I have a lot of explaining to do about what's been going on with my writing the last few months. Another time, perhaps. I have been writing, I promise.
I have not been typing, though.I've been using a voice recognition software called Dragon NaturallySpeaking eleven.
Starting from right here, in fact, I'm going to use it to dictate and edit this blog entry.
It definitely takes some getting used to. I got it to help me save time and effort typing in my handwritten manuscript. My usual way working is to write longhand and then to start my edits by typing it into the computer. The software isn't really designed for that purpose — it's more for the kind of dictating that professionals use in medical offices and legal offices, and a lot of the examples in the promotion materials and instructions have to do with dictating e-mail. When you're using it that way, similar to how I'm using it now, it really requires that you compose a complete sentence or a complete phrase at least in your head before you begin to speak. That doesn't sound much like much, but once you try it you realize it really is a different way of composing. I assume it would take some getting used to enough not sure I could do it. I know that some people use software to actually compose new fiction this way. (I believe I read an interview with Richard Powers the said he used this kind of software for drafting his most recent books.)
So, in a way, what I'm using it for perhaps is even more effective. The thoughts are already composed, pretty well I hope, on paper, and I just have to read them aloud. However, one drawback is that it doesn't seem really suited for dictating dialogue. One of the inevitable drawbacks of this kind of softwareis that you have to pronounce aloud all the punctuation and formatting commands. That includes periods and commas, which applies to almost anybody and any use of this software. And it includes starting a new line and entering quote marks, which a fiction writer has a lot more of that other users perhaps. Rita couple pages of dialogue allowed while pronouncing every new line and quote Mark, and you'll see that it can be pretty tiresome.
Still, I think that the software is saving me a measurable amount of time on my particular process.I ran a test— one hour of typing and one hour of dictating – and I think I increased the speed by about 14% using the software. That's measuring my fastest typing speed against relatively amateur use of the software. I assume that all get faster at it as I get used to it. Comparing the errors in each version is a little bit more subjective, but I believe they will require similar amount of correction.
The require different kinds of correction, though. Most of the errors that come from typing are a result of typing too fast and my word processor marks them as spelling errors, so they are easy to spot. The software, however, won't allow itself to make a spelling error. Instead, it makes it choice inputs and something that is at least spelled correctly. So, for example, and that last sentence, it input the word inputs when I said "and puts." That error will be harder for me to find, because it is not flagged as a spelling error. In some cases, what results is so nonsensical that I can't figure out what I actually said originally, so I have to flip back through my manuscript and find before I could correct it.
Still, I think it will keep trying to use it for this purpose.
There are several other ways in which it has been frustrating, but I think a lot of that will diminish with practice and as I develop strategies to use it more effectively.
For example, I think that I will end up using a combination of dictating and typing. I find that if I at least keep my hand on the mouse while I am reading from my manuscript I can quickly correct errors as they are made. More aggressively, when he came to the long passages of dialogue I have experimented with keeping my fingers in the home position on the keyboard and typing the quote marks and the hard returns (enter key) and dictating the actual speech. This saved my voice a lot, I think. Also, as I used it more I found faster and faster ways to make corrections. For example, it's pretty good at getting vocabulary right, but it often doesn't get capitalization right. Especially in dialogue. The formatting for dialogue and fiction follows different capitalization rules then in other writing styles, so I had to go back and capitalize a lot of words, and I eventually discovered some quicker ways for doing that. (Dragon should think about allowing a setting that would make this come out right to begin with.)
I don't think I mentioned at the beginning – and I don't have confidence in my ability to use this to go back and enter this word makes more sense like I would do if I were typing them –that I use this for a lot more than just the one hour test. I estimate it was about ninety pages of typescript that I dictated over a few days last week. Maybe about 20,000 words.
Okay, going to finish now and leave this raw. I made minor edits as I went along, but I have not gone back to read this and correct errors that I did not notice as I was going along. This took me about 15 min. to compose this way. I'll report more when I know more!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Character development and plot
I'm doing very little drafting lately, which dings up the self-confidence some, but I am getting legitimate work done. I still have a lot to figure out about my characters and what their issues are at the start of the book. I should have gotten this done months ago, but that's where I am. The last few days have seen some progress, I think.
