Thanksgiving

Ah, the holidays. A time of gluttony and sloth and drunken vindictiveness. Take a deep breath, my friend, taste that rarefied air. It is truly the most wonderful time of the year. A time when family gathers around your edges like slavering wolves lurking just beyond the firelight. A time of crowds, seething and surging, a greasy tide of humanity smashing through the poorly maintained levees of good manners, drowning decent behavior, and swamping class and taste with a stagnant backwash of sweaty desperation, trapped within the gaudy confines of the Mall, damp and reeking. 

I'm just kidding, you're all wonderful, really.

So yeah... Thanksgiving. You know what I love? Cornbread stuffing. That is some good shit right there, my friends. If you haven't had it, I highly recommend rectifying that little error ASAP. There's still time, the groceries stores as of yet, are not completely looted. Just a friendly tip from me to you, amigo.

So... Holidays... Holi-DAZE, amirite? Know what I mean?

No? Well, allow me to explain.

With all the crazed running about of this time of year, with all the panic and petty anger and opportunistic backstabbing and what-not that looms over the next few days as we gather to "celebrate", there's one thing that always, inevitably, ultimately suffers.

What? No. Children? No. What the...?

Your WRITING. The answer is: Your writing.

Your writing always suffers during all the hub-bub and what-cha'doin' of this time of year. It gets lost in the shuffle. One day skipped becomes two, three, a week very easily. The holidays can be momentum killers and as we all know, forward momentum? That's your book right there, my friends. You gotta keep rolling, you gotta push, push, push to the end. Finish. When it comes to your first draft, it is of the utmost importance: Finish the story.

So what do you do?



Good question, Ponder Cat, what do you do? Well, here's 5 suggestions straight from my pie-hole.

1. Make time

Be a little bit selfish. Take some time for yourself Why not? The rest of the free world will be busy setting new records for selfish behavior, so who can judge you for taking an hour or two a day to scribble away in a corner somewhere? Here's a tip for those of you traveling out of town: Get a hotel room. Sure, it costs more than staying for free at a relative's house and sleeping in one of their ridiculously uncomfortable beds... or does it?

2. Adjust your expectations

Okay, your output is going to be lowered. You're probably not going to be able to pull off a 2000 word day for the next week or so. Accept it. It's not a big deal. Maybe you won't get chapters done, so what? Shoot for a few scenes instead. Family visits are nothing but Time Leeches, they will suck up every available moment and employ it towards their own horrible and twisted agenda, it's not the end of the world. Remember, my friends: Thanksgiving isn't forever, we'll make it.

3. Be prepared

Have your note book and pen ready. Have your tablet and laptop charged. Keep your Jump drive close. You may have to snatch moments where you can, so don't waste them hunting around for your stuff. Keep it with you.

4. Adapt

If you're one of those people who needs a perfectly balanced environment with the right chair and the right desk set up at exactly the right angle of slanting sunlight, with only one specific recording of a certain band with the volume just so and the perfect vase of very specific flowers perfectly arranged before you can actually set pen to paper and begin writing... then you're screwed. I can't help you. Get lost. And honestly, I question whether or not you really want to write and whether or not those conditions you set are actually roadblocks set up to act as excuses as to why you never seem to get anything written, except those first 25 pages you keep re-editing and re-editing...

But I digress--

Anyway, be ready to write not just when you can, but where you can. Is everyone watching football, snoring and farting away on the couch, and is that really the only place to sit? Then sit down. Write there. Tune the noise and distraction out. If you want to do it, if you want to write, here's your chance. Get some work done. Hey, at least they're all too busy to bother you, right?

5. Alternate progress
Ok, fine, maybe you can't settle in and relax enough for the ol' Imagination to properly kick in. Don't worry about it. No problem, it happens. But what about your plotting? How about some notes? Even just sitting there and thinking about stuff is something, right? (Although, I suggest you write your thoughts down, memory is not as reliable later as we believe it to be in the moment.) Snatches of dialogue, character bits, it's all important. This is what that little notebook you carry around with you everywhere is for.

Put it to use. Get to work.

And there you go...

Happy Thanksgiving!
Jon (and the rest of the Scribblerati, I assume.)

Done by summer's end...?

I started my second attempt at a novel back in January.

Well, that's not totally true. I wrote the first chapter of what would become my second attempt at novel a year or so ago.

Wait... no.

