing the end of my novel.

It was a somber moment, there was no shimmying in the chair or anything like that, instead just an overwhelming numbness, a realization that I truly had nothing more to say on the subject. Between my beginning, middle and end I have enough to revise this thing into something truly workable.

I didn't hit the word count I wanted but the thing about journeys is that the destination is just another a mile marker. For me the journey isn't so much about writing "a novel" but becoming a full time novelist. I want to write many novels. Every piece that I write leads me closer to that goal and so I do feel a sense of accomplishment. Also, I learned a lot about how I work so I'll be better equipped to work with myself in the future.

Besides, I've read books (you may have noticed this) and am highly critical of writers that jam a story together and cobble on some wacked out ending that could've come 50 pages sooner. I wouldn't hold myself to a separate standard when I want my work to be on the same shelves as these guys/gals.

So it's done. I'm going to sit on it for a month before I print it and get to the editing/revision. 45,000 words @ 250/pg works out to about 180 pages. Paola pointed out that The Stranger is only 120 words. I can't decide if that makes me feel better or worse.

I've already started the next one. The inspiration came to me last year, I saw a bus parked on the side of State Route 99 during rush hour, hazards flashing. I can't remember if I saw or imagined a woman getting off that bus and into a grey Nissan truck behind it but that's what happens in my mind.

And that's where we go next.

Halfway There

To where you ask? Like I'm supposed to know. I'm just the guy putting the words on the page. 40,180 of 'em to be somewhat precise.



After close to a year of beard wringing, alcohol induced typistry I hit the halfway point of my book. Wordcount wise I'm shooting for 80,000ish. These things are constantly evolving so who knows what the final will be. We have a plot, we have characters doing stuff, we have words on multiple pages, some of which by mere circumstance are actual sentences.

Looks like I'm running out of excuses to finish the dern thing.

If you're writing fiction or considering to do so, I want to recommend Self Editing For Fiction Writers by Renni Brown and Dave King. I picked it up because I'm slowly working into the editor's mindset for when I have to go back and reread this monster from scratch.

Ugh.

Usually after I finish something I can't bear to look at it. Don't know why. Maybe it's the closeness to the project and emotional immediacy. I find it hard to not become attached to whatever I'm working on but it never feels right when it's fresh. Not until I set it aside and look at it a couple of months later. Then I can edit without prejudice.

I'm thinking this will be wrapped up early next year if things continue as they have.

The Hunt and Peck Diaries (Continued)

We're doing a little dance now. 36,064 words only one instance of the word 'hurried'. That is certainly worth celebrating.

'Point' and 'pointed' however will need to be phased out in revisions. Guess I'm fond of characters that hand-talk.

On to other things.

A couple of Fridays ago, talking to my homie on IM about the new Quentin Tarantino movie... actually it wasn't a real conversation. It had some elements of conversation; more than one person involved, dialogue, etc. but mostly I berated him about getting to see Inglorious Basterds first.

SO THERE.

Have you seen it? Don't tell me you're one of those people that hates Tarantino because of something he said or did one time or his excessive use of violence and the N-word, THE EAR SCENE, etc.

You might want to stop reading here.

I was probably an average Tarantino fan until Kill Bill Vol 1. One of my all time favorite scenes in a moviefilm involves Beatrix Kiddo (funny that Tarantino triggers the spell check and Beatrix Kiddo doesn't lolz) dispatching 88 crazed NINJAS with a samurai sword, even plucking the eye from that one idiot stupid enough not to wear goggles that day. Not to mention all the other elements of uber stylized coolness in that film.

Also, when it comes to suspense, especially of the Hitchcock kind, he's on a whole nother level with that. I squealed and grabbed Paola's arm during the diner scene in Death Proof. The camera does a slow pan and low and behold, Stuntman Mike is sitting at the bar, enjoying a coffee apparently listening in on the ladies' conversation. The camera finally pans back around and he's gone making you wonder if he was even there in the first place. Foreshadow much?

QT happened to be on Tavis Smiley doing the standard movie promotion tour. Didn't get a chance to see the whole thing but I caught this little snippet in which he talks about the art of storytelling.

Hold that thought for a second.

In constructing my epic novel in lyrical prose, Man Loses Hat, Man Finds Hat, I've discovered that I'm the type of writer that really likes to wander in the woods. Writing fiction, some say is an exercise in problem solving. The writer asks a question that they don't know the answer to and creates the prose to discern a solution.

