"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.

Slog

Worked about two hours today, if I include all the time pacing around the kitchen wishing I didn't have to work. I tackled the two sections that yesterday I promised myself I would, but I'm not satisfied with the result. It's hard to put into words what the problem is, so I think I'll be returning to this subject later when I've given it some more thought, but I think there is some basic unresolved tension in the concept and construction of my novel that I haven't put my finger on yet and so haven't faced up to. I suspect it boils down to not really knowing my characters thoroughly enough.

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."

Dig; don't fix

I've been having a lot of trouble getting started on my rewrite until today. I've been getting up each morning and psyching myself out, giving in to fear and then surfing the internet.

It's because I don't know what to do and where to start. I can see specific things wrong, but I don't know how to fix them.

It finally occurred to me over the weekend that I should do what I was doing in the first rewrite--which is to dig; not fix. Instead of trying to put a layer of smooth coat over, I should be excavating more.

It's another way of saying what I've said before, quoting Jesse Lee Kercheval and Jane Smiley's advice at different points--the rewrite process is a repeated crossing of the border between analysis and creativity. What I need to do now is turn off that analytical part and let the creative part go. I've been afraid to do that because I know it will make a mess--create more short-term problems than it will solve. Even if I can avoid that fear, it's hard to avoid the habit--the impulse to keep trying to find solutions, to anticipate how things are going to work.

But in the long-term, it's necessary to be in that zone of not caring if something is going to work. That's where the discovery happens.

What's discouraging is the feeling that I have been and may remain in that zone forever. I thought that's what the first rewrite was about (and I didn't accomodate myself easily to that after the first draft). I was expecting that by now I would be in the space where I work on shaping and fixing and patching.

I guess I'll just have to hope that the amount of digging necessary is somewhat less and in more obvious places than in the first rewrite so that it goes faster, so that I really do move through a chapter a week (not counting the month it has taken me just to get started.) I doubt it though.

So, today I opened the file, found the first moment where there is a lack of clarity related to something important to the character development, and tried to dig--tried to get into that creative space. I got in about 90 minutes of fair work.

Struggling to start the second rewrite

I'm putting in a little more time each morning, but I'm not actually doing much writing. I don't know how to get started because I feel like there are serious problems when I re-read the first couple chapters, but I can't tell what they are. The story seems to drift around with things happening suddenly for no good reason.

So what I'm really doing is a lot of thinking. Emotionally, this is the kind of work that is hardest. Have to keep reminding myself that sitting around and thinking (and haltingly taking notes) is good and necessary.

What I decided this morning is that I need to get much clearer on my theme and how the arc of character development demonstrates that theme and then to go through my outline and check all the episodes through that lens. I'll start on that tomorrow.

Freewriting

I thought I would share an example of the kind of freewriting I do when I'm stuck and trying to get my thoughts sorted out. This is very raw material, really unintelligible to anyone but me, but it gives a sense of something very basic in my working process.



In this case, I'm trying to figure out how to diagnose and start remediating what isn't working in Chapter 1. It's the beginning work of my second rewrite.





August 14, 2008

What is going on with B?

Who is he?

Why does he behave the way he does?

What is his thinking about the ________ ?



A is someone he can manipulate. He probably feels ambivalent about that. It’s probably not something he wants. It’s like a crime of opportunity and he feels not great about it. But A gets on his nerves with by being so needy and overeager and fawning.

Take the ________ episode, for example. B is pretending, but it’s in a certain pitch that An misses.



What is that distinction? How are they pretending differently?

For B it’s the activity. The project.

For A, it’s the performance for each other. The act of bonding. A keeps “breaking the fourth wall” to talk about themselves as actors.





August 18, 2008



How would they handle ________ differently?

A wants to talk about it

B wants to circle around it. Hoard it for later. Taste it.

A is ocd

B is add

A might also tend to add, but the ocd is predominant.

That means he feels agitated until he gets some full satisfaction. Until something is completed in a some particular and emotional way for him. He has a script he expects to be followed in order to get proof of love. Deviate from that script, and he feels insecure, thus vulnerable, thus panicked, thus he can’t let it rest. Harps on people trying to Shepard them back onto the script—to make them say their lines.



