In Which I Attempt to Kick Resistance's Butt

I'm glad I keep a journal as I write a book because I can look back and see my writing process in all its up and down glory:

The excitement when I get an idea and start to play around with it.

The drudgery that hits some point in the middle and I think how the heck am I going to make it through this one? (This is usually around the time when I realize I have no idea what is going to happen in the story, and worse, I don't even know what the thing is ABOUT anymore. Because it changes, see? What you THOUGHT you were writing is not actually what you're writing.)

And then there's the cool moment when it clicks. Still not sure how this works but believe me, I am not complaining. Dumb luck. Magic. The Muse. My awesome subconscious mind playing around while I sleep. Whatever. I'll take it. When I reach that point, I know I'm nearly home free. I get the book now. I know where it's going. And I go with it.

But this part of Writing a Book is only the first part. It's just the first draft. Next comes the Putting It Away In The Drawer part because that is what Stephen King told me to do and I like to follow his instructions.

Then there's the nauseating First Read Through where I see the flashes of my own brilliance while at the same time fighting to stay awake through boring sections and over all of that is the ever present worry: how am I going to FIX this giant freaking mess?

Somehow I do.

I revise. Once. Twice. More.

And each time the rollercoaster process begins again. Doubt that this is any good, that it is worth doing, that anyone will ever even read the damn thing. Anxiety that I can't write. That if I ever even had talent, it's long gone. But also love. For that kernel of a story that made me want to write it in the first place. And love for the characters, who are REAL by this stage, twittering away in my head, saying lines that don't sound like things I would say. So how cool is that?

It's enough to make me want to work on the book again, to get it right. And when that book is marinating in my Stephen King drawer, it's enough to make me want to start another one.

What was my point again? Oh, right. This is why I'm glad I keep a journal. So I can remind myself of my process.

Which brings me to this morning. I am somewhere in the middle of a revision--a revision, I might add, of a manuscript that I started writing like, three years ago. This is revision number four maybe? I don't even know. I read through it a few weeks ago and I loved it. Today, uh, not so much.

But I reread an old writing journal and realized that I was right on schedule. Ah, it's the middle where I-think-the-book-blows-and-wonder-if-I-should-quit. Been there. Done that.

Here's a nice little nugget of wisdom I picked up from Steven Pressfield's book on writing, War of Art. He calls the doubts and anxieties that accompany writing a book--the nasty stuff that can potentially derail writers--a sign of Resistance. Every day, he says, it's a battle between you and Resistance and the only way to win is to keep writing.

Today, as I pick my way through what's got to be the worst pile-o-junk I've ever written--boring and absurd and pointless and probably unpublishable--I am keeping Steven Pressfield in mind, and writing anyway.

Take that, Resistance.

Digging up Story Bones

On this glorious, bizarrely sunny and 80 degree day in Columbus, I find myself smack dab in the middle of yet another first draft (ten. But who’s counting). So right on schedule I’ve got the usual negative thoughts burbling up. This sucks, who am I kidding? Why am I wasting my time with something that inevitably will never see the light of day? Blah blah blah. It’s kind of sad. Because when I started this first draft, I had such high hopes for it:

1. The idea is the best one I’ve ever had.

2. This book will be THE ONE.

3. I can’t wait to get going on it first thing in the morning. Etc. Etc. (Warning: if you DON’T have these feelings upon beginning a first draft, you may want to reconsider the project. Later, when that excitement has faded, you’ll need every little nibbly remnant to keep you going.)

Another thing that keeps me going is setting a word count. For this draft I’m taking a page from Stephen King and writing 2000 words a day. And every day I meet the goal. I am not saying these are GOOD words. First Draft Land is all about the quantity, people. It’s not magic. It’s not a secret. To write a book you have to sit down and um, write it.

My friends tell me I must have a lot of self-discipline. Maybe. But I think it might have more to do with the stubborn/OCD combo streak that I’m blessed and/or cursed with. I have the hardest time quitting something. And I rarely fail to follow through on something I said I would do. Hence, if I say I’m going to write 2000 words today, then damn it, I’m writing 2000 freaking words. This is not to say that it is easy. But what is?

