Lapsed

It's not going well, obviously. I hope to revivify myself and the work this week.

Feeling better

I've been working the plan I described yesterday and generating more material to work with. That's good. Some of it feels right, which raises the question of what's going on when it doesn't feel right. Is that a sign I shouldn't pursue that material? Anyway, my little stack of mud pies is bigger than it was yesterday.

For the most part, I have had energy for morning and afternoon sessions, though I don't always have the time for the afternoon session. It's adding up to 2 - 3 hours a day.

Reboot

How to describe what I've been up to in the last week?

Basically, I'm rebooting the project. As noted before, I've let my personal timeline push me into starting to draft too soon. All I really have is a situation -- not a story. The advance work needs more attention. (For the process I want to follow anyway. I know there's a school of thought that says just start writing and work out the problems as they emerge. That's basically how I did my first book. But I'm inclined to plan this one more before trying to draft it.)

One thing I did that actually took a lot of time was to outline a particular book that is both a favorite and a model for this particular project in some ways. Chapter by chapter, I wrote out what was going on in it and every once in awhile paused to make notes on what I was learning that I could apply.

One result was I developed a kind of schematic to help me brainstorm some plot and character development and to ensure that more (if not enough) is going on in the story. It helps me create complication in a way that is integrated. I'm sure this idea has been articulated in similar language a million times before, but this is what dawned on me and that I'm using to guide me for the time being.

Think of it as a triangle, which I won't try to draw here. Three points.

A. PERSONAL/PRIVATE story elements -- goals and obstacles having to do with home and family.

B. PUBLIC story elements -- goals and obstacles having to do with career, work or the outside world.

C. CHARACTER elements -- strengths and weaknesses of the character/s.

Each of these interact and push and pull one another. The desire for success publicly is complicated by the desires having to do with home which are complicated by the character's qualities, which change in response to the ups and downs of reaching for their goals, etc.

These should generate some number of conflicts, some of which are external to the character and some of which are internal to the character.

So, basically I'm going through each of my main characters and doing a lot of brainstorming and story development on each of these points. Sometimes that leads to drafting in the book's voice for a little while, but I don't really take that seriously yet. I just regard it all as note-taking.

I don't know how long this is going to take. I just try to do my best to treat it seriously for a few hours every day, and hopefully I'll have a good story I believe enough in to write soon.

Now, there is a danger of planning it so much that I'm bored with it. I saw a quote from Margaret Atwood recently where she talks about never knowing the endings of her books and never planning them out, because if she had all that ready, she wouldn't be interested in writing it anymore. Maybe the process I'm working on is too controlling. But I'm trying to compensate for another weakness, which is the difficulty of developing plot. I don't want to end up with a draft with no plot, so this is how I'm going about things.

Trough of despair

Hey, I passed 400 entries in this journal the other day.

It's not going well. I'm coming to the realization that I don't have much of a story at all. I'm knocking my head out to figure out one plot issue, under the mistaken idea all along that that one point is so key that it will carry the rest of the book. It's a trifle. I need a lot more story to make the book worthwhile.

It's helped me to remember that the core of the story has to be about relationships. (Did I already say this in an earlier entry?) Even if I know a lot about individual characters -- and I don't know much -- there's no story until they start to get intimate and have conflicts.

Basically, all I have is a setting. An interesting one, I hope, and not just a gimmick. But no matter how interesting it's not going to be a story until I start to pile on some trouble for the characters.

Figuring this out, as usual, is part of the process and ought to count as progress, but I can't help but notice the number of days passing by with not addition to my word count. Instead I'm making lots of theoretical notes.

Yesterday, I spent all day putting what plot I think I know on to slips of paper to shuffle. Boy, did that reveal some gaps.

Today I've been going through the exercise of outlining a book that is a favorite and that is inspiring this one. The point of the exercise is to see how that book works, where the sense of story comes from, the motive power, the interest. That's revealing all kinds of machinery that my story so far lacks.