With B, he perfectly willing to stop in mid script and switch to something else. He feels uncomfortable with being responsible for anyone else’s feelings. Wants to be loved like anyone else, though not particularly needy about that, but he doesn’t want to feel responsible for other people’s feelings, love or otherwise. Aloof. Learned it from his dad. That’s what’s manly. Neither of them are macho, and it’s not an aversion to emotion exactly so much as it’s an aversion to being intimate.



Hmm. Is it an aversion. Like they genuinely avoid it? Or is it that when other people seek it, they see it as an opportunity to exploit? To control people by withholding? Perhaps it’s not so much that they can’t be intimate as an addiction to the power that comes from withholding.



These are contradictory explanations. One makes B a lot less sympathetic than the other. Is it that he gets tempted into some manipulative behavior or that he has some piece of his soul missing?



Put it that way, and it’s obvious. He can’t be a monster. Has to be real.



Fragile balance. B tends to withhold, imitating his dad. Gets a kind of control. Confronted with someone especially clingy like A is what makes him feel vulnerable. Manipulating and pushing away feel safer.



Alright, so in this episode . . . I need to rewrite a few key scenes. When B shuts down the game—rewrite it with this motivation in mind. Same for when they start the game and the couple times we revisit it in the middle. The whole tone of it should be more like A drives B away—B reacting to A’s neediness—rather than B jerking A around, or worse, acting indiscriminately, which is how it reads now and why it reads so confusingly.



How about Chapter 2? Harder to say. Need to read it carefully again.

The passing of L. Rust Hills

Readers of this journal know that L. Rust Hills' book Writing In General and the Short Story In Particular has been a key handbook for me as I develop as a writer. It's a terrific combination of analysis and practicality, and he made many other contributions to our literary culture besides that book.

Hills died earlier this week. His obit in the New York times is here.

Back to work after a long break

I'm back to work on the novel and back to this journal after taking a full two months off.

I was out of the country for about 9 weeks, tagging along with my wife while she was on a work assignment. I had the mixed intentions of making it a writer's retreat and also taking advantage of every opportunity to fully experience my time abroad. Obviously "retreat" and "tourism" don't go together very well.

What actually ended up happening is the first two weeks looked a lot like a writer's retreat and then I put the book aside. I worked hard in our hotel room every day those first two weeks and plowed through to the complete the first rewrite of Part 2 and thus of the entire book. That was a big day and a big relief. Then I left the hotel to look around and haven't thought about the novel since.

I ought to be feeling guilty about that I know, but actually I think break's like that are appropriate and good for the book if it's not just a rationalization for procrastinating. The next batch of work--the second rewrite--should be stronger and more incisive because of the distance I've put between myself and the book.

That explains most of the break. Actually I was supposed to return to work a week ago, and since then I've been procrastinating. Partly I've been taking it slow in returning to this orbit and partly I was afraid. I have to build up the momentum and confidence again, and I didn't muster the energy for that last week. Now that I have, with about an hour of work this morning before needing to run some errands, I expect it will take awhile before the work is really going smoothly.

Temporary hiatus

Thanks for visiting. I'm unlikely to post here much, if at all, until August. My internet connection on this overseas trip is too spotty. In the meantime, I'm going to keep writing journal entries as if I was on the blog and save them to post later. Have a good summer.

Read The Inheritance of Loss by Kirin Desai

I finished The Inheritance of Loss last night, which I enjoyed a lot. It got me to wondering about the author, and here are some interesting things I read in interviews with her.

As you said, you had an unconventional method for writing Hullabaloo; this being your first book, do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

KD: There are all kinds of theories that you get told in writing workshops--"Write what you know," and that sort of thing, which I don't believe at all. I think one of the great joys of writing is to try and explore what you don't know, that's exciting to me. There are all kinds of little things--show, don't tell--I just wouldn't pay attention to any of that really. I don't think you can write according to a set of rules and laws; every writer is so different. I can't imagine how they come up with these rules--they're really ludicrous. You can't learn to write in that fashion. What inspired me really was reading, reading a lot and learning from other writers. Learning how they are going about something--I was very aware of that when I was writing this book. Every book that I read at the same time I'd think, "Hmm--how do they do this?" Looking at it in that way, from a technical point of view, which we don't usually do as a reader. But really I think that's for me what was important; I was training myself to look at my work with a critical eye.