I create situations for my characters sometimes that completely stymie me and spend days agonizing over how to resolve them while moving the plot forward. I have a general idea of where I'm going. Now that all the major players are in action it's just a matter of moving the pieces around until I reach the desired outcome.

Easy like Sunday morning?

Having a general idea is nothing compared to taking that same idea and stretching it out over the span of 80,000ish words. Which is where the clip comes in. As I muddle along through this thing, allegiances and motivations change, certain characters become superfluous and the plot becomes more convoluted. I know when I'm finished there will be a lot of stuff stricken from the original draft and scenes will be ordered in a manner more conducive to plot development.

QT talks about coming into the theater in the middle and sticking around after the movie to watch the beginning until the rest of the movie makes sense. This is what writing the novel feel like to me.

The beginning isn't really the beginning. All the important back story that makes the characters who they are constitutes the beginning and we're not going to dwell on that. We're going to dwell on the story which is what's happening NOW and in order to do that I've realized that writing everything in a chronological order is to my detriment.

It is small epiphany but one that I think will really help me down the road. Write the scenes worry about the chronology and plausibility later. This I can handle.

By the way. I did outline this thing, heavily and it's not even close to what I'm ending up with. Think I'll send a copy of it to the brave souls who volunteer to beta read for me. Just for giggles.

Breaks are for the Broken

Beginnings are easy, endings are hard, middles are tedious.

This is all you need to know about writing a novel. Those darn middles are where good ideas go to wallow and become mediocre.

WALLOW.

If you add an s to that it becomes swallow, which could either be a graceful bird or action that one does when confronted with explaining what their idea is about (or when consuming a beverage(s) that makes you forgot about said idea).

I don't feel like anything I've ever worked on is so irrevocably broken that a healthy dose of editing couldn't fix. Even my first novel attempt, that I cringed at the idea of rereading for 13 whole years isn't that bad in retrospect. I would never do anything with it but it sure is nice to look at that thick sheaf of words and say "Holy crap, I wrote this and it doesn't make me want to puke."

That doesn't do anything for finishing though. In fact, a lot of what I read about the art of writing novels suggests that it's a bad idea to go back and reread, period. In the first draft portion, the writer should be focused with burping words onto the page, not even pausing to correct obvious grammatical and spelling mistakes. The first draft is for the writer to tell the story to themselves. Then go back and write the darn thing, already.

This is all conjecture of course. Lawrence Block says no one can really tell you how to write a novel, no one except you of course and you only learn by completing one.

So where does that leave me? 33,000ish words in but I need to take a break. I have a short story idea that won't go away and it must be indulged. It's about... well go read that older post if you don't know because it's always about love. I think this should take about a week or two to hash out, probably leave it in draft form and hop back onto the horse. Besides, I don't feel so bad when hearing about first time novelists that took more than 3 years to get it done.

In the meantime, finally got around to reading Scarlett Thomas. Loving the End of Mr. Y, the whole thought experiment thing is kind of cool. Gave me all kind of ideas.

I have a thought experiment involving money. Give me some. Now.

Discuss.

Progress

The significance of the 25,000 word mark didn't occur to me until I read a post on the AW forum recently. Consider the average page has 250 words, that works out to 100 pages of prose.

Let's not got too excited cause I ain't there yet.

I hit 20,000 words early last week after going on a straight out binge the weekend before. According to Ms Word 2007 I've completed 21,225 words of my epic masterwork in lyrical prose: Guy Loses Bet, Loses Hat, Loses Girl.

I was more concerned with the magical 20K number. Goals are a strange thing though. On the one hand they can serve as a constant motivator, on the other the finish line looms and I imagine a gigantic guillotine suspended above it.

Writing is hard. I'd never trust anyone that thinks it's easy and every sentence, paragraph, phrase, errant punctuation mark that I produce, the nagging feeling that it's JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH never goes away.

I want it to be good. I want it to be BRILLIANT but you just can't want the thing without sweating for it. Most days I'm content not to sweat, procrastinating until the fire is lit under me and my fingers fly at the keyboard unable to keep up with the stream of words forming in my mind.

So what works as a motivator? Striving for an unattainable perfection or tempering the attempt with the knowledge that the odds are heavily waited against attaining your goal? I have no freaking clue.

Do you?