It's the eternal problem with me. I've always gotten overexcited about scene and scenario without having any sense of plot.

Counting what I tend to discount

I tend to categorize and pigeonhole and to put little mental asterisks next to things that don't resemble exactly everything else in a given pigeonhole. It's a bad tendency toward black-and-white thinking in a process where that is least likely to be helpful. Also, as you've seen, I measure my progress by counting things.

So I'm in a confusing period right now with nothing much to count but knowing that I ought to feel like I'm making progress anyway. I want to think of the work in two different aspects -- the preparatory/notetaking/journaling aspect and the actual drafting. I even keep that work in two separate notebooks, and I tend to count as "writing" what happens in the drafting notebook. But those two different aspects of the work are not so different at this stage. It's a blurry line, and out of frustration that I don't quite know what to write at the moment, I turn to my prep notebook to talk myself through it and end up doing a little bit of writing that I wish had emerged in my drafting notebook.

So for that reason, I can say I've made some measure of progress on the manuscript every day, including over the weekend, and I'm up over 6,000 words.

But still it is all background and character sketching and not yet tackling the present action plot. Which is the main challenge of this confusing period. I'm trying to figure that out still (it goes hand-in-hand with figuring out the characters, by the way) but my personal time line is to be drafting at this point. The story just isn't ready to be written. It's not that it won't be or can't be or that it's a flawed or lost project. My little tugs of despair or really only the result of an unreasonable time line that I've imposed on myself and the subsequent tendency to discount the necessary work that I am doing of finding the story and characters. That has to happen, and I've tried to rush it.

Building up stamina

1,700 words today. That usually happens when I've got a scene with a little bit of action and development in it. Once I start finding the story more, I'll have days of 2-3,000 words. So far, it's really just background sketches, which is starting to worry me. I guess it's only a trap if I make the mistake of thinking it all will be a part of the book. It might be a necessary part of the process to write this, but I can't let myself get frustrated later when I figure out that it's unnecessary material. Still, I need to start tackling the actual story.

The joy of creation

I just love writing the first draft. Perhaps if I loved it less I would focus more and not need to do so much work on the rewrites. But I get a kick out of making stuff up as I go along. When I started this morning (900 words today), I really had no idea what I was going to write. I thought I would establish a certain journey that my character makes by car over a couple of days. I didn't have a theme or anything -- no certain plot points to hit, no certain characterization I wanted to weave in. I didn't know what she would do on the journey. I just made up a first sentence, wrote that down and kept going. An hour later I had invented all kinds of interesting walk-on characters and background anecdotes. Doubtlessly, almost all of it will get cut eventually, but it was fun. It's fun knowing I'm able to.

850 words

Nothing special to report. Typical working day - 850 words. Still sketching background material for now and avoiding the problem of plot. I have some ideas, but I also have some problems with the ideas. The same could probably be said of voice. I'm establishing a voice as I do this work, but I have some hesitations about what is being established. Pretty soon I'll have to come to some working decisions on this or I won't have work to do.

I started a novel today

Today is the big day. I was scared as hell, and didn't have any sense of purpose, but I told myself what got me through the first one -- "just add sentences." And I also got to tell myself that I had done it once before. I sat down and wrote 700 words, a pretty light day by my standards, but I'll build up my stamina. So far, I'm ignoring the fact that I don't really have much of a plot, so for awhile I foresee myself writing a lot of overly detailed background material.

I was sitting on the couch in my new short-term rental in Saigon. Plenty to distract me -- it's pretty noisy here -- and I got up once to watch an old couple walking slowly down the street, the man playing some kind of traditional music adapted for Stratocaster and portable amplifier and the woman singing along and holding her hat out. They were tethered by the microphone cord plugged into the amplifier slung over his shoulder. How am I going to compete with that? How am I going to create anything as vivid as what's going on around me?