Her basic point here--that the most important part of learning to write is learning to read--I absolutely agree with. It's something I talk about with my freshman comp students all the time. In that field, it's called "reading rhetorically." The other thing I tell them is that all the rules for writing that they get told are really rules for re-writing--that when you are writing you should act as if there are no rules, and then in the revision stages you channel the ghost of English Teacher Past.

Contrary to the impression Desai gives here, I do think it's important for the end product to show rather than tell. But if what she means is that you should ignore that rule while writing and then come back with a critical eye to see what works (presumably discovering that failing to show doesn't work), then I'm with her.

What did you think you wanted to say when you first set out to write The Inheritance of Loss? Do you think you managed to convey all you wanted to?

. . . . As for whether I'm content with the book -- I always have the feeling that something got away. Where is that thing -– the sublime novel? What would it feel like to hold that in my hands? Whenever I come across it as a reader, I read trembling. Like any art form, when it's great, the person experiencing it exists in a form of grace. I hunger for that feeling as a writer as well as a reader.

Are you satisfied with the way your work has developed, as a writer? Do you see yourself continuing to write more in future?

I think this book is better than the last, but certainly I don't think it's perfect. It's the hardest thing to write a perfect book. Yet, of course, as a reader, I hunger for it. It's a constant desire and I know I'll write another book for that reason.

Writing, for me, means humility. It's a process that involves fear and doubt, especially if you're writing honestly. I imagine businessmen feel smug at least twice a day. Writers? The moments are rare.

All of these comments jumped out at me, because they so accurately describe my experience.

Prepping for Part 2

I'm in a different mental space today--just spending hours reading through my outline and related notes trying to refamiliarize myself with Part 2 and thinking about what work I need to do. It's kind of a luxury to just poke around and let the different scenes bubble around in my attention in an unscheduled way. Actually, as luxurious as it feels, it's probably a necessity.

Of course, a big part of the work ahead of me for Part 2 is similar to what I did in Part 1--digging deeper and developing what is there. It has all the same kind of "dead stars" vs. "supernovas" that Part 1 had. All the same problems with lack of motivation and lack of action and a lack of clarity about who the characters are, the lack of focus on particular questions, particular things that the characters desire.

But another big "task" is creating from scratch a subplot that I'm pretty sure I'm going to layer on. I've been stewing on this idea since last September. In terms of word count, it's not that much material that has to be added, but it's figuring out how to weave it in carefully in a way that feels truthful. In a sense this work also is developing what's there, but not really because there is very very little in the first draft regarding this subplot. Just the tenderest seed. This subplot should act to pull my character in another direction, adds to the pressure he's under and lays the groundwork for the ending, which by the way will be a very different ending than what I wrote in the first draft.

Finally really finished with rewrite of Part 1

I had my wife read the last two chapters of Part 1 over the weekend and spent a long time talking with her about it the way we used to do last summer when I was drafting it. That always helps. This morning, I took her notes--which were very few--and worked over a few key spots in those chapters.

And what that work, I'm calling Part 1 done. Done in the sense that I intended for my first rewrite--the material has all been gone over carefully and "developed" as best as I can for now. Every chapter deals with the thematic and plot questions of the book--with the character's desires and motivations. Every chapter complicates the quest a little bit, closing off some avenues, raising the stakes. All the chapters relate to one another so that it adds up to a story with a plot and a character who changes with the plot and vice versa.

I expect that as I think about it more while I'm working on Part 2 and certainly when I get some other readers to comment on it at some later point, I'll become aware of more development work that needs to be done. That will be the second rewrite. But nothing like that is apparent to me now.

On to Part 2. Let's say, worst case, that takes me the same relative amount of time. That would mean about 4-5 months. What I'm hoping though is that the last couple of months of work is a better model--that what I figured out after the first 4-5 months of stumbling around and finally getting my act together in February will be a useful lesson for the rest of the rewrite. In that case, 5 weeks would be a good ambitious estimate.

