When Your Writing Needs a Kick-Start

Kick-start:  to start something, to give something energy. Literally, to kick a motorcycle into life. Figuratively, to jump-start something.

Like that writing project just sitting there?

If you’re anything like me, the last few months have been a downhill slide. Slow, sure, but steady. Yes, there have been moments where things have leveled out; you’ve felt okay, things seem to be going well – for me, that was two weeks ago when I rescued this adorable little thing that had somehow become impaled on a barbed wire fence –

but then something else happens and suddenly you’re on that downhill slide again, just trying to figure it all out and stay afloat.

Like, I suspect, a lot of writers, I had kind of thought that this time spent social distancing and staying home more would mean I could write more. I even printed out the last draft I’d done of my novel Ghost Hunt and went through it, making notes, reading over the notes I’d left myself. When I stopped that project last October so I could focus on the research for the Kimmel case, I left myself a pretty good blueprint to follow. The pages and pages of notes I’d written were excellent, and I was able to start to see where things needed to change, to be rewritten, in some cases where entire scenes needed to be deleted so that the blueprint could be followed.

And then, depression began to set in.

I don’t know about you, but when depression hits me – and it does often, and no, I’m not talking about ‘the blues’ or just feeling down in the dumps, but real, true depression, the kind it takes monumental effort to rouse yourself from, if you even can – I can’t write. At all. Some writers can write through it; some use writing as a way to raise themselves up from the depths, or to work through the causes of their depression. More power to them, and to you, if you’re like that. I wish I was! But when it hits me, I find myself unable to write a single thing. Can’t even look at my manuscript. The very idea of turning on the laptop and putting fingers to keyboard is just too exhausting, mentally and physically.

Especially not when those rewrites are so intense. 

I went through the manuscript in late May. But the more I thought about jumping in and starting those rewrites, the more overwhelming it all became. Because it’s a lot. And I’ve been doing rewrites to this thing for a long time. Add in the fact that I had planned to go to England in late May – in fact, I was about two days from booking the trip when everything shut down, I even had the itinerary putting me in London for at least one performance of Hamilton and the seat picked out, damn it! – just made it a thousand times worse. Because this novel is set in Oxford, and I just do not know how to write it when I’ve never been there. Hence, the need for that trip. I need the veracity, the sounds and smells of the city. I need to walk it, to know the streets and what you see when you turn this way on this corner. I know how the colleges are nestled next to each other in the heart of the city, but not how they mesh together. In short, how can I write about a city that’s beloved by thousands, when I’ve never been there? I can’t.

And so the rewrites became even more daunting, and I said screw it.

And that’s where it’s all sat for the last thirty days. I can’t go to my coffee shop and write in the afternoons, as I usually do almost every day in the summer. And it’s hard for me to write anywhere else. Home is congested, busy, full of things that need my attention. And sitting outside when it’s 102 in the shade is not happening. Besides. Those rewrites. Those daunting, exhausting rewrites. I couldn’t even think about them. And for the past month, I haven’t. Well, that’s not true. I’ve thought about them a little, in that fleeting, guilty way we think about projects that need to be done, those projects that skitter off into the abyss because we just can’t face them. Hunt was in danger of being one of those projects.

So a few days ago, I decided I had to do something.

The fact is, none of us knows what’s going to happen in the next two months, or two years. God help us all. And my depression isn’t going to magically go away on its own. There will be good days; there will be bad days. There will be days when I can barely function (except that I have no choice but to function, or the cats will eat me). I have to accept that, and jump in on the good days, and give myself a break on the bad ones.

So, I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo. 

We’re all familiar with NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. But it’s evolved beyond that, and now every July, you can join Camp NaNoWriMo. Here’s the website:  https://nanowrimo.org/

There are a few reasons why this is so great – and in fact, it might even be better than November:

• First of all, we’re stuck indoors anyway; we may as well put that time to good use.
• Second, some of us have drafts we started last November (or before) that need to be finished; this is a good time to revisit them.
• Third, you set your own goal. If 50,000 words is way too much, set the bar lower, like I did. I set my goal for 20,000 words – I don’t know how much rewriting I’ll be doing yet, but that seemed reasonable.
• Fourth:  it keeps you accountable on those long, hot summer days when we could so easily just lay on the couch and watch reruns of Bones and Supernatural and Dr. Phil, eating ice cream and dreading the coming of August.
• And fifth:  I needed the kickstart. 

As my friend is always telling me:  “You know how you get momentum? You go out there and you get it.” If I don’t write, the novel will never get done. If I don’t find a way to encourage myself, or even force myself, to write, I’ll never get the momentum going. For example, I tried all last year to lose weight. Fluctuated up and down, and by the time the year ended, I was right back where I’d started. I just couldn’t get the momentum going. But this year, I hit the ground running – literally – got a FitBit, and now I’m doing 3.5 miles per day, plus core workouts and some small hand weights, and I’ve lost 9lbs already this year. I went out and got the momentum. I kickstarted myself. And the FitBit keeps me accountable. I know what calorie count I need to hit every day to continue to lose weight. Just like I know what I need to do to finish this novel.

So I signed up. Did the whole thing – typed up a short synopsis of the novel, uploaded a short excerpt, and put in my word count. Maybe by doing just a bit at at time, I can get the momentum going. I have the blueprint. I know what needs to be done.

And hopefully, this is the kick-start I need to get it done.

 

“Begin at the beginning . . .” Where should your novel start?

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end:  then stop.” 

Sounds easy, right? When you’re telling a story, you always start at the beginning, don’t you? Fairy tales always start with “Once upon a time,” and continue through until the prince rescues the princess and carries her off for a life of drudgery and misery, never letting her have a job or a life outside being his trophy wife. (I digress, sorry. I dislike fairy tales.)

The King of Hearts, of course, says this after the White Rabbit asks him where he shall begin to tell the story. For writers, finding that beginning can be hard. Especially when the book is still very much in draft form! Those first few drafts (or, ahem, first few dozen drafts), are where you’re finding the story. Getting to know the characters. Figuring out their problems. Figuring out if their problems are really novel-worthy. You don’t know the beginning, because you don’t know the story, not yet.