I think the length of my writing sessions is mostly determined by the natural breaks in the narrative. It's hard to come to a scene and then start a new one, so if it's a long scene, I have a day where I write a lot. If it's a short scene, I have a day where I don't write a lot. If I can train myself to restart again after finishing one scene, I could build up my word count a lot faster.

By the way, for the purposes of this journal, I think I'll refer to this book as BR.

OK, if I can find a satisfying lunch and get some household chores done, I'll have a routine. 100 days like that and I'll have a first draft.

New year, new novel

I'm making a big transition in the next few days -- moving overseas for an extended stay and starting a new book. In a sense, it's a restart of this blog. I'll be back to where I was in 2007 in terms of the writing process.

I'll be living in Vietnam for about 5 1/2 months, and most of my energy for weeks has been focused on preparing for that. And I expect a lot of energy focused on getting set up there for awhile. Plus, I have several once-in-a-lifetime distractions during the stay, including some extended side trips.

But once I am settled and to the extent that I'm not socializing or traveling, I won't have a lot of responsibilities. So I plan to make it a writer's retreat. I've been stewing on this idea for my second novel since last September, sneaking in what research that I can, doing a lot of note-taking and character sketching and so on. I'm not as ready as I wanted to be, but I'm going with the flow. Sometime as soon as possible after the morning of Monday, January 4, after I finish a breakfast of cafe sua da and banh mi op la, I'm going to sit down in a quiet corner of our apartment with my notebook and start drafting the book. One way or another, with the information and skills I have. We'll see what happens. I think I'll be lucky to have it 3/4 drafted before I have to come home.

Stay tuned to see how it goes.

Books read in 2009

As discussed at length at the end of 2008 and 2007, I have a peculiar and rationally inconsistent habit of keeping a list of all the books I read, but only counting them if I finish them. It is therefore a really misleading snapshot of how I spend my reading time -- no short stories unless it was part of a collection I finished, no anthologies I dip into, no literary journals and none of the dozens of books I start and don't complete. Some of those, it wouldn't be fair to count because I just read a few pages, and some of them it's really hard not to finish because I've already invested in 400 pages of time into it but there are another 400 to go.

For example, I foundered this year on Anna Kerenina about half way through, so it's not on my list. I read and loved War and Peace and was glad I did I finished it, but wished I counted for five books on my list. I forced myself to finish A Northern Clemency so I could add it to the list and regretted that much effort. For those reasons, I don't feel bad about counting much shorter books, such as all the S.E. Hinton books I revisited during a nostalgia phase last summer.

I don't have time this year to type out the whole list here -- more later on the reasons for my time crunch -- but I wanted to make a post here, partly to brag and partly to have a consistent record from year to year. My grand total this year is . . . 89.

That's probably the highest total ever, but my lifelong goal is to achieve 2 per week, 104 on the list for the year. I was always one step behind that for most of the year and sprinting not to lose any more ground. But about the middle of October I saw it wasn't going to happen --that I could maybe hit 95 if I kept sprinting -- and I started to coast. I don't anticipate doing any better in 2010 because of a new schedule coming up.

But how about the literary value of the list? There are fewer titles this year that were read to help me with my first novel, since it was really done. There are a few titles related to my second book (more on that later) which I plan to start soon. There is a Napoleonic Wars phase, really starting with The Charterhouse of Parma last year and continuing with War and Peace and a bio of Napoleon this year. There are several biographies, which my wife and read to each other at night. There are the textbooks for the classes I teach. I did count a couple audio books my wife and I listened to. I was reading more poetry at the start of the year and seemed to get focused on other things later in the year.

There a few graphic novels. I was partly inspired by the events in Iran to read Persepolis and partly inspired by The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay to learn more about comics. Kavelier and Clay was my great discovery this year. I read it twice and have it packed for another trip coming up, and I read a few other Chabon books. I especially loved Wonder Boys. Another new favorite is Middlesex, which I also read twice, and enjoyed The Virgin Suicides.