I got on this track a few weeks ago when a writer friend heard the summary of my idea and reminded me, "Do you know what her problem is? Make sure she's got something going on." What's key for me right now about that advice, is the timing of her problem -- of the something going on. Obviously, during the course of the story characters have problems. External and internal conflicts. But it's sinking in for me in a conscious way for the first time that it's better if they arrive at the start of the story's present action with problems. I want something going on with them that makes them open to whatever action is proposed to them at the story's kick off.
Let's say, for example, that a secondary character says to the main character, "Let's go rob that liquor store." It's easier to get going if the answer he gives is a new answer (let's say, "yes" for our example) and if there is a good reason for him giving a new answer that he never would have given before. What happened yesterday, the day before the present action begins, to make him open to going a new direction. Maybe a scolding by his mom about his choice of friends is making him feel oppositional.
And not necessarily a dramatic new direction. Just a little stepping off of the usual path can be enough. The secondary friend says, "Let's go to the movies for once. You sit at home too much." What makes the main character agree for once? They arrive at the story's start with some kind of vulnerability to change.
Thinking of it that way is helping me get focused and get my story going, right now. This is too new idea for me to insist that it's universal or very common. I'd have to go through some stories to see how it plays out. Let's try one real quick: The Great Gatsby. First of all, I'm going to treat Carroway is the main character, which I'll argue about another time. Given that, roughly, you could say that Carroway is open to being sympathetic to Gatsby because he's annoyed with Tom and Daisy. But that annoyance really is triggered in the present action. What he arrives on the scene with is a sense of disconnection from the east coast vs. the midwest. A heightened sensitivity to elitism. It's a problem for him because his circumstances are encouraging him to ally himself more with the elites, and he feels conflicted. That's set up in the first grafs of the book, and it's back story, not present action, though it gets developed during the present action.
I got on this track a few weeks ago when a writer friend heard the summary of my idea and reminded me, "Do you know what her problem is? Make sure she's got something going on." What's key for me right now about that advice, is the timing of her problem -- of the something going on. Obviously, during the course of the story characters have problems. External and internal conflicts. But it's sinking in for me in a conscious way for the first time that it's better if they arrive at the start of the story's present action with problems. I want something going on with them that makes them open to whatever action is proposed to them at the story's kick off.
Let's say, for example, that a secondary character says to the main character, "Let's go rob that liquor store." It's easier to get going if the answer he gives is a new answer (let's say, "yes" for our example) and if there is a good reason for him giving a new answer that he never would have given before. What happened yesterday, the day before the present action begins, to make him open to going a new direction. Maybe a scolding by his mom about his choice of friends is making him feel oppositional.
And not necessarily a dramatic new direction. Just a little stepping off of the usual path can be enough. The secondary friend says, "Let's go to the movies for once. You sit at home too much." What makes the main character agree for once? They arrive at the story's start with some kind of vulnerability to change.
Thinking of it that way is helping me get focused and get my story going, right now. This is too new idea for me to insist that it's universal or very common. I'd have to go through some stories to see how it plays out. Let's try one real quick: The Great Gatsby. First of all, I'm going to treat Carroway is the main character, which I'll argue about another time. Given that, roughly, you could say that Carroway is open to being sympathetic to Gatsby because he's annoyed with Tom and Daisy. But that annoyance really is triggered in the present action. What he arrives on the scene with is a sense of disconnection from the east coast vs. the midwest. A heightened sensitivity to elitism. It's a problem for him because his circumstances are encouraging him to ally himself more with the elites, and he feels conflicted. That's set up in the first grafs of the book, and it's back story, not present action, though it gets developed during the present action.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
What does the character want
Knowing what the character wants is so elemental and obviously necessary that I don't really have much to add to that. I just wanted to record that I've been struggling with that question lately. Pretty late in the game, apparently, but you take it when it comes.
Word counts and typing
I'm typing in a few scenes from my manuscript. It's not a full-bore effort to get it all typed in. I just want to see what some of the opening pages might possibly be and what they could read like if I sharpened them.
In the course of that I notice and have counted more deliberately than I did with the first book the difference between the word count of the manuscript (which is an estimate) and the actual word count on the computer. Once I type it in, it's running about 30% longer. That's mostly because I type I add and clarify and expand upon. It's really a second draft with a lot more material. It's only a small sample so far, but I expect the rest of it to run something like that.