A few weeks ago, when all the craziness started and Kansas, along with every other sane state in the Union, instituted stay-at-home orders, I – like probably a lot of other writers – thought, well, this sucks, but I can stay home and write. Get back to my novels, and my research. So, I picked up two of them – my ghost story, and Nicky, my 14-year old rumrunner. I started with Nicky, knowing that of the two, it was the one I might find easiest to get back to.

Yeah. No.

I got to page 36.

Nothing was happening. 

No, that’s not quite right. A lot was happening, actually. But I felt no connection to the story. Or the characters, if I’m honest. I had no idea why. All I knew was that I felt sick to my stomach. I’d spent three years writing a 300-page draft that wasn’t even finished yet, for what felt like nothing. I’d spent three years thinking this is the best thing I’ve ever written! Nicky is the best character that’s ever come to me! and the truth was – I was staring at 36 pages that told me otherwise.

I put it away. Went back to Ghost Hunt. Fell in love with it all over again.

But today, two things happened coincidentally that made me realize maybe there was a lesson in those 36 pages.

The first was that I started editing the first few chapters of a book for a friend. As I read the first two pages, I realized that they were essentially backstory – things that were important, yes, but also things that could be easily worked into the narrative later. Page 3, however, seemed to be where the real story began – with a great hook, an engaging and precocious six-year old, and several questions that I wanted answered. It was just that she hadn’t quite started in the right place. Almost – but not quite! (She just messaged me a bit ago to say, “I thought the same thing – I deleted them a few days ago!”)

Then, I talked to another friend, and in that conversation, I mentioned that failed attempt to start up with Nicky again. He asked why I felt that way.

“Nothing was happening. No tension. It felt like it was all backstory,” I said.

“Aha,” he said. “So does the story start in the right place?”

Me:  (stunned into silence for a minute, because how could I possibly have started a story in the wrong place?!) “Um. No. I mean, I thought it did. When I was drafting it and getting it all down on paper, that’s how it came to me. And it’s all important – we need to know about his dad dying in the war, and the fact that he was accused of disorderly conduct and that’s why Nicky has to support his family and get into the rumrunning . . . but even though there should be lots of tension there . . . there just isn’t.” 

“When I read it, I thought it should have started with your rumrunner doing something, in the middle of a car chase or something,” he said. “Get into it with a great beginning that drags the reader into that next chapter.”

For a split second, I almost said, What? Then why the ever-loving bleeping bleep didn’t you bleeping tell me that BACK THEN?! But then I realized that even if he had – I would have argued with him, because I wasn’t ready to hear it back then. (BTW, if you’re wondering, he read it about two years ago.)

“Yeah,” I said finally. “Because the story doesn’t really get going until they start running whiskey.”

“So all the other information that needs to be in there, you can intersperse. Don’t tell the whole story at one time.” Then he told me about Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, which no, I’ve not read. Apparently, it starts in a courtroom with two thugs getting six months for beating and raping a girl. The judge just feigns interest, already knowing what sentence he’s going to hand down. And as the smirking bastards walk out of the courtroom, the girl’s father realizes that “for justice,” he must go to Don Corleone. We don’t know who Don Corleone is. Apparently, we then find out, embedded in fragments over the course of the entire book, that yes, Don Corleone will help, but that he also set up that whole thing just so the girls’ father would come begging on his knees to him. But it’s not told in a linear fashion. You’re given snippets. Hints. Never the whole story. Not at once.

So. In a single ten-minute conversation, I finally understood what was wrong with Nicky. Why my instincts kept shoving it away. I just needed to hear it from someone else. I needed another, honest point of view – but I also needed to realize first that something was wrong with the novel, something inherently wrong.

I really did think that I needed that exposition. Because at heart, that’s all it is – exposition. The kind that eighteenth-and nineteenth-century writers were so good at boring us with. Which is what I ended up doing to myself.

Obviously, my friend is right. That exposition has to go. Truthfully, when I think of how to fit it all in to the rest of the narrative, I find that if I’m not telling the story in a linear fashion, there isn’t any way to fit it in – and if I can’t fit it in, is it truly necessary? I mean, it’s necessary to me, to Nicky, to his background, to understanding him. But is it necessary for the reader? Is it necessary to the overall story? Those are some hard questions! And I won’t know until I start those rewrites.

So, with all due respect to the King of Hearts, I have to say that sometimes, beginning at the beginning is not, in fact, the way to truly start your story.

On Being a NaNo Rebel – NaNo and Nonfiction

Pardon me for a moment while I paraphrase one of Washington’s lines from Hamilton:  “Writing fiction is easy, young man; writing nonfiction is harder.”

This year, for NaNoWriMo, I decided to become what’s called a NaNo Rebel, and finally start writing on my long-talked about, long-thought about, long-pushed-away-because-I-know-how-bloody-hard-this-will-be book about George Kimmel.

It’s Day Five. I am about 8,000 words in.*

I am drowning. 

When I said, a few days ago, that I wasn’t prepared, I wasn’t kidding. More to the point, I didn’t realize just how unprepared I really was. Pulling together term papers did not prepare me for this. Researching this case, off and on, for ten years, did not prepare me for this. I repeat – I am drowning. 

Actually starting this process has shown me one thing:  I severely underestimated how organized I needed to be. But one thing about this task that has always made me quake in my Skechers is the sheer volume of information I have. It’s thousands of pages, none of it indexed, none of it color-coded, none of it available anywhere other than my laptop – or my work computer (again, not both!).

I know this sounds like it should be common sense, but you’re talking to the person who just came home, discovered her cat on the roof of her garage, and then proceeded, IN THE DARK, to find the ladder, climb the ladder, retrieve the cat, and then climb back down. With the cat. In short, I’m not the right person to talk to about common sense. Sometimes I have it in spades, sometimes not.