Farther back, I guess I first tried to make it a short story, maybe two years ago, but it was too big and clunky and just wouldn't fit. It burst at the short story's seams. It wouldn't fit and yet still say all the things I wanted it to say.

Which was, to say the least, a bit frustrating and problematic... at least, at first.

So I took the short story and I churned out a first chapter, just to try it out and see if it could walk around a bit. I tested it out, first among the venerable bastards of the Scribblerati and then in David Oppegaard's nascent Loft class.

It seemed to do all right. It could walk. In fact, it did better than all right. It didn't just walk, it ran. I'm pretty sure I've talked about this project on here before. At the very least I talked about what the book was generally concerned with, right?

Right.

So anyway, in January--new year, starting out fresh and all that--I sat down and started working on it in earnest. Tentatively working-titled as Monsters, I wanted to finish it by summer's end. It wasn't easy. Well, ok, sometimes it was easy. Sometimes the prose flowed like a mighty river. Sometimes the hum of the screen was so loud while I was staring at a blank page, it just about drove me insane. But now, 13 chapters in and on the other side of a short but wicked bout of writer's block, now 68,000 odd words along, I figure there's only four chapters and just under a month left.

For those of you keeping score, that's a chapter a week.

I think I can do it. I do. I think I can do it and here's why. Stepping into the project, I only had one goal: Done by summer's end. But I should clarify, I mean first draft done. It doesn't have to be pretty. It doesn't have to be good. It doesn't even have to be all that coherent. It just has to be done.

First draft done.

By summer's end.

One chapter a week.

Yeesch. I'm pretty sure I can do it.

Hopefully...

But here's the other trick... You ready for this? It doesn't matter if I get done by summer's end. See that? It doesn't matter. It's just an arbitrary goal. It's one I think I'll pull off, or at least, near enough to make no difference, but in the end, whether I make it or not...

No big whoop. The only thing that matters is finishing.

First draft done.

Hooray!



Then, my plan is to set the humped and wretched beast aside for a few weeks, probably the whole of September, and then take it and the responses I have already received from the Scribblerati, sit down, and get started on the second draft.

Which is the reason I'm doing this blog here today. The second draft. This is where I will fix it. This is where I will smooth things out, make them a little more clear, make them fit better, make them better serve the story. This is where I will determine the story, to be honest. I'm sure I will lose characters, I'm sure I will combine some as well. I'll move some to the forefront and some to the background. I will cut scenes and I will add others. The first draft just provides the frame work, the shape, the big block of stone. The second draft is all about the shaping, the chiseling off of the unnecessary bits, of turning that big block of stone into a beautiful statue... or at least, a statue.

And here's the little guiding light. Here is something to see by in that word-crammed darkness, a map to guide my way, to guide your way in your own work. It is filled with things to think about and things to remember. Print it out. Tack it to you wall. Learn it, love it, live it.

It's Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling.

That's a bunch of basic true-isms there, kids. Think what you will of Pixar (although as a hint... The correct way to think of them is that they're awesome. Don't think so? You're wrong.), regardless of how you may feel about them and their films, as a writer, it's important to know that this list is right. It's a good tool. Sure, y'know, maybe don't worry about it so much at first, but later... like I said, in the second draft? Keep it close, because the path through the second draft can be darker and meaner and more discouraging than the last time, so it's good to have a map.

Keep writing,

Good luck,

Jon

The Dog Days of the First Draft

They say the most important part of writing is to finish something.



That's it.

Edits? Critiques? Rewrites? Yes, that is all very important too, most definitely, but without actually finishing something, then what's the point, right? In the early stages, you have to keep that forward momentum going. You have to ignore the glaring faults. You have to ignore the inconsistencies. You have to ignore all those nagging doubts nipping at your heels like a pack of wolves looking to bring you down.

You have to finish. At least, that's what they say...

But it's not always that easy, you know?

No. In fact, it's really hard. Most people won't do it. Most people can't do it, because it's hard. It's hard to keep going when you know there are problems and there's no end in sight and it all feels just... terrible. 

Plot problems. Pacing problems. Inconsistent details. Unecessary characters. Things to add. Things to subtract. Unclear direction. Not enough description. Too much description. Questions of value and worth. Concerns about marketability. You should never write toward the market, but that doesn't mean you should be wasting your time on a dud project, right? And how do you know if it's a dud project or not? Questions, comments and concerns. It pokes at you. It slows you down and it can stop you cold. It threatens to take you out at the knees.