The truth is, anyone who can read can write a book. Just like anyone who has two legs can run a marathon. It has to be something you really want to do, and you’re going to have to make some time to run every day. Full disclosure: I have never run a marathon. But I have run some 5Ks and they’re hard enough. Two minutes in, usually, I want to die and I’m cursing myself for signing up. What the hell was I thinking? Why did I think I could do this? Still, I keep moving my feet, slapping them down again and again, breathing in and breathing out. I start making little bets with myself: Just get to the lightpost. Don’t stop til you pass the pine tree. I can do anything for thirty minutes, right? And lo and behold, it’s true. I’m not trying to win the race, mind you. I’m not even trying to get an impressive time. I’m just trying to run at a steady clip until I cross the finish line.

If there is a secret to writing a first draft, this is it. At least for me. Another full disclosure: I do not outline a book before I start. Instead, I have an idea or two—a character, a line that gives me the narrator's voice—and I start writing. I set my words. I go. I resist the urge to fiddle and revise along the way. That’s the key.

Stephen King, in his book on writing, entitled, shockingly, On Writing, compares writing a book to digging up a fossil. The first go around, he says, you’re just trying to dig the thing out, as many of the pieces as you can without breaking any, without missing any big important chunks. You certainly don’t stop halfway through and start dusting the bones off and snapping them together. That’s for later—when it’s all laid out in front of you and you can see what you have. Only then do you arrange. See what’s missing. Throw out the bits of rock that you thought were bone. Or maybe those things belong in some other fossil instead of this one.

Looking at it this way, it’s easy to write a book. Just pick up your shovel every day and keep digging.

(The secret to writing a book)

What Scares Me

I’ve been following this very cool blog by Nova Ren Suma, the author of the gripping and beautifully written novel, Imaginary Girls. Lately Nova’s been inviting other writers to guest blog on particular topics. In October she posted a series called "What Scares You" where writers described their favorite scary books/movies. I wasn’t asked to guest blog by Nova (sigh) but reading all those posts got me thinking about what books have scared me over the years.

You can’t talk about scary books without mentioning Stephen King. The first “adult” book I ever read (back in seventh grade) was The Shining. It scared the crud out of me. I also really likedThe Stand and It. But I think King’s scariest book is Pet Sematary.

When I read it I wasn’t a parent yet but the idea still chilled me to the bones. The premise of the novel is a young doctor and his family move to a small town in Maine. Life is looking swell for them—nice house, sweet little boy, precious little girl, a cat…The only downside is the very busy road in front of the house where monster trucks zoom by. One of those trucks kills the pet cat and the little girl is devastated. The doctor finds out there’s a pet cemetery, the remnants of an old Indian burial ground nearby. Supposedly if you bury a pet there it will come back. It may not come back quite right, warns the elderly neighbor across the street, and it’s probably not a good idea to mess with the dead, but of course the doctor, concerned about his daughter’s grief decides to bury the cat up there anyway. And it does come back. Not quite right—so not quite right that the daughter is horrified by the sight and smell of it. Life goes on for a while and those trucks keep rushing by the house and one day the little boy gets killed. Well, you just know what the father is going to do.

What’s scary about this book, I think, is not the gruesome gotcha stuff but the impulse most of us can relate to: What parent wouldn’t want to bring his dead child back if there was a way?

King has some interesting things to say about what scares people in his book Danse Macabre. Many of the examples are out of date now—stuff from the 1950’s and 60’s that King grew up on—but his ideas are thought-provoking. One, that in a good horror story there is usually something psychologically terrifying behind the obviously scary premise. Take The Exorcist. Pretty darn horrifying novel/film about demon possession, but King says that what’s really at the core of it is every parent’s fear that her teenager will spin out of control. I recently watched the movie What Lies Beneath, a ghost story about a dead girl haunting a woman. It’s a creepy movie with lots of scary moments, but I think what’s truly scary is the woman’s floundering state of mind. Her only child’s gone off to college and she’s not quite sure what to do with her time. When the ghost starts coming around, other people, including her husband, are patronizing, thinking the woman’s just lonely and bored. There’s a common theme in horror that the person being haunted is simply losing her mind. And what is scarier than thinking that you might be going crazy?