Also, organization is not my gig. You know how everyone has those dirty little secrets we don’t ever want anyone else to know? Well, here’s mine:  everyone thinks I’m the most organized person in the world, and I’m not. Right now, on my desk, are three vintage handkerchiefs, receipts, old copies of manuscripts, a jewelry inventory, various papers and note pads, two calculators, and about eight books. None of it should be there. But it is. So asking me to organize information is like asking an anteater to crack the Enigma Code.

So, if you think you want to tackle a nonfiction project of any kind, that involves any sort of research, here’s my best, sagest, most profound advice:  GET ORGANIZED. 

Now, having said that . . . Here’s the thing. I don’t think I would have realized how much the organization was necessary if I hadn’t gone ahead and started writing.

I thought I knew the material. But as I’ve found out in just the last few days, knowing it, and putting it on paper in a coherent, logical, factual manner, are two very different things. Again, I keep thinking back to all those term papers I used to write in school, and how easily that came to me. And they were easy – at least, they were far less complicated than an entire book. Knowing the material isn’t enough; I have to remember how to find it, cite it, quote it, use it.

Truthfully, what all this means is that I wasn’t ready to start on this project.

Writing fiction may be easier, because you get to play in the sandbox of your imagination. Do you want extra-fine sand? Brand-new buckets and shovels? Toy trucks and dolls? Well, you can! To an extent, you get to create the rules. You work in tandem with the characters. You know the characters, the plot, the setting, the problems. But when you work with nonfiction, particularly historical nonfiction, the sandbox is already built for you. The depth of the sand, the perimeters, the size, the number of shovels and buckets and toy trucks you get – it’s all handed to you. Try to change one thing, and the whole will dissolve. Unless you are very lucky indeed, the sandbox of history cannot be changed. And that, I think, makes it infinitely more difficult to work with.

It’s even more difficult when you don’t fully understand the people you’re writing about. They’re not characters; they’re not invented. To get it right, you have to get them. And when you’re dealing with a case where every single person had a vested interest in hiding the truth, you never truly understand them.

So now the question you’re probably asking is:  So? Are you going to quit?

Uh . . . no.

Instead, what I have re-focused on is not so much the writing of the book itself, but the organizational process. What does that process look like, you ask? Good question. When I know, I’ll let you know!

Mostly, it has meant going back through the testimonies and reacquainting myself with what was said and done. Trying to piece together what happened on that July weekend in 1898, from multiple viewpoints, told by people who were testifying ten years after the fact, is nearly impossible. The basic facts remain the same – but then again, are they facts? Or memories? Are the memories faulty? Only time, and a great deal of comparing testimonies from three cases across a decade, can tell.

I need to bring together the tiny pieces of the whole. Who were these people? Who was George Kimmel? I need to gather everything I can about everyone involved, and I need to literally stick those tidbits in a file folder, where they are available, in hard copy, when I need them. I don’t want to print over 3,000 pages of testimony – Brazil’s asshole president may be intent on destroying the rain forests, but I’ll be damned if I’ll aid and abet him in that – so I have to go through them page by page, on the computer, and type those notes instead. (It occurs to me that this is where a graduate assistant would come in hand, but as I don’t work at a university, I haven’t got one of those handy.)

And there is another aspect to this, which I have to keep reminding myself of:  this is a draft. Only a draft. Knowing how I write, knowing my process and my penchant for perfection, it will – when done – be only the first in a long line of drafts. (Of course, it isn’t going to get done if I don’t get going on it!) Still, as any good scholar knows, a good first draft can save you the misery of several bad ones later on. That is one thing I used to excel at, good first drafts of research papers. Get it right the first time, and you’re saved a lot of red ink on the other side of the thing.

But again – this is different, and this first draft will be my first foray into writing historical nonfiction that isn’t just 10 pages long and focused on a very narrow topic. Hence, of course, the reason I have put it off for so long.

Still. Nothing has ever just written itself. And in that respect, at least, this project is no different.

*(Obviously, this was written earlier than it was posted!) 

Seriously, Authors: Finish Your $%!@* Series.

Readers love series.

We know this, as readers and as writers. Publishing houses and agents tell us this all the time. When you submit a novel, the first thing an agent asks is, “Is this a series? Could it be?” We invest in series. We fall in love with the characters and the settings. We follow them over years and follow the authors on Twitter to see when that next book is coming out. We get antsy when the author says, “It may take a bit longer than I thought . . .” and we pounce and demand to know the new deadline.

And it doesn’t matter if there are three books, or seven, or more. It doesn’t matter how long we have to wait, as long as we know that book is coming (right, Outlander and Game of Thrones fans?!). We only halfway joke about being ready to donate a kidney or lung to the author if necessary, so long as they finish that freaking series in our lifetime! I’d even dare to say that we live in fear – just a little bit – that something might happen to prevent our favorite authors from completing our favorite series.

But you know what I hate more than almost anything? More than hangnails, more than melted ice cream, more than a car that won’t start because it needs a $1600 fuel pump?

Authors who don’t finish their $#/(&^@! series!!!!!!!! 

The thing I despise most is an author who starts a series, and then just – abandons it. Abandons the characters, and abandons us, their readers. Abandons the whole thing to go traipsing off to greener pastures with new characters. Or maybe they get to a point where they suddenly realize they have no idea what to do next.

NOT ACCEPTABLE, PEOPLE.

Of all the authors who have likely done this, Dean Koontz is the master offender. In my opinion, his two best books – of all the books he has written in a very long and prolific career – are the first two books of the Moonlight Bay Trilogy, Fear Nothing, and Seize the Night. These books are absolutely amazing. The characters – Christopher Snow, his best friend Bobby, and girlfriend Sasha – are the kind of characters that stay with you more than twenty years after you first read their books. I devoured them the second they were released. Amazing characters, incredible plots, mind-blowing tension. Fear Nothing was released in 1997; Seize the Night, in 1999. And because the second book ended on a cliffhanger, I waited, anticipating that third one like I anticipate the return of the Starbucks’ Mocha Coconut Frappuccino.

Know how long I’ve been waiting on that third book?

Twenty years. 

