Ah, the Joy of Playing around with a Messy First Draft

I used to hate revising. In school I wrote papers the night before. Revising, in my mind, meant looking over the spelling before turning a paper in. In college when I took creative writing workshops, I still didn't understand revision. I'd write my stories in a burst (typically, the night before).

There'd be talk in class about what could be done to make a story better. "In the revision, you could try this," the professor would suggest. "Or you might think about this." I'd nod and take notes, but I never bothered to try any of those suggestions. To me, the story was done. I was bored with it and ready to move on. Maybe I'd apply what I learned to the next story I had to write.

I didn't truly understand revision until I heard a talk about it at a writer's conference. The speaker, a guy named Andy Gutelle, pointed out that many beginning writers struggle with revision. They have their finished draft in front of them, and they start from page one and edit along, tightening up passages or cutting a few things, fixing punctuation and typos. But this isn't really revision, he said.

Revision begins by looking at the entire novel at once. It asks big questions like:

What is this story about?
Who is your main character and what does she want?
Do all of your scenes contribute to the arc of the story? Does each one develop your main character and/or move the plot along?

He suggested revising in layers. Read through the book asking the big questions and then read through it again, zeroing in at the scene level, and finally at the smaller sentence by sentence level.

I had never thought about revision in this way. I was used to writing short stories, where I could hold the entire picture of the narrative arc in my head at once. Scene, scene, scene. Character, conflict, realization.

I had never done that with a novel. It's too big! But it made sense. Writing a first draft is often an exercise in discovering what it is you are writing about in the first place. Your initial idea can change a little or a lot. Characters that seemed important disappear. New characters emerge. Strands and subplots fade away. Revelations plop in out of nowhere.

Starting from the beginning and zeroing in on grammar errors is not going to help you get your novel into shape. To do that, you have to see what you actually have on the page (as opposed to the initial vision of the book that you hold in your head).

It's not a pleasant experience to read your first draft through for the first time. The fear going into it is that it's going to be a horrible, unfixable mess. What ends up happening, I'm happy to tell you, is that it IS kind of a mess, but it is fixable.

If it makes you feel any better, other writers go through this too:

"All writing," says Jane Yolen, "is about the gap--no that chasm--between the expectation and final product. Expect it, sidestep it, move on."

How do you DO revision, though? How do you take a big thing like a novel and see it for what it is--all the characters and strands and scenes and meanderings?

Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird describes printing out every page of a draft and spreading it all over her apartment.

Other writers write out their scenes on index cards.

(this is from YA author Nova Ren Suma--working on a draft at a writer's retreat)

They create elaborate maps.

(Check out Laurie Halse Anderson's revision road map. If you want to know more about Laurie's revision process, see her blog on her website Mad Woman in the Forest) 

They write on their walls.

(This is a wall in William Faulkner's house. Yes. Even Faulkner's novels did not spring from his head fully formed.)

Revising is like doing a puzzle. With your first draft complete, you've got most of the pieces out of the box and spread out on the table. You turn them over, examine what you have and think about how they might fit together. You chuck out the pieces that don't seem to belong to this puzzle. You assemble and realize which pieces are missing.

Uh oh. A character disappears? I'll rewrite the scenes at the beginning and take her out. A sub plot begins on page 100? Let's see if I can work that in earlier.

This can be fun or painstaking, angsty or exciting, depending on how you look at it. It takes time and work to put together a puzzle. Also, unfortunately, they don't come already assembled.

This is the truth about the work that is involved in writing a novel. It takes time. It takes logical thinking. It takes leaps of faith.

I heard David Wiesner speak at a conference this summer. He's an author/illustrator who's known for his award winning picture books Tuesday, Flostam, and Art & Max. He told us about his latest book, tracing the steps he went through from idea to development to revision. It was fascinating.

One day, he said, a very cool idea popped into his head. It was an image of a tiny spaceship landing in a child's sandbox. He immediately drew the picture and began to storyboard out the story arc. He showed us the sample and it seemed pretty good to me, but Wiesner said it wasn't right.

He drew the story out again, beginning with the spaceship in the sandbox. Still not right. And again. Again. He put the failed manuscript away. He wrote another book. He came back to it. Each time starting with the spaceship in the sandbox. That was the originating idea and he couldn't let it go. But for whatever reason, it just didn't work.

He quit on it again. He wrote other things. During a break he watched his cat not play with his toys. He wondered what a cat would do if he found a tiny spaceship. He drew out another story board. That story, after multiple revisions, became Mr. Wuffles. 

Check it out. It's clever and hilarious. It came to be because David Wiesner did not give up on his story. He let go of the original idea and took a leap of faith.

His parting words: Don't just think about an idea. Do the work.

PS. Anyone who would like my notes from Andy Gutelle's revision talk, email me at jodycasella (@) yahoo (.) com

Dispatches from LA: Random Notes, Inspiring Nuggets, and an Unexpected Brush with the Sharknado Set

Back from my whirlwind trip out to LA to attend the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators International Conference and I am still trying to decompress.

Short version of the trip: I laugh. I cry. I get sunburned. I gulp down coffee. I gape at famous writers and editors in elevators. I schmooze. I gush. I feel immense love for all writers and readers and everyone who has anything at all to do with putting stories out into the world.

Longer version:

Friday 

I am up at 4:15 a.m. The Starbucks at the hotel does not open until 5:30.

Many hours later my best writing friend Donna and I make our way into the auditorium. Fun fact: 1200 conferees are in attendance, representing 46 states and numerous foreign countries. Lin Oliver, one of the founders of SCBWI, kicks off the conference by telling us that we're all nut balls.