I read a bunch of dogs that I can't believe were so highly recommended. But I already complained about those enough. So I'll finish up with this short list of other fiction that I particularly enjoyed in the last year, in no particular order, some new books, some new to me.

-Oive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.
-Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Letham
-Miles From Nowhere by Nami Mun
-The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
-Lucky Girls by Nell Freudenberger
-Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin
-American Woman by Susan Choi
-Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
-Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
-The Book Borrower by Alice Mattison

Well, one more word, for the sake of poetry this time. Blood, Tin, Straw by Sharon Olds. She kicks ass as always.

The right tools for the job

Dork time.

I took a big step today. After much deliberation, I decided on and purchased the notebook and pens I'll use to draft the next book. 6 weeks in advance, but I couldn't wait. It's one of the few parts of the process that feels good.

The decision is a little more complicated this time because the supplies have to come with me on a plane trip where I am already pushing the weight limits for luggage. This much notebook paper means two fewer novels I can bring with me to read. They have paper where I'm going of course, but I want to have just the perfect thing, and I can't be sure they have that.

Actually I will have to find something else when I get there. The notebook is 3-subject, 200 pp., college ruled, and I required about twice that much paper on the first draft of my other novel. But I'll have a couple months of writing before I have to cross that bridge.

The spiral is heavy duty so I can flip it open and write on the backs of sheets comfortably, and the cover is heavy duty for long wear. The spiral has a nylon cover sewn over it for less mess, and there's a little loop sewn in to hold my pen! A few pockets are in the dividers, though I don't really clutter those up with loose sheets so much, so a few is just right.

When it comes to pens, I've figured out that I prefer fine/.7mm over xfine/.5mm. I've thoughtlessly bought the wrong size a few times. (They always seem to be the ones on sale.) So I've got a package of Uniball fine points that ought to last I don't know how long. They were too expensive to buy back-up packages. The notebook was too expensive, too. But you have to have the right tools for the job.

End dork time.

First words, second novel

In the last couple months, I've been doing a lot of thinking about and note taking for my next book, and today I put down a few words for the first time. Oh, that felt good.

For the most part, I refrain from writing (a strategy I've written about before -- basically, I'm saving the mojo until the time is right) though the urge is strong. I do various kinds of prep work instead. Brainstorming exercises, research, character notes. Hopefully I'll get to the point where I can outline it some before I start.

Doing some research today, there were a few details I wanted to capture, but I wanted to get them in context to show how I'll use those kinds of details. So I indulged by letting myself slip into the voice of the character giving these details -- which are part of the backstory -- in narrative. It's a hell of a lot more fun than rewriting. Or searching for agents for my first book.

I'm doing all this prep work in anticipating of starting to draft the book shortly after the start of the new year. I'll have a big change in my schedule and environment then which I think will allow regular intense focus on writing a new book.

Probably not a lot of posting here until then -- all the work is pretty mundane -- but the few minutes of writing I did today seemed noteworthy.

Milestone

I got my first rejection from an agent today. From someone named Caitlin. So it begins.

More reading than writing

It's been a week or two of not much progress on the book. I've been paying attention to other responsibilities and waiting to hear from a couple readers.

I got to the Brooklyn Book Festival last Sunday, which was a lot of fun, and came home with a pile of reading -- mostly journals but a few books from the small presses I've been interested in. I've been reading all that and a ton of other stuff lately, still stewing on the possibilities for my second novel. (Actually, on the drive home I got another intriguing idea for a book totally different from the one I've been stewing on, so that's going to be a problem.)

I've been getting out to some readings, including one last night by my friend Tim Parrish, author of Red Stick Men and of another book that so far the publishing world hasn't got hep to. (Come on publishing world. WTF?) Congrats to Alice Mattison and the other organizers of the Ordinary Evening Reading Series. It's a very cool New Haven event.

