The book I'm writing is going off the rails

There's a lesson in here about Things Not Going in the Direction You Planned, and how That's Okay, because you're Trusting the Process, and in the end, you'll get a Messy Crappy First Draft, but even if it's messy and crappy, You'll Still Have Something To Work With. 

But I'm a big liar when I say these things. 

What I really want when I write a book is to know where it's going right from the start. Write my words each day and watch the story unfold exactly how I planned it. Make it to the end easily, and all that's left to do is a quick spellcheck before sending it off. 

It never happens this way so I don't know why I'm surprised.

I needed this one to work that way though. The words I write each day feel like the only thing I can control, so when they go off in some weirdo direction I didn't see coming, now what am I supposed to do? 

What I did was I went outside and cut the ivy that was climbing up the house and then I went into the backyard and yanked out weeds. It was a gorgeous day in Columbus Ohio and it was September 11, and I couldn't help thinking about twenty years ago and how gorgeous that day had been at the start of it, driving with my four-year-old daughter to her preschool at 8:45 in the morning, and how later, when I picked her up at noon, all of the moms were standing in an awkward circle, no one chatting with each other how we usually did. 

We swayed awkwardly and looked everywhere but into each other's faces. No phones then, or I'm sure we all would've been pressed to them. Not that it would've been good to have phones, but at least there would have been an excuse for the excruciating silence, the stark and terrifying together-but-aloneness feeling we all were feeling. 

What I was thinking while I weeded the garden was, what if I had reached for the hand of the mom next to me and then she had reached for the hand of the person next to her and we stood in our circle, holding hands, instead of swaying there so painfully alone?

Why did it take me twenty years to think of this idea? I went for a walk. 

And that's when it hit me that maybe my book is not as messed up as I thought. I mean, the world in it is relatively stable and still a place I'd like to visit. The people, the kind of people I like knowing. And when someone wonders if she should reach out and hold another person's hand, I truly believe, this time, she will. 

On Going Back into a Revision (again and again and again and again and again)

One of the items on my to-do list this week seems pretty straightforward:

Read rough draft of BLANK. 

(Side note: BLANK is not the actual title of this manuscript, but I have a thing about not talking too specifically about books while I am still hip deep in the weeds with them. Also, this particular project doesn't have a settled upon title at the moment. It's morphed around a lot over the years. Recently, I thought I'd hit upon the perfect title before realizing there was a new YA book out with the same one. Ah well. BLANK it is.)

I don't know if you caught the phrase "over the years." 

I say this with a mixture of embarrassment and defiance: BLANK is a book that I have been writing and rewriting since 2002. I'm not exactly sure how many distinct versions of it there are. It morphs around too, subtly changing and expanding and evolving, so that now it's a much bigger production than I ever dared dream it could be when I first started writing it. 

Nova Ren Suma has this great blog series called The Book of My Heart. In the intro she writes about why her own book Imaginary Girls "holds a distinct and special place" in her heart, and she invites other authors to write about their special books.  

If I ever get my book BLANK right--(whatever right means--I'll know it when I see it--so far I have not seen it)--I will send my response to Nova and ask if she will use it in her series. 

BLANK is without question the book of my heart.  

Every couple of years I write a version, and I share it with my long suffering critique partner Donna, and she gives me a lovely peptalk. 

Rinse. 

Repeat. 

She's learned, you see. The first time, many versions earlier, when I told her I was thinking about going back in, she asked the obvious question: "Why?" 

I stammered for a bit. At that point I hadn't even begun to articulate my obsession. 

Now I've come to the understanding that I have to write this book. It's my story and I'm the only one who can tell it.

Each time I pick it back up, I am refreshed and excited. This is IT, I tell myself. This is the one. And each time I finish, I'm a raw wound, a burned out shell of my former self, vowing never again. If THIS isn't the one, screw it. Forget it. Forget them, those stupid pretend people. 

Until lo and behold, almost like clockwork, those people wake and rise and whisper, and I am compelled to open up the manuscript and try again. 

I thought I was the only one who did this kind of thing--wrote a book over and over--until I came upon an author's note at the back of a novel: 

I have wanted to write about [this] for a very long time. I actually attempted it several times. First while in college, then again right after. I'd almost given up, but a few years ago--after I'd published three novels and really should've known what I was doing -- I threw myself at the legend one more time. And failed again.