Something that interests me as a writer is how horror writers build suspense. King says that the scariest stuff is the unknown. He uses the example of the heroine in a creepy house where everyone knows the Scary Thing is behind a door at the top of the stairs. The entire book/movie is really the suggestion of whatever that Thing is and the plot is the character walking up those stairs and getting closer and closer to that door. Many writers are good at the building up of tension part, but where they usually fail (and King admits it’s where HE fails too) is when the hero has to finally open the door and show the audience what’s inside. There’s nearly always a letdown. It’s a zombie or it’s a vampire or it’s a giant spider, etc.

Whatever it is, it rarely lives up to what we imagined.

So tell me, faithful readers, what scares YOU?

When Life Intervenes

I have a feeling that Stephen King doesn’t clean toilets or drive carpool or host Thanksgiving dinner for 14 people. Maybe I’m wrong. Before he had his big breakthrough with his novel Carrie, he was a high school teacher and the father of young children. I’m sure there were days when he had a hard time getting his 2000 words written. In his book On Writing he says empathically that he writes 2000 words a day every day—whether it takes him two hours to do it. Or ten.

People who don’t write probably think that’s crazy. No one is going to know, after all, whether or not you get your writing done. If you’re making millions of dollars a year, of course, it probably seems worth it, but when you’re just starting out and not getting paid for your efforts, it’s kind of hard to justify the amount of time and work involved in writing a book. At some point you recognize, though, that you feel better when you write and you feel cruddy when you don’t. And that’s that.

I didn’t write much at all when I was teaching and when my kids were little. I know there are writers who do this (ie. Stephen King) but apparently I’m not one of them. Teaching sapped the life out of me and now that I think about it, my young kids did too. I don’t regret this, by the way, even though it meant I had a late start with my writing career. I’m glad I was able to give my job and later my family my undivided attention. There was a nice bonus for them too, in that I had all this untapped creativity that pretty much had nowhere to go. For example, my four year old son and I made a to-scale model of a Viking ship complete with 50 toothpick oars poking out of the sides. When my daughter turned eight I threw her the coolest (if I do say so myself) Harry Potter birthday party. The guests had a potions lesson and drank homemade butter beer and ran around in the backyard on brooms playing a game of quidditch while I pelted them with water balloons (which were supposed to be the bludgers).

When I quit work to write full time my biggest hurdle was figuring out how to manage my time. It was easy to start the day off with the best of intentions and slowly slip off course. Once I started recording how many words I wrote, it got easier. Well, not exactly easier, but I found that I had something concrete to measure. Using this method I’ve been able to write two novels a year and still have time left over to revise. Now my biggest hurdle is figuring out how to take time off. I’ve developed such strict work habits over the years I’m afraid that if I cut myself too much slack next thing I know I’ll be sacked out in front of the TV watching a Jersey Shore marathon. Not that I’ve ever done this, but…

What I need to remember is that I’m not Stephen King (Haha, in case anyone was wondering) and some days I’m not going to be able to write my words. Sometimes life is going to intervene. I’m a writer. But I’m also a person. And people have lives to live which include doing mundane tasks like laundry but also important valuable things like reading a book to your daughter’s class or baking someone’s birthday cake. Or hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for 14.

I’m not worried. Really. November 29 I’ll be at my desk (or at my assigned comfy chair in the library) plugging away on my words. I can’t promise you my house will be clean though. Some things you really have to let slide.