Yes. Twenty years. TWENTY FREAKING YEARS, DEAN. Give me my damn third book already! You cannot leave us with our characters in the middle of a cliffhanger crisis! In fact, I’ve boycotted Dean Koontz and all his novels until I get that third book. I’m not the only one who’s upset by this, by the way – there are websites devoted to this. He’s been saying the third book is ‘in the works’ or ‘halfway done’ for 19 years. At this point, I think we can safely assume it is, in fact, not halfway done.

Dean, here’s a personal message to you from me:  sit your ass in a chair, and write the third freaking book. NOW.

My second most frustrating offender is author Maureen Johnson. She’s a British author, and has written several books, but you may know her best because she took a break from writing the Shades of London series to co-author some books with Cassandra Clare. Not acceptable! Cassandra Clare is capable of writing her own novels. We got the first three in the series, and the third one left us on a cliffhanger that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind for two years! (Before someone points this out, YES, I’m aware that there’s a new novella about Stephen, but it’s not a continuation of the series.) Again, a freaking cliffhanger?! What the frack?

Let me get on my soapbox for a minute:

WRITERS, IF YOU INTEND TO EMBARK ON A SERIES, KNOW WHERE THE HELL YOU’RE GOING WITH IT, AND WHEN THE HELL YOU’RE GOING TO FINISH IT.

See, when you put fingers to keyboard and start that very first book, when you introduce those characters and their problems, when you start to draw us into the world you’re creating, you are making a contract with us. You are promising that if you write this, and if we read it, you will finish it. You will keep writing. We, as readers. trust that you know where you’re going with the series. We trust that you have a process, a road map. We trust you to get us there, with your characters. We may not always like the choices you make, but we are there and we are reading because we have made a contract with you in return:  you write, we read.

Pick up any book on writing, especially any book on writing a series, and the very first piece of advice is this:  make sure you know your overall story arc before you ever start. Obviously, things might change a little.  You might find that certain plot twists don’t work out the way you thought, or that certain characters take over and do things their way. That’s fine. But work with it. You’ve made a contract with us. We’ve invested in your and your characters. We’ve shelled out money to buy your books. We’ve stolen time from other activities – work, watching Big Bang Theory reruns, watching the kids’ soccer games, whatever – to read them.

You have a responsibility to deliver on your promise. You, dear writer, have a responsibility to us – and your characters – to know the ending before you begin. That’s the heart of a series, after all – that overall story arc that carries us through several books to a conclusion that we just can’t wait to read, and at the same time, can’t bear to read. Imagine how long JK Rowling would have lasted if she’d gotten to the end of Book 4 and suddenly . . . she sheepishly announced she didn’t think the series would continue because she wasn’t sure where to take it from there? Millions of teenagers would have hunted her. (So would millions of adults, for that matter.)

If that means you write the first three novels of a series before you have a firm grip on where it’s going, like Naomi Novik, go for it. You don’t have to publish one, and then another. My plan is precisely that – write the first three, then lay the groundwork for the next three. If that’s what you need to do, do it. But do not, for all that is holy, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR READERS HANGING.

They will never forgive you for it.

Yeah, I’m looking at you, Dean Koontz.

 

Off the Brakes – Back to Writing

I haven’t written lately, mostly because I’ve been a.) really busy with the end of the semester, b.) without any ideas of what to write, and c.) a little depressed with the coming of winter. And frankly, I’ve been putting the brakes on my writing.

I’ve talked about this before, but to me, writing is like driving. You’re not great at it when you start. I remember the first time my mom let me drive our old 1985 Mazda stick shift. I made it to the end of our dirt road just fine, put the car back in first, and when Mom said turn right, I did. Right into the ditch. She never told me to stop turning, after all! But with practice, we all get better. Every single thing we learn is a new skill. Some of us prefer automatics; others stick shifts. Some of us have both. Some of us like convertibles, others minivans, others sports cars. Some of us never get away from driving in the 3 and 9 positions; others drive with our knees while we do ‘YMCA’ with our hands. (Not that I do that or anything.)

About a month ago I gave my friend a copy of my work in progress. It’s definitely not his genre – his favorite book is The Godfather, and I think his second favorite is basically anything by or about Theodore Roosevelt, so an urban fantasy about ghosts was, I knew, going to be a stretch for him – but I trust his judgement. Plus, he’s well-read, so I knew that where I was most struggling with this book – the plot structure – was where he could really zoom in and help me.

Then, over the last week, I started having doubts. Not about giving him the book – about the book itself. Again. This is what I always do – I run through the things that might or might not be true, might or might not be wrong, and I freak out. Put the brakes on the whole thing. Go back through. Rip it all up and burn it down and start over. And in the end, I think for a while it’s better – but then, the cycle starts over and I’m right back where I started.

In fact, it’s been so bad lately that I haven’t even been able to write on the sequel – I know more or less what revisions I want to make and I was able to work on it a little last week and felt pretty good about that, but since then, nope. Again, the doubts come running in and the brakes get put on. It’s sort of like driving a Formula One car, I imagine – you have to drive fast, you have to be 100% committed to putting balls to the wall, but going 200 mph is so freaking scary, and when you add in another 15 or 20 cars and put them on the same track – well, you can either put your foot on the gas or the brakes. Brakes are bad in a Formula One race. Brakes are bad in writing, too.

And I’ve put the brakes on lately.

In fact, last night I called him and said, “It’s all just a waste of time. It took me ten years to put that piece of crap in your hands!”

“It hasn’t been a waste of time,” he said. “You’ve been doing something you love, and you’ve been getting better.”

It took a little while, but he convinced me to not give up quite yet. Admitted it’s not his genre, but that so far he’s not finding anything glaring. For now, at least, it’s enough to get me back to the coffee shop, with the Hamilton soundtrack on my earbuds (my new obsession!), and back to writing.

Foot off the brake. Back on the track.

 

Deadly Perfection – Why It Kills Writers (and our novels!)

“A poem is never finished – only abandoned.” – Paul Valery

Have you ever been frog-marched to a particular session at a writing conference because your writing friends are absolutely convinced you HAVE to be at that session?