Officially, I'm not starting the next stage until almost ten days from now when I've gotten myself overseas and set up in my accommodations there. But I think I'll open the files and start poking around this week so that I start stewing on whatever problems are most obvious. It's a long sleepless plane ride across the Pacific, so that's a good time to chew on technical and plot problems.

Edith Wharton on character development

The other difficulty is that of communicating the effect of the gradual passage of time in such a way that the modifying and maturing of the characters shall seem not an arbitrary sleight-of-hand but the natural result of growth in age and experience. This is the great mystery of the art of fiction. The secret seems incommunicable; one can only conjecture that it has to do with the novelist's own deep belief in his characters and what he is telling about them. He know that this and that befell them, and that in the interval between this and that the months and years have continued their slow task of erosion or accretion; and he conveys this knowledge by some subterranean process as hard to seize in action as the growth of a plant. a study of the great novelists . . . will show that ssuch changes are suggested, are arrived at, in the inconspicuous transitional pages of narrative that lead from climax to climax. One of the means by which the effect is produced is certainly that of not fearing to go slowly, to keep down the tone of the narrative, to be as colourless and quiet as life often is in the intervals between its high moments.

Another difficulty connected with this one is that of keeping so firm a hold on the main lines of one's characters that they emerge modified and yet themselves from the ripening or disintegrating years. Tolstoy had this gift to a supreme degree. . . .

. . . with what sure and patient touches their growth and decline are set forth! And how mysteriously yet unmistakably, as they reappear after each interval, the sense is conveyed that there has been an interval, not in moral experience only but in the actual lapse of the seasons! The producing of this impression is indeed the central mystery of the art. To its making go patience, meditation, concentration . . . .
--Edith Wharton

Again, I'm quoting from The Writing of Fiction. This is from the chapter on "Constructing a Novel" in which she discusses some of the central difficulties that a novelist has to grapple with. When I came to this section I started underlining like crazy, because it's a problem that I'm very conscious of in my story. The character in my book has to change--in response to the events of the plot--and at the same time has to remain himself, so that whatever action he takes at the end has to feel like it was inherent in the character that was presented at the beginning of the story. Otherwise the reader will feel gypped. Another discussion of this idea that has helped me is in L. Rust Hills book Writing In General and the Short Story in Particular. He calls it the "inevitability of retrospect," and he has a neat little drawing to illustrate the idea.

What I don't like about this passage from Wharton is she doesn't give any practical advice! Well, not much anyway--meditate, concentrate, go slowly. But overall she makes it sound like it takes an act of grace to pull it off.

"Finished" with Part 1

I only worked a few days this week, but more hours each time so it probably equaled a full week's work. I'm putting in a rare Saturday session today, also.

I finished Chapter 8--and therefore Part 1--this morning. It's one of my temporary finishes, I think. I've got a lot of nagging doubts about it, and my plan is have my wife read Ch. 7 and 8 tomorrow, talk it over with her and then in all likelihood circle back to work on them some more. I have another week to work on it before my trip starts.

At this point, Part 1 is 338 typescript pages and 106,420 words. The last few chapters ended up growing a lot less from the original manuscript length than the first few chapters did.

If Part 2 holds to my plan of being approx. 1/3 of the total length, then it would be about 169 typed pages and 53,000 words, and the whole book after the first rewrite would be about 507 typed pages and 160,000 words. That would be roughly 320 printed pages. That's a little more reasonable than the last estimate I worked up. Still way too long by about about 30,000 words.

Edith Wharton on digging deeper

The phrase 'economy of material' suggests another danger to which the novelist and the writer of short stories are equally exposed . . . . Economy is . . . to be advised in the multiplication of accidental happenings, minor episodes, surprises and contrarieties . . . . The reluctance to look deeply enough into a subject leads to the indolent habit of decorating its surface. . . . Again and again the novelist passes by the real meaning of a situation simply for lack of letting it reveal all its potentialities instead of dashing this way and that in quest of fresh effects. If, when once drawn to a subject, he would let it grow slowly in his mind instead of hunting about for arbitrary combinations of circumstance, his tale would havethe warm scent and flavour of ripened in the sun instead of the insipidity of one forced in a hot-house.
--Edith Wharton

This passage from The Writing of Fiction is timely for me. She is talking, I think, about the necessity of developing and digging deeper that I have been working on for the last several months. My first draft had a lot of the dashing about that she criticizes and a lot of my rewriting processed has layered on even more of it. Right now especially at the climax of Part 1, I am tempted to layer on the multiple happenings, coincidences and so on.

