subscribePreparing to write
Thursday May 20, 2010
In the midst of the busy that has been this week so far, I’ve started outlining my next project. By “started” I mean rewriting all of the data I’d already compiled that was lost when the netbook imploded and by “outlining” I mean writing some sort of half-narrative synopsis type thing full of ideas and possibilities that I’ll later hack into something more clearly resembling an outline. When the walking-around-brainstorming-for-the-new-novel stage gets to the point where my brain feels like it’s going to explode if I don’t offload some of these ideas, that’s when I know I need to get down into the hard work of the outline/brainstorm mish-mosh. Which is where I find myself now.
Every project I’ve written I’ve prepared for differently. I haven’t found one right method to follow for every project, but neither do I think that I ought to have that “one” method for every project, because every project is so different. The one constant has always been that at some point — maybe before the first page is written, maybe after the first draft’s first chapter has been written — I always sit down and hack out the general ideas and the ending (in varying degrees of detail, initially). I never write without knowing the post-book resolution, as it were, though the ending, detail-by-detail, is amorphous until I get there. It’s one thing to say Prince Philip and Princess Aurora will dance together at the end, but it’s quite another to figure out all the little details (Prince Philip’s flight to the castle, the fairies’ intervention, the battle with Maleficent, climbing the tower, the kiss) that eventually get them to that dance floor to complete that image.
The weird fact is, though, that I’m tired of brainstorming and outlining and I’ve only just begun the process. It’s because I really, really want to write this project. So why don’t you just write it already? I… well. I had a long explanation prepared for that question. But I think the better answer is I’m going to go work on it right now, start getting into the first draft (oh, first drafts…!) then go back and hack into the outline. Once I see the shape of the start of the story more clearly (and the best way to do that is to write, to begin the process of getting the images in my head to take shape in the form of scenes) I’ll be able to really outline it.
So I’m going to go write now. *Grins* Get it? Write now… right now… okay, I’ll stop with the lame puns and go work.
It’s That Time of Year Again!
Thursday November 5, 2009
NaNoWriMo time, of course!
(I did see Christmas decorations at Duane Reade, though, so I do suppose it’s also that time of year, but the NaNo time of year is far more important.)
This morning I am at 18,955 words. I sprinted through the first few days and now I am in the midst of a tough scene, which has me stalled. Must push through! Several factors have helped me with my word count thus far: the first is that I conceived this story in its current form in 2007 and haven’t had the excuse, chance, or energy to do more than outline it in all that time. I’m working off of an outline but I’ve also held scenes in all of their vivid, visual clarity in my head for far longer than I really ought to have. I have a strangely visual memory when it comes to imaginary things. (Like, when I recount the plot of a novel to someone, I actually imagine the strings of images my brain put together and rebuild the story from those images.) I’m a weird duck.
The next factor is I was diagnosed with a case of bronchitis last Friday, October 30th, so by the time midnight between October 31st and November 1st rolled around, I was at home coughing up a lung and bored. So I started writing. (Getting two thousand words before bed was… exhilarating.) I spent all of Sunday writing (my friend and I even attempted to squeeze in at the Manhattan Write-in but it was stuffed full of people, so we went to an adorable little tea shop instead with the laptops.) Monday I took off from work and sat around, hacking and writing in tandem. Tuesday I was in the midst of an incredible scene. Then another, then another. Thus… 18,955 words. I had told myself I’d hit 20,000 yesterday but the Yankees decided they were going to absolutely kill the Phillies and I was torn the whole time between writing and rooting for the Phillies — yes I am a New Yorker but sometimes it’s no fun to root for the winning team! — and so I sort of stalled. That and I found I was prematurely digging into the meat of the story that I really need to wait on, so I actually need to backtrack and rewrite a little, then resume the forward momentum. That can be the hardest part of NaNoWriMo for me: I write fastest and best when I write compelling, exciting, integral scenes, and while I try to always write that way, it doesn’t happen like that in a first draft. No matter how well I outline there are still boring little bits (to me) that I slog through. I’m also a perfectionist, so first drafts drive me a little crazy there, too. I hesitate over a sentence if it’s not, well, good enough. But NaNo at least gives me the freedom to say, “Yes, it’s not good enough, just keep going and get it all out!” There’s really literary abandon in that, and I love it.
It’s exciting times, November. Can’t wait to get back to it.
Staten Island Chuck
Monday February 9, 2009
This weekend, while gallivanting around Brooklyn with a mattress in the unseasonably warm, sunny weather, my friend told me that Staten Island Chuck had predicted an early spring on Groundhog’s Day in direct contradiction to Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction of an extended winter. Being a New Yorker, I think I might have to put more faith (and hope) in Chuck’s prediction. Also, given the deliciously warm temperature of 50 degrees Fahrenheit this last Sunday and the sunshine — the air itself smelled like happiness — I think I’m going to believe Chuck. I hope for a reasonably warm March 7, at least. Shopping for a wrap to go over the wedding dress on Friday and seeing the lack of, uh, warmth they offer… I’m hoping I won’t have to resort to a cardigan/full-on coat, or at least not for long. I wish the wedding wasn’t consuming my thoughts as much as it is increasingly doing. It is a wedding; I suppose this is what it is supposed to be doing.