Stalled

I’ve been feeling cocky lately. Writing this blog to my beginner self of fifteen years ago made me realize how much progress I’ve made since I started. I’ve been smug, thinking I had discovered the secrets to my creative process and confident that I had the tools to take my writing to the next level. And I’ve been feeling generous—eager to share with other struggling writers my wealth of knowledge about inspiration and motivation, perseverance and discipline.

Today, though, I feel like I’m back at square one. It’s 1:34 and I have done absolutely nothing toward my writing goals. I’m stalled. Stuck. Floundering with a first draft that’s really more like a tenth draft. The truth is I don’t know what to do next. My usual little tricks don’t seem to be working for this one—

I’ve put the manuscript away. I’ve read it with a fresh eye. I’ve charted out the whole thing, trying to figure out what I have and what’s still missing. In the process I discovered that what I thought I was writing about has changed. Now this realization doesn’t freak me out. It’s happened to me before. In fact it’s happened every time I’ve written a book. Somehow the point—what you think is the point anyway—sort of morphs into something else. The story takes off. The characters suddenly start acting like real people, doing what they want instead of what you planned for them to do. It’s a pretty cool moment in the process when the story becomes what it really is, and it’s probably the most fun part about being a writer—just letting it go and following along for the ride. Later, you can see what the over-arching story is and that knowledge helps you shape the second draft.

But here’s my problem. I’m not seeing it. I have glimmers here and there but that’s it. Stephen King in his book On Writing talks about how a story is always there somewhere, like a fossil underground, and our job as the writer is to discover it and dig up the pieces. The better writers are able to uncover the majority of the bones and put them all together. Beginning writers might only be able to get a few or maybe they stick the leg bone in the wrong socket. I’m feeling like a beginning writer this week. I’m not finding all my story pieces. Or maybe I have most of the pieces but I can’t figure out how to rearrange them correctly. I don’t even know if there is such a thing as correctly with this book anymore. I’ve written so many versions of it, I’m afraid I’ve damaged it or lost the heart of what it was meant to be somewhere along the way.

Over the past few weeks I’ve gone back and read some of the versions. I’ve kept a journal of all of my questions and problems and plot holes. I’ve taken walks. I’ve read books (a few great ones that made me feel overwhelming despair that I’ll never get this figured out. And a few mediocre ones that remind me that I can.) I’ve gone back and read old rejections/critiques on this manuscript. Here, I’ve been fortunate to have several editors give me some really good feedback on what’s working and not working with this story, one editor going so far as to ask for a revision and giving me specific points to consider. I’ve also talked to my generous, insightful, inspirational writing buddies, as well as to my long-suffering husband who listened to me rant and rave all weekend about my struggles with this book.

But I’m still stalled.

So what’s the answer here? I don’t know. There is a part of me that considered quitting on this book. Just saying, forget it. I gave it many years already. I certainly tried. But there is another part that refuses to let it go. I heard the great editor Patti Lee Gauch speak at a conference once. She said writers can be taught all of the elements of a story. We can learn about setting, characters, plot. We can study grammar and punctuation. We can have editors advise us on revision. But no one can help us with the heart of the story. Some stories have it and some stories don’t. I know this story has one. I can’t let it go. And I believe I’m the only one who can tell it. I have no deadline. No real pressure from anyone except myself. In all likelihood this book will never see a bookstore shelf.

I don’t care.

Time to get back to work.

Procrastination

Every day I have the best of intentions. I’m going to sit right down at my computer, fortifying cup of coffee beside me, and begin. Open up my file (whatever project I happen to be working on) and GO. But first, I really should clean up the breakfast dishes. I can’t have them sitting out all over the counter. And I need to check my emails. That laundry piling up in the hallway—I should make a dent in it. Just throw in one load. Oh. And what are we having for dinner tonight? I should put something in the crockpot. Get THAT out of the way. Who’s on Facebook? Ha ha. That’s funny. Someone posted a clip of a guy singing about his sister getting attacked. Wait. That’s not funny. Is this a sign of the decline of Western Civilization? Jeez. Now the laundry’s finished. I need to throw it in the dryer.