OH. Good. I’m not alone! 🙂

Last Saturday, I attended the Nimrod Writer’s Conference at the University of Tulsa on Saturday with a group of fellow writer friends. One of the sessions was cleverly titled, “How do I Know When I’m  Done? Strategies for Revision.” That’s the one I was forced to attend. Seriously. You’d think I had a problem with finishing novels or something . . .

This was a panel session, meaning that four authors held a discussion with the audience about their revision strategies and – yes – knowing when you’re done. Three were fiction writers; one was a poet, so they had varying points of view about this issue!

For me – as for many, many, many writers, maybe even you! – perfection is the siren call. We know it’s a siren call. We know that by following it, we are abandoning all else. We know that by trying to find it, we’re risking running ashore, having our novels crash and burn, having ourselves crash and burn. That’s what sirens do. They make you destroy yourself. Perfection is a Siren. She’s insidious and seductive, and she makes you think one more draft, one more set of rewrites, moving this scene here and tightening this, creating a better motive for this character . . . ad infinitum . . . and then it will be done because it will be Perfect. 

I am a perfectionist. I know whereof I speak. I also know that perfection is not achievable. So did the panelists. But for them as well, it’s a siren song that’s hard to resist. So how do they do it? Well, as one put it, “Perfection is the enemy of the paycheck.” When you’re a published author and on a deadline, you just don’t have time for perfection! It has to get as close as you can get it by the deadline, and then you have to let it go. (Though at least one admitted that when your intuition tells you the novel isn’t right, you should listen to your intuition . . . because otherwise, your lovely, sweet, supportive editor will call you and in the nicest voice possible, say, “Oh, honey . . . NO.”)

However, for poet Patricia Smith, it’s a little different. She has more time to work on her poems. She performs her poetry live, and so she gets feedback on it constantly. Or, as she said, “Perfection is fluid, it changes from audience to audience. Perfection is a shifting thing, depending on the needs of the people I’m writing for.”

So perfection isn’t a realistic goal. So . . . you’re off the hook, right?! No edits! No rewrites! One draft and you’re done! Right?

WRONG.

Perfection may not be achievable. But in today’s world of publishing, we have to get as freaking close to it as we possible can. Your first draft, as my friend and novelist Debra Dockter says, is a sandbox; you put up railroad ties and pour in the sand, and then you get to play in it. Revisions. Revisions are where we pull out ideas of theme, deepen character motivation, establish settings. Or, as one panelist put it,

“Revision is where the magic is.” 

But. How long those revisions take is another matter entirely. If you’re on deadline – well, in the words of one panelist, “Deadlines are a great way of knowing when you’re done.” You might get a small grace period, but you’ll be overnighting that thing to New York in the morning for sure.

What resonated with me, though, was the comment made by one author on the panel. She said the danger of taking years to write a novel is that we grow, change, learn. We’re not stagnant. 

This one made me sit up and take note. That’s why I put my handy-dandy nota bene icon next to it. I know this. I know this firsthand. I’ve seen my writing grow and change over the years – yes, since I’ve been working on this series! I’ve gotten older. My perceptions have changed. The core of who I am hasn’t – but my writing style, my world-building, my word choices, have all changed. And my characters have, I hoped, kept pace a little. Grown and deepened as well.

But that’s the problem. Every time we evolve, we look at the novel with a slightly different outlook. And that outlook makes us go back to revisions. Some are good. Some are redundant, unnecessary. Who can say if taking nine years to write a novel is good or not? Maybe it takes that long for some writers to mature into their voices, to develop the skills to pull off a novel. As Patricia Smith put it, “Sometimes things don’t work because they’re asking for something we don’t know how to do at the time.” We mature as writers. We figure out solutions to things that were unsolvable a year ago, two years ago.

And at the same time, we run the risk of putting off the inevitable.

So I’ve made a commitment to myself. And now I’m putting that on paper. My novels will not be perfect. That’s a hard, bitter thing to accept, but I guess I can work up to that. What I HAVE to do, though, for myself and my characters, is get the damn thing done. Finish this last round of edits, and take a deep breath, and send it out into the world, knowing it won’t be perfect. Knowing there will be rejections, and maybe an offer, and if there are offers, there will be more rewrites, more edits.

If we ever want to be published, we have to accept the sad fact:  our novels are never finished, only abandoned. And although I known this blog post isn’t perfect, I’m publishing it anyway!

(And just so you know we’re not alone, here’s a few links to other articles on overcoming perfectionism in writing!)

https://thewritepractice.com/writing-perfectionism/

https://www.craftyourcontent.com/writers-perfectionism/

https://mandywallace.com/writing-perfectionist/

Novels: Putting the Puzzle Together

Everyone has metaphors for the writing process. Myself, I’ve already written about how writing a book is like restoring an old car (https://kswriterteacher.wordpress.com/2014/07/26/is-your-novel-a-rust-bucket-mine-is/), and this week, I came up with another metaphor for my young adult novel.

What I’ve got is a Ziploc bag full of puzzle pieces. I don’t know what the puzzle should look like. I don’t even know if all the pieces I have are from the same puzzle! One thing I’m sure of:  I do not have a complete puzzle.

So how do you put together a puzzle with no picture and no guidelines?

Good question. But this is how I often write novels. I get scenes in my head. Snippets of dialogue. A character doing something. They come to me, often as ephemeral and insistent as a wisp of smoke. Forcing me to notice them. (And sneeze.) And from there, the scene evolves. It may be a page or two. It might be twenty pages. Either way, it’s a scene. I don’t know exactly what happened to get us there, and I may not be sure what comes after. But I’ve got a scene in my head, and I write it Then And There, before it evaporates. Because once it evaporates, it’s gone and it will never come back.

Nota Bene:  If a scene comes to you don’t think you’ll remember it later – you won’t!!!!! You won’t remember the exact dialogue, the exact sequence of events, and you’ll lose the magic of that moment. Just drop whatever you’re doing and go write it. Then. And. There.