On the other hand, I don't expect to type it all in. I'll probably be more discriminating about what's worth the effort. In theory, I have 32,000 words, but the 4,000 words I've typed is probably the best of the lot.
In the course of that I notice and have counted more deliberately than I did with the first book the difference between the word count of the manuscript (which is an estimate) and the actual word count on the computer. Once I type it in, it's running about 30% longer. That's mostly because I type I add and clarify and expand upon. It's really a second draft with a lot more material. It's only a small sample so far, but I expect the rest of it to run something like that.
On the other hand, I don't expect to type it all in. I'll probably be more discriminating about what's worth the effort. In theory, I have 32,000 words, but the 4,000 words I've typed is probably the best of the lot.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Too much dialogue
For work related reasons I'm re-reading Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction, a book I highly recommend. (More practically oriented than most rah-rah writing guides. If you're beyond need encouragement and are ready for advice, this is a great guide.) One section that never sunk in before is resonating with me now -- to beware of too much dialogue.
I knew this in a less conscious way from my first book. After writing a scene, I would look at it and have an uneasy feeling about how much dialogue was in it. It didn't seem quite right, though I couldn't explain why. The rewrites and revisions happened blindly without really understanding what I needed to do about the seeming excess of dialogue, and eventually I got it fixed, but it was like punching my way out of a paper bag.
One, as Burroway makes clear, dialogue should do more than one thing at a time -- to convey the literal meaning of the words plus something else like complicating the story or characterization. She doesn't say this, but I think it's implied: dialogue that drags on and on tends to be dialogue only doing one thing.
Two, she talks about how dialogue loses its power after awhile, so you want to save it for what is key to have in the character's voice. Another way of thinking about is the relationship between voice and reader energy. It's the narrator's voice that the reader has signed on for and invested themselves in. It takes reader energy to switch your attention from that voice to a character's voice. (Even if it's first-person narration, that narrator narrates in a voice somewhat different from self that they quote in the dialogue.) You want to ask the reader to leave the narrator's voice only when they're going to get some energy back in the form of important developments.
This is on my mind now because as I draft my current project, I find myself writing pages and pages of dialogue, and I d0 so with a sick feeling that it all will have to be thrown out later. I realize that what I'm doing isn't so much writing -- not even in the sense of drafting -- as daydreaming on paper. I don't really know what's happening in a scene, so I imagine the two characters talking to each other and write down what they would say. It's like a real-time transcript. In other words, this is another symptom of the key problem I keep talking about here -- that I don't know the story. A real-time transcript is the opposite of a story.
Transcribing in this way may be a way of finding a story. (And maybe not. It feels like sorting at random through all the sand on the beach.) But it's not really writing. I think maybe my mantra of "just add sentences" might be keeping me stuck in a spot that is not very productive.
Word count update: Almost no work done last week because of deadlines on paying work. A little bit of work this morning, but no more is expected this week because of a family trip. I have 32,000 words now, but that has to be heavily discounted, as explained before.
I knew this in a less conscious way from my first book. After writing a scene, I would look at it and have an uneasy feeling about how much dialogue was in it. It didn't seem quite right, though I couldn't explain why. The rewrites and revisions happened blindly without really understanding what I needed to do about the seeming excess of dialogue, and eventually I got it fixed, but it was like punching my way out of a paper bag.
One, as Burroway makes clear, dialogue should do more than one thing at a time -- to convey the literal meaning of the words plus something else like complicating the story or characterization. She doesn't say this, but I think it's implied: dialogue that drags on and on tends to be dialogue only doing one thing.
Two, she talks about how dialogue loses its power after awhile, so you want to save it for what is key to have in the character's voice. Another way of thinking about is the relationship between voice and reader energy. It's the narrator's voice that the reader has signed on for and invested themselves in. It takes reader energy to switch your attention from that voice to a character's voice. (Even if it's first-person narration, that narrator narrates in a voice somewhat different from self that they quote in the dialogue.) You want to ask the reader to leave the narrator's voice only when they're going to get some energy back in the form of important developments.