I think you can see where I’m going with this. Next thing I know it’s nearly lunchtime, I’m still in my pajamas and I haven’t written a single word.

Ah, procrastination. It’s a pitfall most writers continually battle. How do I know? Because I have read dozens of books by writers about writing, and every single one says something about the challenge of motivating yourself to write. I used to wonder about all of this working-yourself-up-to-write business. What’s so hard about writing? It’s not like you’re painting houses, or grilling steaks at Ponderosa, or washing two hundred pizza pans at Papa Ginos (all jobs I’ve actually had, by the way). I don’t know why I put off writing. And I don’t know why there are days when I slog through each painful word. All I do know is that when I don’t write, I feel really horrible. Which is usually enough motivation to get myself going.

Here are a few other tricks of the trade (gleaned from all those writer books on writing) that I wish I had known 15 years ago:

1. BIC—Butt in Chair. As in, put your butt in the chair and write. Some people think you need to be inspired before you can start writing. I’ve learned that if you sit and write, the inspiration will come. It always does. I have no idea how this works. It’s magic.
2. Set a word count. Stephen King says he writes eight pages a day every day. I believe him. But (and correct me if I’m wrong here, Stephen,) I don’t think he has to make dinners or take forgotten lunches to school or clean toilets. Eight is too much for me. I write six. And I take one day off a week.
3. Find an accountability partner. I email my word count goal to my best writer friend every day. At the end of the day I check in with her and tell her if I’ve done it. It’s amazing how this simple thing keeps me on task. When I first started doing it I realized that it didn’t even matter if she read my emails. Just telling her what I was going to do, made a difference. I guess I’m one of those need-a-deadline people.
4. Finish each writing session in the middle of a thought/sentence. It’s cool how easy it is to get going when all you have to do is complete the last sentence from the day before. And you’re off!
5. Don’t blog. Ha ha. (Just realized blogging is THE perfect vehicle for further procrastination.)

Must sign off now. It is noon. I have not started on my writing goal for the day. But my laundry is finished. My counters are cleared off. I am out of the old pajamas and ready to put my BIC.

Searching for a Mentor

Here's something I wish I knew fifteen years ago: how helpful it would be to have a mentor--a kindly, wizened writer to take me under her wing and guide my career. Okay. I never found that person, exactly. But in some ways, over the years, I have. My first few years, unfortunately, were spent floundering alone. I was the perfect mix of arrogance and ignorance. I thought I knew everything about writing (I had majored in it, after all! I had won awards! What could someone teach ME?)

A lot, as it turned out.

My first glimpse of a mentor came in the form of meeting other writers at conferences. No, none of these people ever took me on as a project, but just seeing real people, real women like me, living a writer's life, was important. They showed me that being a writer wasn't some unattainable, magical, crazy dream. These women were like me--they had husbands and children and went grocery shopping and ran errands. They weren't strange characters living in turrets ala Emily Dickinson.

I asked these writers how they worked--nuts and bolts about inspiration and revision and craft. They had different methods but I found that there were things that I could apply to myself and my own work.

Which led me to reading about writers. There are tons of books out there on writing, some more helpful than others. My favorites are: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, (hilarious and God, I wish I had read this book 15 years ago); On Writing by Stephen King (even if you don't like his books, you will find helpful advice on the craft of writing); anything by Natalie Goldberg (very New-Agey but so inspirational); and The Artist's Way by Cameron (also New-Agey, but this book literally changed my life with its ideas about creativity and inspiration).

So I never found my in-the-flesh guru. But over the years I have learned so much from a community of other writers--those I know personally and those I know only through their books. And now I am extremely grateful to have found a writing partner--a woman who is roughly at the same stage I am who reads my drafts and give me much-needed advice. I met her in line at a Port-a-potty at a writers' conference. Which just goes to show--I don't know what. Be open to meeting writers. Be receptive to learning new things.

Writing is such a solitary activity. Never close yourself off from reaching out. You might find a mentor. Or maybe you'll just make a new friend.