So I write these scenes, and then I get to put them into some semblance of order, and then I get to figure out where the missing pieces are. Maybe I’ve got some sky, but only a handful of leaves to tell me that a tree should be there. Or maybe there’s supposed to be a covered bridge in the picture, but all I have is the road leading to it, and a bit of the roof. But if I know what should be there, I can figure out the rest.

And that’s what I have now. Is this one book or two? I can’t even tell you that much! When I started my first urban fantasy novel, it was one novel. That was it. One very simple novel. It’s since evolved into at least a six-book series and although I know exactly what’s going to happen, getting it started has been the issue, in large part because of the way I write – in these puzzle pieces. Where does this scene go? Before or after this one? Wait – who’s this person????!!!! Why are you in my novel???!!! I did not invite you!

You have to trust the process.

A few years ago I had a character – Shannon – walk onstage and make herself at home. She was about as welcome as a cockroach in a wedding cake, but she insisted on staying, and my MC, Erin, insisted on interacting with her. Now, I cannot imagine the novels without her. She is the perfect foil for Erin, and her choices and actions make life interesting for everyone. Had I not trusted that she had a place in my novel, if I had been completely welded to an outline, I’d have jettisoned her – and my novels would have suffered as a result.

Nicky’s story has been a little different, in large part because I’m working within a historic framework. I want to keep it as close to ‘real’ as I can, which even includes using actual newspaper articles from 1924. But there are scenes that need to be there, and I have to trust that Nicky has given them to me for a reason. The question is – as I read through the entire thing – where do all the scenes go? What’s missing? What has to go in that I haven’t written yet? And . . . is this one book, or two?

I’d only ever imagined writing one book. But the more I look at what I’ve done and what I have left to do, if this is one book, then it’s going to be as long as Harry Potter #5.

Still, I have to trust that I’m doing the right thing. E.L. Doctorow is credited with one of the most famous sayings about writing:

“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Since Nicky’s a rumrunner, this is very appropriate. 🙂 Sometimes, I feel like I’m driving like James and Richard in the Bolivia trip:  I’ve got two flashlights taped to the hood of my car! Not even headlights! Then, you just have to trust that the road is still there, even if you can’t see it very bloody well.

So if you’re not an outliner, if you can’t stand the thought of being shoehorned into a plot line, don’t feel you’re alone. Hey, at least someone didn’t just dump a bag of puzzle pieces in your lap and tell you to get to work. 🙂

Re-writers, unite! Or untie. Whichever.

“Put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.” —Colette, Casual Chance, 1964

As promised, the theme of this summer is rewrites.

Actually, the theme of this summer is ‘eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may all be living in a fascist hell,’ so I’ve been on as close to a vacation as I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve had gelato for the first time (yes, I’m serious, and YES, I loved it, eat it, I beg of you!), I’ve shopped, I’ve cuddled with the kitties, I’ve planted rose bushes, and I’ve been collecting and shopping for my vintage shop.

But the rewrites have also been ongoing.

Rewriters, unite! Or untie. That’s what it feels like, sometimes – that our manuscripts are great big tapestries, and you’re not quite sure what went wrong where, but if you start tugging at one small thread, the entire thing will unravel.

And guess what? That’s okay. Because in the end, it will be better.

This second novel is hard because, as I mentioned in an old post, I thought it was done. Finito, finished, fin. Then, when I finished the new first novel in the series and went back to this one, I realized that not only was it not done, it also wasn’t even a very good first draft. It had several issues, including:

Characters:  My MC, Erin, is totally kick-ass and snarky in the first novel. In this one, she was afraid and whiny and I hated that. Also, there was very little interaction between her and my male main character, Kai – which is kind of a problem, given that one of the subplots is their developing relationship. So that had to change. Plus, the antagonist’s motives weren’t clear – and neither were its actions. What was it doing? I had no idea, and I wrote the thing!

Plot:  I know, the plot derives from the characters’ actions, and that was a huge problem in this book:  there were no actions! Okay, that’s not quite accurate, but the truth is, the characters weren’t doing anything to drive the story forward. There was a huge chunk in the middle – like 40 pages – where Erin didn’t really do much of anything except whine and react. All that’s either getting cut, or getting rewritten. The really sad thing was, she didn’t have anything to react against. The antagonist wasn’t doing anything, either! There has to be give and take between them. The MC does something; the antagonist does something in return; the MC reacts; and so on. Yeah. Like literally none of that was happening.

The Antagonist:  Your MC can only be as good/strong/intelligent/resilient as your antagonist lets them be. You fill in the adjective. But no matter how great your MC is, your antagonist has to be just as great. Otherwise, where’s the tension? Where’s the fun? And my antagonist just . . . wasn’t. In fact, when I think about it, my antagonist appeared exactly twice – at the beginning, and the end. That’s it. And that’s okay, as long as we know it’s pulling strings behind the scenes – after all, how many times did we see Voldemort in HP#1? Once. Well, twice, technically, but we didn’t know the thing killing the unicorn was him. But he was a constant presence. My antagonist wasn’t even that. So that’s an issue I’m addressing.

Forward Momentum:  Yeah, well, there wasn’t any, and we’re fixing that. ‘Nuff said.

It’s not to say that there wasn’t anything good from the original version. There was. A lot, in fact. And those scenes are going to be taken and revised slightly, and slotted back into place, hopefully this time with better, stronger scenes surrounding them! It’s not that they’re darlings I can’t murder; they really are good, strong scenes that drive the story forward and are necessary to the novel. But the fact is, a lot of the manuscript is full of darlings that need murdered. In fact, they’re not even darlings. They’re sort of like the weird neighbor down the street who’s quiet and keeps to himself, and every once in a while you see him digging in the backyard. You’re not quite sure what he’s doing, and you’re not quite sure what he’s doing in your neighborhood, but you’re pretty sure he should probably just go away.

Rewrites are scary. I get that. I swear, I’m the queen of rewrites. But it’s how we learn, and how we get better as writers. The days of Faulkner typing a manuscript, submitting it his editor, and forgetting it, are over. And I’m sure Faulkner revised and rewrote, too.

