Thursday, December 11, 2014

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?

Today's Word Count: Who Cares?
Overall Word Count: Who Cares?




I've been dealing with a bit of writer's block - in the middle of a scene, no less. One evening it was there, clear and fresh in my head, and the next evening it was gone. I found I didn't know what came next. Everything was muddy and foggy. I went from effortlessly tossing off hundreds of words a day to a trickle, then to nothing. I never stopped thinking about the story - if anything, I've thought about it more obsessively than ever as I tried to figure my way out of this hole - but there simply seemed to be no good way forward.

By itself, that would not have been the end of the world: a speed bump, maybe, but not a brick wall. Yet I allowed it to become a brick wall, one that stopped me in my tracks for over a month. And in hindsight, the problem (and solution) were so obvious that I feel silly for having let it become such a problem.

An author friend of mine has said, both directly to me and on his blog, that writer's block is usually the result of the narrative taking a wrong turn somewhere, and that un-blocking oneself is usually as simple as retracing one's steps to find the point where a character, or plot development, caused things to go off the rails. Once the false trail is found, it's simply a matter of excising or rewriting the offending part, then going forward again. I have actually had that advice in mind since before I even sat down to begin writing this novel. Yet over the weeks and weeks that I've been here unproductive and frustrated, I never allowed myself to take that advice.

Then, in the course of an email conversation this week with a friend who was kind enough to check in on me and my apparent lack of progress, it hit me in a flash.

If you've followed this blog, you know that I've opened each entry with a word count of that day's work, and a running total so far. Word count was how I measured (and proclaimed) my progress. In light of that, I was very resistant to the idea of doubling back mid-course (and I'm actually further along than mid-course; I'm in the final act for sure) and maybe deleting some of my precious, obsessively counted words. In effect, I was embarrassed to have to come here to this blog and admit that my word count for the day was -4000, because I'd had to go back and chop out a whole chapter that didn't end up fitting.

It sounds silly, but there it is. And the more I think of it, the more puerile it seems to me. I'm writing a story, after all, not laying bricks. A story isn't done when you get to 50,000 words, or 100,000 or 300,000 for that matter. It's done when the story is done. To think otherwise would be to say that I'm not done growing yet, just because I never made it to six feet tall.

So that realization was a big weight off my shoulders. For the last two days I've been going forward and backward with equal vigor, moving the narrative ahead while also spending time revising past events to fit better with what I know now about my setting and story. Couldn't be easier.

I have two friends to thank for this: one who has gently but insistently pushed me forward this whole time, and another who's reminded me it's OK, necessary even, to go backwards sometimes. When this work is published, I fully intend to embarrass both of them by name in my acknowledgements.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

Friday, September 26, 2014

Where Did I Go?

Day 122
Today's Word Count: 1,766
Overall Word Count: 72,864

"I don't enjoy writing. I enjoy having written." - George R.R. Martin

Not George R.R. Martin. Joe Strummer.

For the longest time; i.e., until I started writing, and even then, only really until a few weeks ago, I could not understand this quote by Martin. Even in the first two months of writing this book, I found myself continually thinking, "How can you not enjoy writing? This is a blast! I love getting this stuff onto the page! I love surprising myself!"

But as I get into the fourth month of this draft, I can start to feel it. It can be a drag. I'm still really happy with what's coming out, and it's going the way I wanted and hoped but...it's hard. It feels like work now. I think, and I confirmed with my wife, that this feels the same way she feels when she takes on an overly ambitious knitting project: a large blanket, say. It starts fun, starts to become a grind by the end, and then she gets to be thrilled with the end product.

I can understand now why Stephen King says he tries never to take more than three months for the first draft of a novel, even a long one. The narrative can lose its bright shiny edge, the characters can start to feel like characters, and all of a sudden it becomes work rather than play. On the other hand, maybe that's why Martin doesn't enjoy writing; how dull must that edge get when you're working five or six years on the same manuscript?!

Anyway, today was very productive. The last three weeks, I've been caught up in a project at work that involved a ton of writing: I wrote basically every single word of copy for a six-page newspaper ad that's going to go out in a couple of weeks. Whenever I'm writing that much at work, it's extra hard to come home and write. I think I have 1,000-2,000 words a day in me, and sometimes I have to spend them all at the office.

Still in the home stretch. Back on the horse. First draft done...soon.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Rounding Third

Day 105
Today's Word Count: 1,050
Overall Word Count: 68,291

I'm definitely in the home stretch here, know what's happening, and just need to write it. Yesterday and today have both been really productive. Incidentally, while I've fallen a bit off the ridiculously prolific early weeks, I'm still averaging about 650 words per day since I started. I think that's pretty solid. I'm excited to wrap up this first draft, put it away, and not think of it for a while. I'm excited to read it.

At a guess, I'd say I'll be done with this draft in two weeks.

Oh, and it's my birthday.


Sunday, August 24, 2014

Her skin was like the inside of a freshly cut turnip.

Day 89
Today's word count: 1,262
Overall word count: 61,608

Ugh, I feel like crap. I have a horrible summer cold. Sore throat, can barely talk, everything aches. On the bright side, that made for a very productive day today.

My wife, ever-helpful in my quest to write a book that doesn't suck, recently shared with me the following Buzzfeed article:

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If White Characters Were Described Like People Of Color In Literature.