This is on my mind now because as I draft my current project, I find myself writing pages and pages of dialogue, and I d0 so with a sick feeling that it all will have to be thrown out later. I realize that what I'm doing isn't so much writing -- not even in the sense of drafting -- as daydreaming on paper. I don't really know what's happening in a scene, so I imagine the two characters talking to each other and write down what they would say. It's like a real-time transcript. In other words, this is another symptom of the key problem I keep talking about here -- that I don't know the story. A real-time transcript is the opposite of a story.
Transcribing in this way may be a way of finding a story. (And maybe not. It feels like sorting at random through all the sand on the beach.) But it's not really writing. I think maybe my mantra of "just add sentences" might be keeping me stuck in a spot that is not very productive.
Word count update: Almost no work done last week because of deadlines on paying work. A little bit of work this morning, but no more is expected this week because of a family trip. I have 32,000 words now, but that has to be heavily discounted, as explained before.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Background versus story
I'm up to about 29,000 words, which could be a third of a book if I was kidding myself. I know that all I have been writing is background without yet tackling story. That is, present action. And I know from experience with my first book that almost no background will survive into later drafts. In reality I probably don't have 2,000 words of usable material yet.
This is coming out of my own particular strengths and weaknesses. I'm good at coming up with scene, situation, scenario. I'm weakest at plot -- getting the characters off this interesting starting point and into more and more trouble. That's always been my hang up. I'm proud of myself for working my way through it on my first book, but it remains my hang up still.
I try to treat the "drafting" time as precious -- nothing is as important as adding sentences first thing in the morning when I'm fresh -- but I've been doing that in full consciousness that I'm not getting anywhere, so I decided to use my fresh time this morning to do more reflective writing and note taking and brainstorming, trying to get a handle on the story.
The main outcome of that was realizing that the story that has taken shape was a little off in a very important way from the story I thought I was working on. It's more about one guy than about a relationship between two guys. That relationship is still there, but the story has been focusing on what that means for one of them. I could re-balance it. More likely I'll go with it.
I'm not sure what to do next. Probably I need to try writing (again) an opening scene based on this new understanding. Perhaps I should do more brainstorming to line up some of the other major scenes in the book. But that can be a kind of work-avoidance. I need to get back into the "just add sentences" mode as soon as possible, or months could by where I'm indulging (for me) the easier work of theorizing instead of writing.
This is coming out of my own particular strengths and weaknesses. I'm good at coming up with scene, situation, scenario. I'm weakest at plot -- getting the characters off this interesting starting point and into more and more trouble. That's always been my hang up. I'm proud of myself for working my way through it on my first book, but it remains my hang up still.
I try to treat the "drafting" time as precious -- nothing is as important as adding sentences first thing in the morning when I'm fresh -- but I've been doing that in full consciousness that I'm not getting anywhere, so I decided to use my fresh time this morning to do more reflective writing and note taking and brainstorming, trying to get a handle on the story.
The main outcome of that was realizing that the story that has taken shape was a little off in a very important way from the story I thought I was working on. It's more about one guy than about a relationship between two guys. That relationship is still there, but the story has been focusing on what that means for one of them. I could re-balance it. More likely I'll go with it.
I'm not sure what to do next. Probably I need to try writing (again) an opening scene based on this new understanding. Perhaps I should do more brainstorming to line up some of the other major scenes in the book. But that can be a kind of work-avoidance. I need to get back into the "just add sentences" mode as soon as possible, or months could by where I'm indulging (for me) the easier work of theorizing instead of writing.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Small blessings
Two full weeks of work behind me, all at a pace a fraction of what I expect of myself -- about 7,000 words total in 10 days -- but sitting down every day has to count as victory for now.
It's amazing how completely opposite this process has been to what I planned and expected. It rattles the confidence.
It's amazing how completely opposite this process has been to what I planned and expected. It rattles the confidence.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Trying to look on the bright side
Not much more than a few chicken scratches today. But I keep trying to count every day with any time in the writing chair as a success. Gotta have faith that if I sit there long enough I'll figure out a way to get it written.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Noisy neighbors
Ugh, my neighbors. They really wrecked my flow yesterday. The kids are just regular noisy. Their mother only has one setting -- screaming threats. It's not the kind of thing you can tune out when they come rolling out into their backyard for a scene. I can pack up and go inside to write there, but in the summer with the windows open, that's almost just as loud.
400 words yesterday, which I consider a bust. 600 words today.