First of the many inspirational and thought-provoking speakers is Laurie Halse Anderson. I write in my notes: Laurie says, be brave. Embrace the sanctity of silliness. We are an antidote to the disappointing grown ups in the world.

Speaker number two, Jon Scieszka, orders us to be subversive and to support subversiveness in kids. Our books should not put kids to sleep, he says. Wake them up, for God's sake!

I go to a break out session on self publishing where I realize it's 4:00 Ohio time and all I have eaten so far are almonds that I've scrounged off the bottom of my purse.

Lunch: I eat a yicky, over-priced sandwich and have a cool conversation with a guy who is my son's age. He pitches me his book idea and I realize that I'm probably conversing with the next Rick Riordan.

Back in the auditorium for more sessions. I don't know if it's the jet lag mixed with the coffee and hunger pangs, but I cry during the next speaker's talk. Later, an editor gives a presentation on digital publishing and all I can focus on is her idea about doorbells. Apparently, the finger we use to press a doorbell indicates how old we are.

I use my index finger. Therefore, I am old.

A session on marketing and a kick ass session on world-building from 5 brilliant and cool YA authors: Veronica Rossi, Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Tahereh Mafi, and Ransom Riggs.

Night: Donna and I sneak mixed drinks into a wine and cheese party.

The evening ends with me looking like a total goofball. I am alone in an elevator with Arthur Levine and am so flummoxed I forget to press my floor button.

Saturday

I am up at 4:45! and first in line at Starbucks!

First inspirational talk that makes me cry of the day: Middle grade author Kirby Larson compares writing a book that gets overlooked to bringing a tofu casserole to a potluck.

The creative life can be hard and we should adopt a grandma--a mentor to help us navigate through the low points. The "grandmas" can be other books. She mentions the book of a writer I met at a previous conference, One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. I start crying. It just kills me to think about Lynda, this lady I sorta know, sitting at home wherever and not knowing that her book meant so much to Kirby Larson that Kirby Lawson is giving a shout out to it to 1200 people in LA.

Illustrator Mac Barnett is freaking awesome and hilarious and brilliant. Also, he makes most of the audience tear up over his true story about whales.

I go to a break out session where Printz Award winner John Corey Whaley and his editor Namrata Tripathi talk about the process behind the author/editor relationship. Takeaway: when you get the first detailed critique of your manuscript from your editor, give yourself a few days to rage and grieve before responding.

Presentation by Matt de la Pena where he asks us what our POV as writers is. He tells a story of a girl who knows what everyone wants to hear but doesn't know what she wants to say.

I go to Brodi Ashton's session on world building and take pages of notes. Best insightful nugget: The world must be in service to the story and not the other way around. She shares advice about prologues that makes me break out into a cold sweat:

1.Write a prologue with everything the reader needs to know about the world.
2. Write the book as if the reader has read the prologue.
3. Delete the prologue.

I meet my agent for the first time and we have a lovely chat down by the pool and the whole time I keep thinking: Hey! I am having a lovely chat with my agent down by the pool!!!

Sunday

I sleep in until 5:30. The Starbucks guy, Angel, knows me by name and order.

First panel is a group of high-powered agents. Lee Wind moderates and has the most tweetable bits of wisdom. There are other ways to define success besides money, he says. Like, the impact of a book on a single reader. Also, having your voice out there in the world.

David Wiesner gives us a glimpse into his creative process. His advice: always follow the story. Also, you can't just sit around and think about it. You have to do the work.

Lunch is a big lunch with everyone. Including Henry Winkler. Awards are given out and speeches are made, and I alternate between laughing and fighting back tears.

Richard Peck calls us to action. There are always survivors, he says, and we write their biographies.

The final speaker of the conference is Jarrett Krosockza. He cracks us up by reading a few of his bad reviews. His favorite: "Your book is clever and dumb," which Jarrett decides would be a good blurb for the back of the book.

On a more serious note, he reminds us that our stories can give kids an escape from an atrocious world.

That night I attend a party thrown by my agent in a cool bar on the 17th floor of some hotel. I look out at the smoggy LA skyline and I chat with other writers and artists and editors. I hold my wine glass and pass on scrumptious-looking hors d'oeuvres because I realize that it is impossible to drink wine and hold a plate and eat hors d'oeuvres at the same time. I have no idea where I am and I realize that I have no idea, in many ways, how I have made it to this cool bar on the 17th floor.

Monday

The conference is over but I've got an extra day to hang around. I write by the pool. I read. In the afternoon my brother, who lives in the area, picks me up and takes me down to the Santa Monica Pier.

He asks me how things are coming along with my book launch. I give him a rundown--the marketing, the signings planned, the party my neighbors are throwing--and the whole time I am thinking in the back of my head: I'm walking around Santa Monica Pier talking about a book I wrote--this dream I've had pretty much for my entire life--this dream that for years has been so clear, right down to the kind of pen I would use when I sign my books, is about to come true.

We eat dinner and look out at the ocean. I can't shake the hazy, jet-laggy, fish-out-of-water feeling that I have had the past few days. I've never been to the Santa Monica Pier but everything about the place feels familiar. The mountains, kind of Impressionistic-like in the distance. The beach. The Ferris wheel.

I've seen this place before, I tell my brother. I know it. And yet, I know that is impossible too. Until this trip, I have never even been to LA.

Maybe it's the set of a movie, my brother says.

It must be.