I've indulged that impulse, because to me that is a way of discovering the "real meaning of a situation"--a way of letting it grow in my mind. For the most part, it has been in the service of discovering all the potentialities of the situation.

The trick is to distinguish between what helps me actually develop and deepen the work and what is just a distraction to help me avoid it. In the most basic sense, a weak story will just start shooting off fireworks or affect an air of mystery as a smokescreen to hide the fact that the story isn't really complex. It's a kind of display like a fish that puffs itself up when a predator is nearby. I know in my case it's as much an effort to delude myself that the work is powerful as it is trying to slide something by the reader. Decorating the surface isn't inspired by indolence so much as fear.

My mind is on the next draft, and I can see that a lot of it will be addressing exactly this issue--looking at some of the exciting fireworks shows and being tough with myself about what is unnecessary. Not just unnecessary, and therefore needing to be cut, but if those decorations are hiding weaknesses in the work that still need to be excavated.

Edith Wharton on Plot and Character Development

There are at least two reasons why a subject should find expression in novel-form rather than as a tale; but neither is based on the number of what may be conveniently called incidents, or external happenings, which the narrative contains. There are novels of action which might be condensed into short stories without the loss of their distinguishing qualities. The marks of the subject requiring a longer development are, first, the gradual unfolding of the inner life of its characters, and secondly the need of producing in the reader's mind the sense of the lapse of time. Outward events of the most varied and exciting nature without loss of probability be crowded into a few hours, but moral dramas usually have their roots deep in the soul, their rise far back in time; and the suddenest-seeming clash in which they culminate should be led up to step by step if it is to explain and justify itself.

Wharton doesn't use the terms plot or character development in this chapter on writing short stories in her book The Writing of Fiction, but I find it helpful for thinking about plot and character development. Her distinction between "external happenings" or "outward events" and "moral dramas" or "inner life" is what interests me.

Her point is that the latter categories require a long form--the novel. I'm already committed to working on a novel (it's the name of my blog, after all!), so what helps me here is the reminder that the real story that I have to always be careful to shape and intensify is the moral drama of my characters.

In other words, character development is plot. It's another way of expressing the theme that I've touched on several times in previous posts--the necessity of integrating all the parts of fiction.

Full day of work

Today was unusual in that I spent a lot of time working on Chapter 8--and chapter 7, even though I said I was done with it. Calling it a full day is an exaggeration, but it was at least a couple hours longer than usual, in the a.m. and after lunch. It give me a little sense of what it might be like this summer when I'm setting aside other obligations and can work on the novel full-time.

This was possible because I'm almost done with most of my paying work. Starting Thursday I have to grade papers for awhile, so I'll lose a couple days, and I have one more client I have to spend time on, so that will wipe out at least a few afternoons if not some mornings. I'm still working on a goal of finishing part one--through chapter 8--before departing for our trip. I don't have as much confidence that I'll make it that I used to have, but it's possible.

Larry McMurtry on the short story in film

I’ve read almost nothing by McMurtry, who I quoted yesterday. Not Lonesome Dove or any of his novels. I love the movie based on his screenplay The Last Picture Show.

The one thing that I have read, I highly recommend for any writing geeks who are interested in the technicalities of adapting literature for film. It’s a book called Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay by Annie Proulx, Larry McMurtry, and Diana Ossana, and it collects the original short story by Proulx, the screenplay by McMurtry and Ossana and an essay on how they did they adaptation.

I was interested in this book partly because I thought the movie was brilliant and partly to look for evidence of a theory I have had for many years about making film out of literature.

Essentially, I think that the short story lends itself a lot better to film adaptations than novels do. I think short stories as a form have a lot more in common with film in how they treat character and thematic development. For example, the short story relies on gesture more emphatically than novels do, and that’s better imitated in the arts of the cinematographer and the actor.