My tally so far is over 21,000 words counting everything from when I started last January. Sounds more impressive than it is. There's probably 3 pages in it all of it that will survive to a late draft. It's all about finding what to write about still.
400 words yesterday, which I consider a bust. 600 words today.
My tally so far is over 21,000 words counting everything from when I started last January. Sounds more impressive than it is. There's probably 3 pages in it all of it that will survive to a late draft. It's all about finding what to write about still.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
840 words
Not a great day, but having not great days is part of the process. I'm grateful that I was able to just add sentences.
I am getting a little concerned about my stamina. It seems forever since I went for more than an hour.
I am getting a little concerned about my stamina. It seems forever since I went for more than an hour.
Monday, June 28, 2010
The warm weather writing chair
Good start to my restart today. 800 words. About 1 hour of solid invention. Finished off with a good place to take it up again tomorrow.
Felt like old times especially because I'm back in the chair that I wrote the first novel in -- a cheap outdoor glider on our screened porch. Hard to believe it was 3 years ago that I was doing the same thing. I'm not sure what will happen if the timing is such that I'm writing a first draft in the winter.
Felt like old times especially because I'm back in the chair that I wrote the first novel in -- a cheap outdoor glider on our screened porch. Hard to believe it was 3 years ago that I was doing the same thing. I'm not sure what will happen if the timing is such that I'm writing a first draft in the winter.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Yet another fresh start
I'm back from my extended stay overseas and am just about back on a normal sleep schedule. Tomorrow is a Monday and as good a day as I'll get to recommit.
To what, exactly, isn't clear, but I'm going back to basics. Put the butt in the chair and pick up the pen and sit there until my time is up. No other expectations matter.
That said, I expect to spend the first-thing-in-the-morning energy drafting new material for the second novel. Meanwhile, the first novel is back in play. I think it needs to be revised some more. I'm going to give that the energy of later in the day for the time being, at least until I have a better sense of what work needs to be done.
Afternoons are devoted to getting back to paying work, which I gave myself a leave from during the last six months abroad.
It wasn't a successful trip in most ways. I thought it would be a writer's retreat where I got the second novel written, but that's not how it worked out, and I'm just going to have to let that go and not let the "ought to"s and the "should have"s keep me from JUST ADDING SENTENCES.
I really am back to the beginning.
To what, exactly, isn't clear, but I'm going back to basics. Put the butt in the chair and pick up the pen and sit there until my time is up. No other expectations matter.
That said, I expect to spend the first-thing-in-the-morning energy drafting new material for the second novel. Meanwhile, the first novel is back in play. I think it needs to be revised some more. I'm going to give that the energy of later in the day for the time being, at least until I have a better sense of what work needs to be done.
Afternoons are devoted to getting back to paying work, which I gave myself a leave from during the last six months abroad.
It wasn't a successful trip in most ways. I thought it would be a writer's retreat where I got the second novel written, but that's not how it worked out, and I'm just going to have to let that go and not let the "ought to"s and the "should have"s keep me from JUST ADDING SENTENCES.
I really am back to the beginning.
Monday, June 7, 2010
On excerpting novels to make short fiction
I ought to have remembered my previous theorizing about the difficulty -- and often unsuitability -- of excerpting novels to produce something that can pass as a short story. I worked through this just about a year ago when Lorrie Moore had what I thought was a very flat "story" in The New Yorker, only to discover later that it was an excerpt of her forthcoming novel in which context it made a lot more sense.
If I had been thinking of that I might have been more generous or patient with Jeffrey Euginides' recent work in the The New Yorker. He's one of my favorites. Or his second novel Middlesex is, anyway. He's not exactly the most prolific writer, and I eagerly await his next novel. In the meantime, he had a piece of short fiction in The New Yorker recently, which I read and was so disappointed by. That's it? What a lame ending.
It turns out I was mistakenly assuming it was a short story (I wish The New Yorker would account for this and just put add the words "excerpt from a novel in progress" at the start. Because they feel the work should stand on its own? It's the 21st century. People expect a little context.) The novel is apparently forthcoming. Eugenides discusses it and film adaptation and other stuff on The New Yorker book blog.