That's where I am right now, the middle of nowhere with a long way to go.

I'm working on my second book, so I've kind of touched on these ideas before. 

I've talked about starting over. I've talked about motivation. I am a little over halfway through the first draft now (at least, that's what my general plotting tells me), which means I am smack dab in the doldrums, slogging through a narrative quagmire as I try to bridge one part to the next, plagued with motivation and world detail questions, blah, blah, blah... right? It's maddening, but you have to ignore it and keep on keeping on, because as soon as you start editing and re-editing, and then editing some more, as soon as you start spinning your wheels, staring at that blank page and worrying about what comes next, as soon as you start fretting over value...

You're sunk.

You have to finish. I mean, really, what other choice do you have? Quit writing? No, you have to remember that it's supposed to be like this. After all, what's the common addendum to the Finish Something Rule:

But that's the sticking point, right?

I may know that I can come back, that I can fix it all later, but sometimes it is hard to keep that in mind. At times I feel like that room in my head filled with all the junk and scrap and bits and pieces that I drag out and hammer into the shape of my stories is pitch black and I am just stumbling around in there hoping to find my way. And sometimes it feels like that's not going to happen, that I'm just stumbling around in the dark. Lost. That's scary. It threatens the whole project.

I know my first book was a struggle. I know that. Thinking back on it now, it seems like it just kind of happened. One day: Poof! Book. Like I just wrote a few chapters, I planned ahead a bit, maybe changed my mind here and there, wrote a bit more when some stuff occurred to me and then it was done. Boom.

First draft finished, easy-breezy, lemon-squeezey!

That's a lie, of course, a recollection colored by fear and doubt and probably the failings of an aging mind, but still... When you're in the middle of it all, and that second draft is so far away, it's hard to remember that the first draft is an important tool. That it's just a frame work, a map to something better. It's hard to remember that the First Draft is just that, a First Draft, one of many and that it's not done.

And honestly, barreling ahead? That can often be the fun part. What happens next? It could be anything. It could be inspiring. It could be new and brilliant and twisty and awesome. It could change everything. What happens next? It could be amazing, yeah, but that fear and doubt reminds you that it could also be terrible.

But that's the rub, right? What happens next? To find out, you have to keep going. You have to finish, even if it might get ugly.

Keep writing,
Jon

Crafty

The Vonnegut quote Claudia included in her most recent blog resonated with me, being the crafty grrl I am. (Ooh! Just had an image of my grave stone: "Here lies a Crafty Girl, Dreaming of Wool" So sweet!) I've always loved making things by hand, learning new arts and crafts. And tho' I am good at some of the stuff I try my hand at, other stuff - not so much. But in the doing of it all, I do feel like I'm settling into my rightful bones. And I know that getting to that joy is only a needle, a pencil, a thread away.

Quilt by Annie Mae Young

But even though I know that I can pretty much always be creative, there is a fear I'm currently living within.

For now, I have done what I can do on my current WIP. Uncountable drafts. Trimmed 40,000 words. With my fellow Scribblerati's help, grown tremendously as a writer. (Nestled within my pile of scratch paper are pages from my early drafts of Once We Were Bears. When one surfaces to the top? Oh, how I cringe, reading my first, floundering attempts at writing.) I am proud of what I've done. Even if I never see Beryl in print, writing her into existence as kept me more sane, more happy than I would have been without her. And I know I'll always be proud of what I've accomplished - I wrote a book. I freakin' wrote a goddamn book! Not everyone can say that.

But what if this is it? I've tried my hand that this craft, loved doing it, got a finished product, but what if that well's dry now and it's time to move on to the next medium. My writing groupmates are inspirational with their writing down their many, many ideas for their next stories, with their being a good ways through next novels as they finish the editing on last one. Not me. I do have one idea, but the inner critic is awfully loud right now. And I don't have a flood of ideas. Just that one little drop.

I tell myself that it might just be my personality - I really like finishing something completely before I move on to the next project. But I am sensing glimmers of hope: as I've been drawing to a close with Beryl, I've noticed images floating to the surface of my consciousness. Pears fragrant in their ripeness. Tiny scrawls of writing along the curve of flower petals. A rippled pool.