1. He looked at her longingly, as he imagined her exotic, mashed potato skin laying gently against his.

2. She took off his shirt, his skin glistening in the sun like a glazed doughnut. The glaze part, not the doughnut part.

3. His eyes looked like eyes because they were eye-shaped, not almonds.

4. Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall-person, handsome features, and his crust of a Shepherd’s pie complexion.

5. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Mary,” she replied as the strap of her dress slipped off her marzipan shoulder.

6. She didn’t know it yet but the girl of her dreams had just walked in. Her eyes were radiant and her skin glowed with mozzarella undertones.

7. She was beautiful, elegant. Like a tall clear glass filled with raw pasta.

8. His body had the color and shape of raw ground beef.

9. He traced his fingers along her supple, cauliflower skin.

10. She stepped out of the car and and was delighted by the cool summer breeze that brushed against her legs. She had been sitting in the sun earlier and welcomed the relief of this fresh air on her mayonnaise legs.

11. She had brown, wiry hair and skin that can only be described as the color of the inside of an apple. The mushy ones not the cool, crisp ones.

12. She dove into the ocean, the blue waves enveloping her tapioca skin.

13. She was transfixed by the gleam of his uncooked chicken breast skin. So raw, so lumpy.

14. His bones were as brittle as a vanilla wafer.

15. Her beauty was indescribable, which means she’s white.

16. For the first time in his life, he found himself imagining a future together with someone. He was embarrassed to tell her this but he had never really been in love with the women he had dated. “Well who would play me in this rom-com of your life?” she teasingly inquired. “You have such beautiful olive skin,” he crooned, “so you can be a person of color or racially ambiguous in the book but definitely a white woman in the movie.”

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I laughed, then I cringed, then I went scurrying back to my work in progress to make sure I had done nothing so risible as the kind of thing being parodied here. I'm pleased to say, in 230+ pages of copy, that I only had to zap one reference to a character whose skin looked like "coffee with a splash of cream."

Until next time. By the way, if I don't feel better tomorrow, I'm calling in sick to work. I look and sound like shit. And in that case, I shall write a lot of words.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Describing The Known

Day 82
Today's word count: 494
Overall word count: 58,648

500 words today, 1,700 yesterday. A solid weekend.

I've noticed something, a difference between fantasy and non-fantasy novels. Writing a non-fantasy novel allows the writer a bit of shorthand. If a character is stuck in line at the driver's license bureau, I can say, for example:

Brett stood in line at the DMV, clutching his papers, waiting for his number to be called. The air was hot, close, and thick with the flat gray odor of nine dozen sweaty bodies. The fluorescent lighting lent a surreal look to the room. One bulb flickered and guttered, casting the surroundings in a sickly strobe light that was gradually giving Brett a migraine.

...and the reader's imagination will fill in a lot of the rest. Are the walls cinderblock? Are they flat white paint, stained with a million handprints? Are there highway safety ads plastered all over them? Is the floor made of linoleum tiles, or plain concrete? Are the clerks wearing street clothes, or khaki-colored pseudo-cop, pseudo-Boy Scout shirts, armpits darkening with sweat? Those details will vary according to each reader, but each reader is likely to see something in his or her mind's eye upon reading. Most of us have, after all, been in at least one DMV, waiting in line, wishing for death. And with a fixed image in the reader's mind, I can get along with my story. In essence, I'm using images that are already in the reader's mind (and they're vivid, because they're your own memories or imaginings) to make description easier.

In contrast, if I'm introducing you to the lobby of the White Tower of High Sorcery in the Alabaster City of Rel*, I feel pressure to describe it to you in much greater detail. Are the walls covered in scales scavenged from the carcasses of fallen dragons? Is the light in the room emanating from bat-winged imps holding magical glowing stones in their claws? Are the clerks wearing long white robes trimmed in elaborate silver needlework? HOW CAN I MAKE SURE YOU AREN'T PICTURING THE DMV WHEN YOU READ THIS SCENE?!

Luckily, I'm not in that boat, at least not too badly. My characters are real-world people stuck in weird situations, but no Towers of Sorcery. Writing high fantasy would be hard business, I think.

Also, I'm starting to think I need to get focused and finish this bad boy. All the threads are pointing in the same direction. A month. Less than a month, maybe.

Until next time! Random music video! Awesome 80s pop!



* Reference from my hilariously failed first attempt at a novel, fifteen years ago.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

The Illusion of Control

Day 77
Today's word count: 668
Overall word count: 55,825

Page 225, by my rough count. All the storylines are now careening towards what I imagine will be the climax, denouement, and aftermath. But as always, I leave myself open to being surprised by what my characters choose to do, and what external events might plausibly happen. In all of this process, I feel like someone riding a never-before-ridden roller coaster. Sure, you assume it will all work out fine. But do you know?

Obligatory vid: 




 Love Graffin's lyrics, and the whole song is amazing. Harmonies = win. Talk to you soon!

Friday, August 1, 2014

1,000

Day 66
Today's word count: 1,000
Overall word count: 52,460

I blog today, not out of any particular sense of achievement, but simply because I logged exactly 1,000 words today. How weird! I typed what I had to say, hit CTRL+SHIFT+C to count my words (hey, working in Google Docs here), and lo and behold!

So, since I had not intended to write a blog today, here is an unintended video to go with:


One great songwriter (Bruce Springsteen) covering another (Jimmy Cliff). Also, Bruce has a battered Telecaster, or perhaps even a Nocaster or Esquire, with Joe Barden Pickups. And a wrist brace. If I could trade my day job for a battered, souped-up Telecaster and a wrist brace, I would in a heartbeat. Duh.