First lines, last steps

I'm finding myself working and working on the first lines of the book, which is very unsettling. I know it makes sense that as I near the end of the process the theme becomes clearer and the need to clarify the statement of that theme becomes apparent. But I can't help feeling that the first lines, which I wrote first over two years ago, is a pretty basic piece of the book that ought to be settled by now. It's freaking me out a little.

But I'm getting good at ignoring my fears and plowing ahead, and it was illuminating if slow work this a.m. About a two hour session. One hour of plain writing in long hand on paper on the back porch just like the old days, basically rewriting from memory some of the stuff that I've already written several times, but hopefully sharper and more focused. Then another hour of trying to refocus and brainstorm my way out of a problem.

The problem is really the question of what the first line needs to do. Looking at it through the question of "intention," which I've been doing lately as noted before, I might be establishing theme, establishing character, starting the main story, laying out background to the main story, etc. Probably ideally all of these should be done at once in one elegant, vivid line that starts in media res, gives voice to the main character, references the time period and latitude and longitude, creates suspense and promises more action. In reality, as I brainstormed several possibilities, the more I worked to establish character or setting, the more it felt like a slow start. The more I established theme, the more abstract the language was. And the more I succeeded in getting the story started, the more utilitarian the language felt. Anyway, that presumes clarity about what the story actually is--what thread of events we need to pick up first.

I didn't mention establishing voice, and what I'm really leaning toward is the idea that establishing voice is the most important thing -- that the reader can tolerate a slow start to the story if they're interested in the voice. That's a theory, and one I don't have a hundred percent confidence in, but it's what I'm going to stew on until tomorrow, when I'll try again.

I can't believe I'm near the end of June and I'm stuck on the first line of my book. It's not looking like I'll get done this summer. My only hopes is that a breakthrough here will lead to quick clear work later on.

Longhand, short attention span

Minimal progress this morning. The problem is that because the work I'm doing is on the computer, I succumbed to the temptation of a work-related email, which ate up a lot of my fresh-in-the-morning energy. Stupid.

Another problem once I got started, seemingly unrelated, is the temptation to patch up the section I'm working on instead of rewriting it. This is the rewrite of Ch 1-4, starting with the opening pages of course. What I have is very strong in the context of what it's doing, but I have to take it another direction. And in so doing, while working on the computer with the file of existing material, I keep trying to make use of bits and pieces of what's already there. Partly because I don't want to waste it and partly on the assumption that it will be less time consuming than writing new from the beginning.

As a result, I'm not really in the proper creative frame of mind. It's more a mechanical way of looking at things. And it yields misshappen fruit, so I start to get turned off by it.

So I'm thinking . . . maybe I should be working in longhand at this stage. That would definitely be better for the problem of getting distracted by email. And it might be better for the second problem. What if I just literally rewrite this section on blank paper without reference to the existing work? I haven't done that before because it sounds scary -- It's putting myself back at the beginning; it feels like a defeat; it feels like no progress; it feels like a waste of what I have; it feels inefficient.

But really it might be more efficient. I'm just talking about a few pages. Just inventing it from scratch might be less time consuming than trying to patch things together. And it's probably more . . . authentic. Or honest. More aligned with what the work needs. It needs to become what it should be, and paying attention so much to what it already has been is probably a drag on that process. Writing longhand again would be a way to cut the tie. Instead of working with the existing material in front of me, I'll rely on my memory of it--or better yet, on my wish for what it was.

Just for a few pages. Even if I end up writing nearly the same paragraphs in parts, with the same metaphors and imagery and jokes, they should come in on point better, with better flow. And the new material should be more in the right voice instead of having that patchy quality.

I'm going to try that again fresh tomorrow morning. Strange to be struggling over the opening pages like this so late in the process, but I suppose it makes sense.

Rewrote opening--plus one page

I got back to work this morning. I had that fearful feeling that makes me want to find excuses and avoid the work, but luckily I recognized it for what it is and knew if I could just get started I'd be OK. Looking forward to a solid couple of weeks of specific, focused work.

Today's work was especially scary. I needed to rewrite the opening scene. It's weird to think that I let something so crucial go this long without getting it right--not that it's necessarily right now--but sometimes issues make themselves apparent or cry out loud enough only late in the process. The opening scene as it was is just how I started things off the first day of writing and the book has become something very different in the meantime. It needed a different opening.

I won't go into all that was wrong with it--little things that added up--but the fix was actually relatively simple. I just made the same events more or less happen to my main character instead of him observing them happen to his friend.

Along the way I saw chances for line edits to clean up and tighten the language, so I'm really chomping at the bit to get to the stage where I can focus on that. Hopefully not more than a couple weeks from now. In the meantime I have about a half dozen spots I need to work on similar to what I was doing this morning.

One downside. My rewrite of the opening ended up adding one to my page count. Thpptt.

"Finished" with Chapter 1 yet again

I put in a standard five mornings this week, including a full day today, and worked through the second rewrite of Chapter 1, finally, after a month of hesitation.

The main thing I did was delving deeper in the spots most relevant to what seemed to me the biggest problem with the chapter, which was unclear motivation for some of the characters' actions and lack of clarity about what was actually happening. That was really first three days, and yesterday and today I went through and bandaged up a lot of transition problems. There was a little bit of cutting along the way, but the chapter still ended up growing by two pages. I guess I cut about five pages and wrote about seven while I was at it.

Now I'm aware of a couple problems in it still--that it is way too long, for one thing, and that even with more clarity about what happens there's not so much clarity about why it's important or interesting.

So it is "finished" only in the sense that every chapter was finished as I went through the first complete rewrite. I'm going to have my wife read it over the weekend and give me her feedback, with the intention of making notes for a later pass at it, but in all likelihood I'll be compelled to tackle some issues right away. So I expect I'll be still working on Chapter 1 next week.

Anyway, I'm back to work on the novel. That's something to be grateful for.

Before I go to bed

Over the years, I've come up with a couple tricks to facilitate good working habits. One of them is to get clear the night before a writing day what I intend to work on the next day. The reason this has been crucial is that for me if I'm going to create new work, it's best to do that first thing in the morning before I really think too hard about anything else. And planning the work--thinking about the work--just trying to decide what scene I should work on takes enough intellectual energy that I don't feel like I'm starting fresh once I do start drafting. Making that decision the previous day--ideally at the end of the previous day's work--helps me get that fresh start.

Over the last year and a half (how I hate realizing it's been that long) I've often slacked off on this habit, because it's become less necessary at times. I've built up more momentum and self confidence that I could arrive at the writing table with a less conscious plan and find my way into the work more easily.

But it's time to revive the habit, especially considering what I observed yesterday about moving from a space of analysis to a space of creativity--of digging in and making a mess. I need to do that when I'm fresh and allowed the rest of the world and my own OCD thought patterns to start to attach little fur balls to my mind. I can't count on just finding the right place to dig. In fact, today I didn't and ended up wasting the morning tinkering at the sentence level. So I'm ending the morning by identifying the very lines--in two different episodes in Chapter 1--where the story is thin and will benefit from the clarity that will come out of more development. Tomorrow, I'll start with the first of those and hopefully have the energy to work on both of them in one day. Certainly in two.

And in the future, I'll have a similar plans for each of the chapters, telling myself each day, "Tomorrow I will dig here."