I can’t help but wonder if avoiding obsessing over the wedding is contributing to my ridiculous pace in this draft. I’ve been writing so much since early January — since serious wedding planning really began. 70,000 words in 30 days (and yeah, it’s just about 30 days now) is nothing to sneeze at. And they are good words. And yet I wonder… could I be so focused upon writing without having something else (like the wedding) to avoid focusing upon? Having — theoretically — all day, every day to work solely on this draft has really amped up the productivity potential, of course. Bryan has been encouraging me to keep chugging throughout the evening, as well, and it being winter — and therefore leaving the house to gallivant around in the cold is undesirable — I’ve had even more reason to simply stay in front of the computer. Maybe that’s a contributing factor?
Regardless of the reason behind this productivity, I am so pleased with this first draft. Each one I’ve written has shown a marked improvement in my own sophistication as a writer and I’m so proud of this one. I am so anxious to finish and polish it but my perfectionist nature is going to fight me on it and make sure it’s perfect. (Thank goodness for that, though.) I hope it can hit the high standard I set for myself and my work. Already it’s doing that in draft form. Throughout all of this, though, I keep thinking I’ll never write a draft this fast ever again. I’m not sure I believe it’s happening but I see the words, I read them, and I just think, Wow. This is crazy. Über crazy. I mean… 70,000 words in 30 days?! I’m telling you it’s because of the miracle outline, That Which Is Showing Me Where to Go. Without that I’d be as lost and rambling as I was during NaNoWriMo, but there is no room for rambling when I have so much stuff happening.
Each week that approaches, though, will get busier and busier. Some part of me hopes to finish the draft soon so I can focus more on the wedding but the procrastinator in me really wants to keep not thinking about the wedding for as long as I can. The more focus and energy I put in thinking about it, the higher my emotions, worries, and anxieties will run, and the more likely I am to start fretting over the details. So far I’ve been confident everything will work out. I have to find a way to maintain that attitude… by distracting myself. Yes. I’ll just keep distracting myself.
Okay. I give in. It’s a novel.
Sunday January 18, 2009
The um, project that I’ve been working on? I give in and admit it’s a novel and probably for the time being it’s the only thing I’m focusing on. I decided this the other day when I sat down and outlined about 90% of it. I never do this. I usually write out a bunch of the novel in a sort of “writing to discover” process and then figure out what needs to be there and doesn’t and from that figure out the hows of the plot and outline the details and start cleaning it up and revising it in a quasi-new-draft of it. But this outline is color-coded and I didn’t even write it on the computer. (Note to self: transfer to computer and save a billion backup copies of it everywhere.)
But this thing, this novel. It’s alive. It’s a creature taking hold of my brain. A giant squid novel, yep, that’s what I’m writing. (Having nothing to do with squids, really, except for the fact that this novel seems to have tentacles that have reached out of the monitor, grabbed me, and started smacking my head against the keyboard until I finally relented and agreed to work on it full time.)
I can’t complain, though–strike that, I shouldn’t be complaining, yet I am. I went from being in a holiday creative slump to being in a post-holiday creative slump. There was much staring at my iGoogle page, wondering what to do. I hadn’t even felt more than “Bleh” about reading–READING–that’s how slumpy I was. This… this fire… this is work of the kind I haven’t felt since February of 2006 when I started a draft based on an image of a conversation one of my historical characters was having with her brother. The image–what she was wearing, how she was sitting, her facial expressions, all of a sudden revealed this character that drew me in and made me so much more interested in her than just this figure who crops up in legend on one of the other novels. She was a real person with a whole story and a whole arc that needed to be told. That draft/novel was the cause of me getting very little sleep that semester. Instead I spent every weekend of that winter glued to the computer, feverishly working on that instead of working on what I was supposed to be working on. (Homework. Papers. Stories. The like.) The irony of this is every big draft I’ve ever started and enjoyed enough to write through I’ve started in the winter, usually in January or February. The autumn slump and the holiday break leads to an impatience and feverishness in January or February, I’m guessing. So I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.
But I feel guilty! I should be working on something else. In fact I love that story and really want to be working on it! (Alas, I need to write to discover with that one, though, which seems a bit onerous.) Maybe I should sit down with my colored pens and outline it anyway and just be as daring and brazen with its plot as I was with this novel and see where it leads. It’s working with this one! The word count of this document is probably going to surpass the count of that one in another week with my current pace (which is nicely graphed in Excel) and really… gah. At least my protagonist has multiple reasons to feel guilty so I get to use that guilt and angst in a productive way.
To think, this all started the day I interviewed a prospective student applying to Carnegie Mellon. I went to Starbucks a bit early, sat down with the laptop and opened a blank document. “To hell with it,” I thought. I’d intentionally arrived way too early to force myself to focus on writing. Something. Anything. And hell. It worked. Carnegie Mellon, you’re still helping me write. (In an admittedly weird and roundabout way.) Bless you.
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