I just got word that I'll be giving a reading next month at an event organized by The New Haven Review. Watch this space for more detail.

Back to graduate school

No, not really. But I have been doing some reading that reminds me of being in graduate school -- back when I spent a lot more time trying to understand what Derrida was talking about.

This is prompted by thinking a lot about possibilities for my second novel. (I have a goal of starting a new project shortly after the start of the year to coincide with another big change in my work schedule.) And that thinking has led me to revisiting some of the literary theory I used to spend so much time with. Or, more accurately, to the theory that wasn't in vogue then and got skipped over or very aggressively dismissed. Like people wouldn't talk to you in the hallway if they thought you were curious about the wrong stuff.

Or, even more accurately, not literary theory so much as literary criticism. I'm trying to lay my hands on good examples of close reading of literature. People spend so much time articulating and defending ways of reading, that it's hard to get to the reading itself, never mind wading through the specialist's vocabulary (presuming that the writer actually intends anything intelligible, which I think it's legitimate to wonder about sometimes.)

I'm interested in what I'll call, until I better educate myself and figure out who has already discussed this, a classical rhetorical reading of literature--an analysis of how a novel achieve it's effect on the reader. What are the moves that a novel makes to create its effects? Maybe I'm looking for more of the kind of insight I got reading James Wood's How Fiction Works, but different. His other books were too thematically oriented to satisfy this interest.

How all of this relates to any novel I may write, it's hard to describe. I'll let you know when I figure it out.

So, I have a pile of books from the library from a lot of old-timers. I'm digging I.A. Richards and Leslie Fiedler. I'm intrigued by the thesis that Andre Brink proposes about self-consciousness about language in the novel as a form, but I don't see it in the examples he draws out. I get that the novels he surveys have play with language as part of their plot or theme, but I don't see how the novels are themselves self-conscious. So, I'm not yet finding what I'm looking for. Maybe when I start this Wayne Booth book, The Rhetoric of Fiction.

Additional reading note: I've been up late reading Dan Chaon's You Remind Me of Me and am enjoying it a lot. It has certain superficial elements in common with my book, so I'm studying it to see he achieves his effects and what I can learn from it.

Two new essays out

I have two new essays out on arts/culture/literary websites:

"Decompensate your way to better fiction" on The Millions.

"Film adaptations: Short stories vs. novels" on The New Haven Review.

Revising Chapter 1

Lots of stuff happening on the "getting out there" front, but the only actual work on the novel has been to start working on Chapter 1. I met with a friend who has some contacts, and she's going to look at this chapter before referring me, so I'm trying to get that as sharp as possible. The work I did last week on the excerpt for my website helped me get keyed in on some of the sentence-level bloat that I can do better on. I continue to be amazed about how much stuff can come out after so many dozens of readings already.

In general, I'm leaning toward revising the book one more time before starting to send it out. I'll decide next week I think.

I get a shout out on The Arts Council of Greater New Haven website

In a run-down of cool New Haven writer's websites, I get a shout-out from Bennett Lovett-Graff, publisher of The New Haven Review, and contributor to The Arts Council of Greater New Haven's monthly newspaper.

“Working on a Novel” is a true author’s blog, being the online diary of the trials and tribulations of one writer engaged in the tedium and exhilaration of trying to make out of a sufficient number of words that thing we know as a “novel” — a story that will hang together over the course of several hundred pages. At this author’s site, visitors will see a record of false starts and episodes of writer’s block, as well as rushes of literary inspiration and adrenaline — all familiar to those of us who have always known how much mightier the pen is than the sword — and how much more difficult it is to wield.

Thanks Bennett. Those other websites look great, too.

FYI, if you go to the original, you'll see a note about protecting my identity. That's back when I was keeping this blog anonymously.

Draft query letter up for critique

A draft of my query letter is up for critique at The Public Query Slushpile, a kind of workshop site. Thanks to Rick for running that. Feel free to drop in and add your two cents.