How to live with fear and not be stymied by it? Well, for one, I'm gonna try my idea out on Scribblerati. And I'm gonna keep listening to the burbling until I can make out the words.

Oh... you're a WRITER.

There are so many clichés out there about writers, and about how people perceive writers. For a long time, I thought that most of them were untrue – that is until I started writing in earnest. Then some of them started to slide into place.

No, we’re not all outsized naked mole-rats, smelling of unwashed hair and swigging Jack Daniels while we listen to Mahler for inspiration – Telling our friends we’re writing the Great American Novel on our antique typewriter, while really we’re spending all our time anonymously posting vitriolic online diatribes about Stephenie Meyer.

That’s simply not true. I prefer Maker’s Mark.

Buh-dum-dump.

But really, now. Not one of my fine Scribblerati friends, nor I, fit that description. Well, to my knowledge. I don’t spy on them at home, after all. (Okay, now I just got an image of a tipsy Lisa cackling maniacally while typing EDWARD SUX in all caps on some tweener website, and the image is very funny.)

But I digress.

So, yes, some of the clichés are untrue, or untrue at least for my writer friends and me. I’m sure those people exist.

But how about the old trope that once you tell someone you’re a writer, one of two questions pops out of their mouth – 1) “Where do you get all your ideas?” and 2) “You’re not going to study me and put me in your book, are you?” – I used to think this was just the silly invention of screenwriters (Like the fact that people in movies and on TV almost never say goodbye on the telephone. Go ahead, check it out. They just hang up, knowing the conversation is done. People pretty much don’t do that in real life.) – but I’ve been asked both of these things quite a few times in the last several years.

"He didn't even say goodbye!"

To answer them, 1) I’ve always found this question very odd. I get my ideas from my brain. Like you do. (Click here for tonal context.) I, unlike some writers, have an excess of ideas. I am an idea factory. A good, sometimes great, idea factory, if I do say so myself. It doesn’t matter, of course, unless, until I actually finish something. People don’t want to read plot pitches and descriptions of futuristic societies; they want to read completed stories.

2) I will only study you and use elements of you to create a character if you are exceedingly bizarre and/or fascinating, and if you’re asking me that question, I’m sorry, but you’re probably not. (Wow, I sounded like Jon there.) Okay, that's a little unfair, and untrue. Of course writers draw on their interactions with other human beings to write believable characters, but I, in my admittedly limited experience - let's say I've created 50 characters in my lifetime thus far - have never based a character solely on one person. (Except, perhaps historical figures. But even then you're making a lot of it up, playing a part.)

But back to a cliché that I mentioned earlier… the idea that every writer aspires to write the Great American (or Irish, or Belgian, or whathaveyou) Novel. I don’t. I don’t need to be the next William Styron or James Joyce. Okay, maybe I’d take F. Scott Fitzgerald or Kurt Vonnegut Jr., but only because I adore their writing. But I’m not them, I know I’m not them, and not only that, I don’t have a burning desire to impress the world of academia with my writing efforts, nor to go down in the annals of time as one of the greatest writers who ever lived. Sure, I want stellar reviews, and I want to share my stories with millions of people and, naturally, make a lot of money doing what I love, but mostly, all I’ve ever wanted to do is entertain the nice people. (Click here for tonal context.)

And speaking of Mr. Vonnegut, I came across this quote today.

I then thought about what…was it Neil Gaiman? said was the best piece of writing advice he could give: “Finish something.”

The first quote is freeing, and the second is both frightening for those of us who haven’t finished a novel yet, and beautiful in its simplicity. Stop fretting over perfection, or failure. Finish it, finish it, finish it. Another cliché about aspiring novelists – we're forever working on that first novel, and never completing it.

For today, I’d like to combine those two ideas, and task myself to finish something creative that is NOT my novel. Finishing an artistic endeavor is immensely satisfying, and I think it fuels us creatively in all areas. A novel takes so long to write, that that satisfaction can only be taken in small doses (I finished this chapter! I finished this draft!), and as for the final word of the final page of the final draft? It takes years of mostly solitary effort. So, for today, I say finish a sewing project, a painting, a poem, a clay model, practice a monologue, do something, FINISH something artistic – no matter how good or how lousy it is, as Mr. Vonnegut would advise. Who's with me?

(As for me, I’m going to pounce on my Wonder Woman crop art. My progress thus far. Her skin, if you're wondering, is quinoa.)