It really is the only way.

So be brave. You’ve got a manuscript in the desk drawer, don’t you? Maybe it’s finished; maybe it’s not quite done. Maybe you think it’s the best thing since espresso; maybe you think it’s total crap. But the only way to find out what it really is, is to sit down with it, a pen, and some Post-It Notes, and get started. I have to. Stephen King has to. Diana Gabaldon has to.

You have to be ready to be honest with yourself. You have to be honest enough to find the flaws, admit them, and be willing to do something about them. And I’ll be truthful here:  you may not even be able to see the flaws right now. Not all of them, anyway. I sure couldn’t, not for a long time. (Sad thing is, neither did my beta readers.) You have to be ready to decide what kind of book you want this to be – not just genre, but do you want it published or not? Just like with anything worth doing, you have to be willing to stick with it, all the way.

Are you ready to make that commitment? Are you ready to pick up that string you see hanging out of your manuscript, the one that screams This is what’s wrong!, and give it a tug, knowing that once you do, the entire thing will probably unravel before your eyes? Are you ready to face the fact that once you tug that string ,you can’t un-tug it? It’ll reveal more. I promise. Once you tug that loose thread, you’ll see a dozen more. You’ll see flaws and holes and problems you didn’t even realize were actually there. I’ve been working on this book in some version or another for ten freaking years, and I’m still finding plotholes and issues!

If you’re ready .  . . let’s go.

Untie that manuscript. Let’s see what happens.

Happy writing.

 

An earlier blog post on the same subject, apparently:  https://kswriterteacher.wordpress.com/2018/02/04/the-manuscript-is-not-sacred/

From The Atlantic, an article by writer John Rechy that touches on both Faulkner and his process of rewriting – and why it’s so important to him. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02/the-key-to-writing-a-mystery-is-asking-the-perfect-question/515799/

Another great story from The Atlantic:  https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/01/my-pencils-outlast-their-erasers-great-writers-on-the-art-of-revision/267011/

Criticism . . . and How to Accept It (sort of)

There’s an imp that lives under my desk. He’s an ugly little spud who loves to stare at me and cackle gleefully (he does not, however, slime me, for which I suppose I should be grateful!). And his name is Ihatecriticism. (Not to be confused with Ihatedoctors and Ihatetrump and Ihatewinter, obviously.)

I’ve lived with Ihatecriticism for a long time. Most of my life, really. You might have one of these little things, too. Sometimes they’re strong enough to keep us from even starting something new (What on earth do you think you’re doing? You don’t know what you’re doing! You suck! You will suck!) And sometimes, if we’re able to exorcise them, they mostly go away . . .

But I don’t know that they ever, truly, disappear.

Ihatecriticism is a parasite. Black, spidery, sucking the joy and life out of everything. Just when I’m starting to feel good about my writing, or the way my novel is going – BOOM! Out he jumps to remind me that I Suck, and I Will Never Be Any Good, and oh yeah, I Suck.

I’ve been wrestling with him again this week, as my beta readers have been working on one of my manuscripts. Let’s be honest:  for a writer, the hardest thing in the world is to sit quietly and let people rip your work apart. Even when you know it’s for the best, even when you know they have your interest at heart, even when you know  you actually asked for it . . . when it comes time to actually sit down across from them, with your baby manuscript in front of you, and listen to their criticisms . . . you really would rather have a root canal without the numbing agent.

I’ve been there several times. It’s one reason why I’m driven to being a perfectionist – because I hate, absolutely hate, to be criticized. If I leave no room for it, then no one can do it. Sounds plausible, right?

The problem, of course, is that nothing can be perfect.

Several years ago, I taught a creative writing class at my local college. For the most part, I had very talented students who wanted to be better. The class was structured as a workshop; students submitted written assignments, then we all critiqued them during the next week and discussed them in class the next week. We had rules about critiquing. They  had to learn what made a critique constructive. They learned how to look for the good and the bad, and give time to both.

But there was one student who simply could not take the criticism. She couldn’t write. At all. She could have gotten better, but she refused to admit the problems. Sentences were unreadable. Spelling and grammatical errors filled the pages. We offered her several solutions for the first half of the semester – the most important being simply running spellcheck and reading her work aloud. No dice. Finally, students started to avoid her works. Those that continued to try to offer help were met with open hostility. We didn’t understand her vision. We didn’t get it. We were hacks, not artists. 

Don’t be that student.

It’s hard. I’ve been gearing myself up for a month for these critiques, and part of me is still not sure I’m ready. Even coming from friends who want to see me succeed, it’s going to be hard. Even though I ASKED them to do this, it’s going to be hard! But here’s the sad fact:  I’m too close to the novel. I can’t see all the flaws. I know what I meant to say – but I have no idea if I actually said it. I know what I meant to do with the story – but can others see that?

And that, precisely, is why you need constructive criticism.

One of the things that can help both you and your beta readers is to settle ahead of time what you specifically want feedback on. Are you looking for line edits? Character? Continuity? Overall story cohesion? Chapter transitions? All of the above? Spell it out for them (maybe even in email so they remember). Then, you’ve asked for it, and they feel comfortable providing it. Win-win.

Another thing you can do is set up rules ahead of time. One writing group I belonged to had a rule:  while receiving feedback, writers had to enter the ‘Cone of Silence.’ As long as we were discussing a work, that author could not speak. Couldn’t argue. That gave the betas time and space to deliver their feedback, and the writer time and space to accept and digest it. Once the feedback was delivered, the writer could then offer explanations, or ask further questions. It worked really well.

You can also require everyone to give constructive criticism, which simply means this:  readers must tell you the good with the bad. We all like to know what we did well! In fact, really good feedback begins withe the positive. “I liked X – she’s sassy and funny and believable!” Or, “I love the way you handle dialogue – it really pops and every character has a distinct voice.” Then, and only then, should you go to the criticisms.

As for actually hearing and accepting it . . . well. Suck it up, buttercup.