So the lame ending is presumably the end of a chapter and makes more sense read that way. I wonder if it's even the end of an episode in a longer chapter. In any case, I take it as further support for my theory. Maybe this will be an annual event -- a weirdly flat short "fiction" in The New Yorker in June and a long-awaited novel later in the summer. Maybe we can predict who it will be in 2011. Who else has been missing from the scene for several years? Maybe it will be Harper Lee.
If I had been thinking of that I might have been more generous or patient with Jeffrey Euginides' recent work in the The New Yorker. He's one of my favorites. Or his second novel Middlesex is, anyway. He's not exactly the most prolific writer, and I eagerly await his next novel. In the meantime, he had a piece of short fiction in The New Yorker recently, which I read and was so disappointed by. That's it? What a lame ending.
It turns out I was mistakenly assuming it was a short story (I wish The New Yorker would account for this and just put add the words "excerpt from a novel in progress" at the start. Because they feel the work should stand on its own? It's the 21st century. People expect a little context.) The novel is apparently forthcoming. Eugenides discusses it and film adaptation and other stuff on The New Yorker book blog.
So the lame ending is presumably the end of a chapter and makes more sense read that way. I wonder if it's even the end of an episode in a longer chapter. In any case, I take it as further support for my theory. Maybe this will be an annual event -- a weirdly flat short "fiction" in The New Yorker in June and a long-awaited novel later in the summer. Maybe we can predict who it will be in 2011. Who else has been missing from the scene for several years? Maybe it will be Harper Lee.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
The spayed computer
I've written before about how easily distracted from my work I am by email and internet and how I ought to have a second computer that isn't connected. There's an interesting note about that strategy from Johathan Lethem on the Pen America site, and the New Yorker book blog summarizes it:
I've decided I'm actually going to do it. (In my case, this is more about the revision process, which I do in a word processor, than the drafting, which I do long-hand.) I now have a computer to spare that will work for this -- one I replaced because it was operating too slowly and because I wanted more memory for photos on the extended trip I'm on. When I get home, the new one will be my connected computer, and I'm going to spay the old laptop to use for the revision work.
In an e-mail correspondence posted on PEN American's Web site that's been running this week, Jonathan Lethem tells David Gates his secret for writing fiction: an Internet-less laptop. "I’ve set up a second computer, devoid of internet, for my fiction-writing," Lethem explains. "You should imagine my computer set-up guy’s consternation when I insisted he drag the Internet function out of the thing entirely. 'I can just hide it from you,' he said. 'No,' I told him, 'I don’t want to know it’s in there somewhere.'"
I've decided I'm actually going to do it. (In my case, this is more about the revision process, which I do in a word processor, than the drafting, which I do long-hand.) I now have a computer to spare that will work for this -- one I replaced because it was operating too slowly and because I wanted more memory for photos on the extended trip I'm on. When I get home, the new one will be my connected computer, and I'm going to spay the old laptop to use for the revision work.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Very minor progress
Poor neglected blog. It's been awhile, I know.
I took that long trip referred to in the last post, had a couple weeks concentrating on paid work, and then took another long trip. So, lots of excuses for not working on the book. But the main excuse is that I don't know what I'm doing with it, so when I do have time, I'm intimidated and end up wasting the time. (I'm at GMT +7 right now, with very few cable channels and getting quite homesick, so when I see a baseball game is being broadcast live during my morning coffee, it's pretty easy to give in to that for a couple hours.) And it's so freaking hot here. It's just plain difficult to work.
But there has been some tiny bit of progress, though it is difficult to characterize. Basically, I've been stewing about the book now and then and taking a few notes. I've got an idea of a theme that I want to explore.
Which may be the kiss of death. Thinking too much about theme is probably fatal to the art. It's easy to drift over into graduate student thesis territory, and I'm better wired for that mistake than most. The way to avoid trouble, I think, is to keep thinking of it as an exploration. Exploring a theme should be OK. Presenting a theme is trouble.
In a sense, I've been feeling like the book isn't ambitious enough, even though I don't have a basic story yet and no prospect of ever finishing. I need it to be more worthwhile -- more worth the effort. The stewing I've been doing and the field of exploration I've come up with have been feeling a lot more reassured on that point.
In all honesty, I don't anticipate that I actually pounding out the pages for a couple months at least. I have a month more on this trip and some recovery time, and I'm thinking about returning to my first book for revisions during the summer. That's a big decision that I'm still thinking about. My plan is to get home and do a reboot and situational analysis.