The author is Maggie Stiefvater. The book that she's describing is The Scorpio Races, which is pretty much in my top ten favorite books of all time. 

I like to revisit that book. And I like to revisit Maggie Stiefvater's description of the angsty but ultimately successful behind-the-scenes process.  

It's what I've done just now, as I am about to tackle my to-do: 

Read rough draft of BLANK.

I think you may be able to guess what the next item is on the list...

Begin writing. Again. 

(Just one stack of the many many versions.)

In Which I Remind Myself to STOP Comparing Myself to Other Writers (also, a huge favor!!)

I know two great truths about writing:

Trust the process. 

And 

Every writer's process is different. 

Despite the fact that I know these two statements to be true, I doubt them all the time. 

I have to learn over and over that if I write a bit every day, I will eventually reach the end of a draft. And regardless of how messy it is, if I go back IN, I will eventually manage a second (and third and fourth and fifth) draft. And each draft will be a tad better than the draft before. And finally, if I keep at it, I will write THE END on the manuscript and it will truly be THE END. 

I also have to learn over and over to stop comparing myself to other writers. 

Back story: I am struggling mightily with a revision. For several months I worked my butt off every day on a fourth draft (or maybe it was a fifth draft. I don't even know anymore). This was a daily struggle that honestly felt like a battle.  But I am nearing (I HOPE!!) the end, and I am (ALMOST!) ready to send it off to my agent. 

I was feeling kinda proud of myself, and then I participated on a panel discussion with a group of eight other YA writers and someone in the audience asked a question about our writing process. 

Everyone sounded so disciplined and serious and confident and cheerful. 

Mindee Arnett, author of The Nightmare Affair (which is a trilogy) and Avalon (which is also a trilogy) calls herself a "pantser who likes to ask for directions." She writes fast drafts, without outlines, and logically plots out her story as she goes. (Oh, I should mention that Mindee has a full-time job, little kids at home, and a horse farm.) 

Mindy McGinnis, author of Not a Drop to Drink (recently optioned for film by Stephenie Meyers' production company) is a full time high school librarian who writes her books at night. 

One of the writers works when her son is at kindergarten. Another churns out romance novels. Two of the writers work as a team and co-write their books. 

And so it went, until it was my turn. 

I have no full time job. One of my kids is away at college and the other has a foot eagerly out the door. I have entire days stretching out in front of me with no real obligations except walking the dog. Every day I have the best of intentions to start my work early, and every day I do everything I possibly can to NOT start working, until finally the pressure becomes so great that I want to tear my hair out of my scalp. Only then, do I open my file and begin. 

I've talked to many writers over the years and am always fascinated by how they work. 

Alan Gratz writes these detailed 60 page outlines before he even begins writing his books.

Kristin Tubb thinks through her scenes--every descriptive detail and movement and bit of dialogue-- and when she is ready to write, it all just scrolls out.

And here's me:

I write with very little idea where my story is going. 

I take my story apart multiple times and put it back together. 

I stress over every damn choice I make. 

I make outlines and checklists and excel spreadsheets and index cards and posters. 

I draw maps and build papermache sets. 

I rant to my husband about plotholes until he hates me. 

My writing partner --the sweet blessed friend who has read all of my drafts for the past 6 years -- is afraid to talk to me without first tiptoeing around and saying stuff like, Now this is really good. There's hardly anything you're going to have to do to fix it. Maybe, two or three days at most... (because she's learned how resistant I am to hearing criticism despite how RIGHT it is)

I visit schools and libraries and I talk to beginning writers and more seasoned ones and I tell them that there is no RIGHT way to write, that writers figure out their own process, that even after you do think you know what you're doing, you may have to figure it all over again with each new book.

I bet I sound so confident and serious and self-disciplined and freaking cheerful.  

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So now I've got a great favor to ask my writing friends: 

I'm putting together a powerpoint for an upcoming revision talk for an SCBWI regional conference. I'd love to show visual representations of how writers write. If I choose yours, I'll give you full credit and talk up your book at the conference. See below for examples:

William Faulkner wrote on his walls... 

Laurie Halse Anderson's "road map" of her latest critically acclaimed novel The Impossible Knife of Memory.