It’s not just hard to hear the feedback:  it’s bloody hard. You want to defend things. You will have a small voice in your head screaming that your betas didn’t read carefully enough because they missed X and Y, and how could they not understand that joke, or they’re all man-haters, so of course they hate your main character . . . and the fact is, those are probably the things you need to work on the most. The general rule of thumb is this:  if you give your work to five people, and one of them dislikes something, it’s probably them. If all five dislike something, it’s probably you.

But you do have to suck it up, if you want to get better. Your betas will catch things that you just can’t. You want to fix those things before an agent ever sees that manuscript. And even then, your agent will have criticisms. So will your editor. And . . . so will your readers. Don’t you want the chance to fix things before those mistakes get plastered all over Goodreads.com? Because if you think Ihatecriticism is bad now, just wait until all those vicious people get their hands on your book!

If you want to write, and then stick your manuscripts in the drawer, then you probably don’t need feedback. You probably also don’t have that little demon hiding under your desk. But if you do want published . . . then at some point, you need to get some holy water and exorcise that little imp back where it belongs.

 

 

https://www.bustle.com/p/12-tips-for-getting-feedback-on-your-writing-43119 – some great tips on how to accept feedback and criticism!

https://www.nownovel.com/blog/give-constructive-criticism/ – Good tips on how to provide other writers with good constructive feedback.

https://hobbylark.com/writing/Giving-and-Receiving-Feedback-in-Writers-Groups – More tips on how to give good feedback.

http://lisapoisso.com/2016/11/23/handle-editing-feedback/ – Although this deals more with editorial feedback, it’s still got some good information for how to handle feedback from your betas, too.

 

The Manuscript is Not Sacred!!

A little while back, I posted about how blindsided I was by the manuscript I’m currently editing. How many things were wrong with it. How many Post-It Notes I have used (an entire stack!). How much ink has been spilled in corrections, cuts, and extensive notes.

But every time I try to sit down and actually make those revisions . . . my fingers still on the keyboard.

I know enough to listen to that feeling. I know there are scenes that just have to go. I know there are others to be put in. But something else was bothering me, as I tried to make my fingers and brain work, something that had nothing to do with the amount of work involved, or how daunting all this was. Been there, done that.

It was the fact that in some small way, I was thinking about this manuscript almost as something sacred.

The fault lies with me. We all get these ideas about things. We remember the taste of something being better than what it really is. We remember reading a book in one sitting – then going back to read it a second time, a few months later, and suddenly realizing that it totally sucks (Twilight and The Clan of the Cave Bear, I’m looking at you!). Or a house being bigger, or our parents being perfect.

That’s the way I was with this manuscript. Even though I had the evidence – 50+ Post-It Notes, scribbles on every page, a mountain of comments in my journal – to provide otherwise, the sad fact was . . . I’d spent so long on this project, put so much of myself into it, loved certain scenes and passages so much, that there was this block in my mind.

So tonight, faced with yet another round of staring at the computer screen, dreading the moment I opened that file . . . I instead decided to confront my issues head-on.

Okay. So what are my problems here?!

I think part of it is still feeling blindsided by how much work there is to do to this thing. I have to get over that. Even if all those edits I made to the manuscript end up being thrown out later, I have to make them. I have to get motivated on this!

A huge part of it is simply – where do I even START?! I have no idea! There are so many issues and so many things wrong that it honestly feels like I need to take the first few chapters, put them in a new file, and then just go from there. Rewrite the entire thing, blank slate, without the cumbersome burden of what I already have. Maybe that’s what’s holding me back – not knowing what to do with what I already have. I don’t want to toss it all. There’s some really excellent things in there. Things that have to stay. But on the other hand – it’s also holding me back. It’s a mental block. It feels like a sacred thing that I can’t deface.

Well. I have to get over that, too. It’s not sacred. It’s a creation. It evolves. As my writing evolves, so does this manuscript. As my writing changes, as my characters change, so does this manuscript. Nothing stays the same. The writing I do now is not the writing I was capable of doing a few years ago, when I drafted this. I have to keep that in mind. The tone and style I wrote Book 1 in, is not the same tone and style that this is written in. All of Erin’s quips and snark is gone – it’s there in the end, sure, and that’s part of the reason why I love the ending so much. But in the middle, it’s nowhere to be found. She’s just whining about the demon. And that’s it, really – she whines. For like 100 pages straight!

And that has to change, too.

So does Kai. Well. Not change as much as just take on more of a role. It’s one of the things that bothers me, the transition from where they are in Book 1, to where they need to be in Book 2. It’s a bit too sudden, maybe, and Kai still isn’t quite trusting her. She still has tons of questions about how he saved her from Rebecca – and the demon. Questions he won’t answer. Is she okay with that? The tension between them feels forced, and not organic. That has to change. That’s a huge issue for me.

Wow. So. I feel better now! I know what the problem is – and much as I hate to say it, I know how to fix it, too. Rip it apart and start from scratch. I know it means a lot of scenes may not return. I know it means that things are going to be cut. I have to be okay with that. And I think I am. I think I know what’s strong and what isn’t, and I think I know what I can leave on the table and what I can use again.

I mean, what I wrote isn’t GONE. It’s not like it won’t be there, in some draft. Maybe it can be used in a different book, like the scene with Abigail. Scenes can be recycled, you know. J Lines, dialogue, situations, even just the germs of the scenes can go in other books. It’s not the end of the world.

I do feel a bit better now, having written that. In her book Write it Down, Make it Happen, Henriette Klauser says that sometimes, just writing down all of our fears makes us feel better, because we know. They aren’t lurking in the shadows anymore (like the Turbo Tax commercial!) – they’re out in the open, and once our fears are in the open, we can figure out how to deal with them.

Maybe this wasn’t helpful for anyone else – but if you’re having issues with something you’re working, try writing about it. Just let the fingers do the talking and see what comes of it. It might be nothing. But then again, you might just find a nugget you can use to go forward.

Either way, please remember:  in rewrites, your manuscript isn’t sacred. 🙂