Every book lover has had the experience of being disappointed by how the film of their favorite novel turned out. Even when it’s a pretty good movie on its own terms, so much is compromised—tons of narration and scene setting and back story and so on.

I can’t think of so many great movies based on great novels. But I can think of great movies based on short stories. Brokeback Mountain is one. Home for the Holidays is my favorite example. Let me know what you think.

Knowing the ending when you start

Interviewer: I think academics tend to assume writers write novels the way freshmen write term papers. You have a thesis . . .

Larry McMurtry: That’s right. And you explain your thesis. But that isn’t what happens. What happens is a process of discovery in which a writer is compelled as much by curiosity as to how things will turn out and who people are as anything else. I get curious about a group of characters and I start investigating them.

I wish it was that way for me. That’s the way I would like to write, but after many years of trying to just finish something, I mostly only had mere sketches of characters I was curious about. The breakthrough for this book came when I pictured the ending and I realized I could just keep writing toward that ending and that if I kept moving toward that ending I would logically have to create a plot along the way. For me, plot has always been the weakness I had to work on most consciously.

Now, this didn’t necessarily make a good ending a good plot, but since experience told me the biggest risks were not starting and not finishing, I decided not to worry about “good” and to focus on “finished.” That insight was what it took for me, with my particular mix of talents and deficiencies, to get a complete draft written.

Also, it didn’t necessarily mean that the ending and plot, however good they might be, would still go together very well. In fact, in the last two days as I was writing down the final scenes, half of my brain was celebrating—“I’m almost done!”—and the other half was admitting how unsatisfactory the ending was.

So the ending really served as a kind of placeholder that I’m now going to have to get rid of in favor of some other ending, still to be thought of. I love what the ending did for me. It served me well. But now I have to retire it.

More on Larry McMurtry tomorrow.

Working in the head instead of on paper

I'm having a terrible week by any objective measure, but I think good things are still happening for the book.

One, I needed to prioritize other work, so I'm already away from the book. Two, I've been procrastinating on that other work, so that has postponed when I'll get back to the book. Three, I've been having trouble sleeping for a few nights, last night being the worst. So I'm running on fumes now and probably won't make much progress on anything important today.

On the plus side, at some level I've continued to chew on problems in my story and to dive deeper at least in my mind. (It's character development that's bothering me, and I'm trying to imagine more fully what he would be feeling and doing at crucial moments, especially in the chapters I'm dealing with right now.) I'm so tired, who know if any of what I'm coming up with will stick.

Which brings up the issue of taking notes on what I've been thinking about. In every previous attempt at a big writing project I've always compulsively kept notebooks, character journals and scratch pads nearby wherever I went, next to every chair in the house, and next to my bed of course. I'd use those to record every impulse and brainstorm that came to me, as if any one of them might be the miraculous seed from which the rest of the book would grow--or if not that, at least a handy compost pile.

During this project, I've taken a very different approach. It was actually inspired by an interview I read with Elvis Costello about songwriting. He said he would get ideas for melodies and would rush to a pay phone and call his home answering machine and sing the tune to himself to follow up with later. And after awhile, he said, he learned that it was wasted energy--that he could never do as much with those audio notes as he could with the song ideas that just stuck in his head without any note taking. That the only songs worth finishing were the ones whose original inspiration he didn't forget anyway.

All along in this book--including at 3 and 4 and 5 a.m. this morning when I couldn't sleep--I've done something similar, enjoying a kind of lazy holiday from reaching for the notebook and turning on the lamp and trying to capture the brainstorms I'm having. I'm going on faith that whatever was really important and useful that came to me about my character will still be with me the next time I sit down to work on the chapter. That the only stuff worth using in all that ran through my head last night is the stuff that does stick with me.

I have taken some notes from time to time, but the exceptions prove the rule--I haven't actually done anything with those notes. I don't look back at them and follow up with the direction I had given myself. That writing, instead of acting as plans for the future, have functioned better as a kind of thinking through writing. Sometimes instead of contemplating silently it's better to contemplate with the pen moving over the paper--it's a different kind of meditation and discovery. But the writing itself is instantly disposable. Something in it my survive but only because it has become part of my concept of the book, not because I refer back to it to follow up on later.