Notes on my book Thin Space

If you're game for sharing, shoot me an email jodycasella (@) yahoo (.) com 

Include a photo of how you write with a sentence or two of explanation. 

Deadline: June 30 

Thanks so much!

On Finishing a Draft (Again)

The other day I finished working on a draft of a novel that I have been revising (on and off) for five years. This was version number 4.

There will be a draft 5.

Writing this draft almost killed me (in order to meet a totally self-imposed deadline, I worked 6 to 10 hours a day for 46 days in a row)

--but it also taught me the greatest truth I know about writing (again).

Trust the process.

Say it with me, people:

TRUST

THE

PROCESS.

I understand this mantra now at the very core of my being. I say it at the beginning of every new project. I say it somewhere in the middle. And I say it at the end. Most of the time I don't even believe it.

And then I do.

Trusting the process means:

• pushing forward, writing every day whether or not you want to/feel like it/care/have fantasies about flinging your laptop through a plate glass window
• focusing on the day's goal--whatever it happens to be--a passage, a scene, a chapter, a word count, a character arc, a plot line, etc.--and not worrying about what you will have to work on the next day (or God forbid, next week) 
• pushing out of your mind if this story is any good, if it will ever sell, what your agent or editor will think, and/or what the bloggers on Goodreads will say. I heard once that every writer has an ideal reader in mind while writing--this is the person you imagine reading and responding and it is the person you most hope to please. My ideal readers are my husband--who is extremely critical, and yet, I admit, nearly always right, and my writing critique partner Donna, who knows exactly what to say and how to say it and who has kept me from jumping off a ledge too many times to discuss here. I need both of them in my writing life. I also need to push them out of my mind during writing sessions.
• celebrating small successes and going easy on yourself when you feel like you've failed. 
• reminding yourself and then believing it--that this is only a draft and you will finish it, and if you have to, (likely) you can pick it up again and go back in, knowing that each time you really are getting closer and closer to that nebulously termed "right" feeling of completeness.

A few months ago I was chatting with one of my favorite writers Rae Carson. We had volunteered for Small Business Saturday to work at our local children's bookstore Cover to Cover. Small Business Saturday, unfortunately, turned out to have been poorly scheduled in our town of Columbus Ohio--it coincided with a college home football game and not just any college. The store is about 10 minutes away from where the Ohio State Buckeyes play.

Rae and I spent quite a bit of the quiet day in the bookstore chatting--about our favorite books and about the writing life (she is a New York Times best selling author, so let's just say that her writing life is a tad different from mine). But at the same time, there are similarities--ie: figuring out how to balance writing with promoting and with actual living of life with kids and bills and grocery shopping.

At one point the conversation turned to what our latest project is. Rae has a three-book trilogy out, the glorious Girl of Fire and Thorns, and now she is working on writing her next three-book series, something she's already sold on synopsis. When she told me this, my mouth dropped open. I can't even imagine writing under that kind of pressure--selling a book before you've written it... Yikes.

I told her that I was working on a rewrite of a rewrite of a rewrite, and we lamented about how to fit in writing around travelling (I laugh as I write this because Rae's travel schedule dwarfs mine--I think she said she hasn't been home for more than a month at a time in several years). She asked if I had sold the book yet and I said no, and she had a funny expression on her face.

She said something like, Wow, I can't even imagine that kind of pressure.

My mouth dropped open again. What do you mean? I asked.

She said, you're writing something without knowing if it's ever going to go anywhere?

After a pause, I laughed, because this is how I've written every book I've ever written. I've never had a guarantee that anything was going to sell.

We parted that day, probably both feeling sorry for the other person. Okay, that's stupid. I do not feel sorry for Rae Carson. She probably does not feel sorry for me either. So, forget I said that.

My point is, (I think this is my point), that writing is hard for every writer, no matter where you are in the process or in your career.

I know that my friends and family look at my crazy, totally self-imposed work schedule and shake their heads in amazement and confusion. Why not take a day off? Why work so hard for something that you could easily put off for another day? Why work into the night in order to get just one more sentence?

The answer: I don't know.

The answer: it seems to be my process.

And, I trust it.


PS: For the record, I am taking a two-week break from writing. I am traveling soon to the area where I grew up. I will be visiting libraries and schools and reconnecting with old friends and relatives. Stay tuned for all the fun (and pressures of a different kind)...