I took that long trip referred to in the last post, had a couple weeks concentrating on paid work, and then took another long trip. So, lots of excuses for not working on the book. But the main excuse is that I don't know what I'm doing with it, so when I do have time, I'm intimidated and end up wasting the time. (I'm at GMT +7 right now, with very few cable channels and getting quite homesick, so when I see a baseball game is being broadcast live during my morning coffee, it's pretty easy to give in to that for a couple hours.) And it's so freaking hot here. It's just plain difficult to work.
But there has been some tiny bit of progress, though it is difficult to characterize. Basically, I've been stewing about the book now and then and taking a few notes. I've got an idea of a theme that I want to explore.
Which may be the kiss of death. Thinking too much about theme is probably fatal to the art. It's easy to drift over into graduate student thesis territory, and I'm better wired for that mistake than most. The way to avoid trouble, I think, is to keep thinking of it as an exploration. Exploring a theme should be OK. Presenting a theme is trouble.
In a sense, I've been feeling like the book isn't ambitious enough, even though I don't have a basic story yet and no prospect of ever finishing. I need it to be more worthwhile -- more worth the effort. The stewing I've been doing and the field of exploration I've come up with have been feeling a lot more reassured on that point.
In all honesty, I don't anticipate that I actually pounding out the pages for a couple months at least. I have a month more on this trip and some recovery time, and I'm thinking about returning to my first book for revisions during the summer. That's a big decision that I'm still thinking about. My plan is to get home and do a reboot and situational analysis.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Hiatus
I haven't been making any progress for the last several days, because I've had to concentrate my morning energy on a work assignment, and I definitely won't be making any progress for at least another 19 days, probably longer, because I'll be on a long trip. In theory, a person can travel and write at the same time, but I don't think I'm that kind of person. I'll be thinking about it though!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
750 words. Hard lessons
I wrote 750 words this morning, which by my standards is nothing to brag about, but I'm recommitting myself to the basic thing -- just write something every day. I've been picking around the edges of different possible scenes this way, not really creating anything tangible, but hopefully doing some necessary seeding that will bear fruit later. I'm just trying to turn myself over to the idea of not knowing what I'm doing. It's been a hard lesson the last couple months. I thought a first draft would emerge as easily as with my first book and that the result would need less work on subsequent drafts. I've turned out wrong on the first item for sure and probably on the second item, too.
I read Jane Smiley's most recent novel the other day, which inspired me to go online and read some criticism of it, which lead me to an old interview with her from about 8 years ago. In that interview, she's basically summarizing what she says in Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Novel, which I've quoted here several times in the past already. But it was a kick in the pants to hear it again in a different way. She talks about just finding the energy and momentum to push through to the end. Make it as crummy as it needs to be just so long as it keeps moving forward. "Just add sentences." That was mantra the first time, and it has to be this time.
I read Jane Smiley's most recent novel the other day, which inspired me to go online and read some criticism of it, which lead me to an old interview with her from about 8 years ago. In that interview, she's basically summarizing what she says in Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Novel, which I've quoted here several times in the past already. But it was a kick in the pants to hear it again in a different way. She talks about just finding the energy and momentum to push through to the end. Make it as crummy as it needs to be just so long as it keeps moving forward. "Just add sentences." That was mantra the first time, and it has to be this time.
Monday, March 8, 2010
World's worst writer's retreat
Well, the reason I haven't been posting isn't that I've been working too hard on the book. I haven't had anything to sayhere except to express shame at how little progress I'm making. I'm about 9 weeks into the project, and I've got a little over 13,000 words, not a line of which I expect will be worth even typing into the computer. This a very different experience from my first book.
And a very different experience from what I had planned. I was way off in two assumptions -- that I could plan the book out and then write it and that this period of time would be a naturally productive time to do that. On the first point, the honest truth is that I still don't really have any idea of what the story is and what I'm building. Second, this so-called writer's retreat has been anything but. I knew it would be a challenge -- I'm living in a temporary situation in a developing country with all the quirks and discomforts and failures (power failures, for example, which we had this morning) that go with that. Every errand takes 5 times longer than it would at home. Even if I can protect a morning to write, I have to beat back more than the usual share of mental list-making. And then there are other distractions like side trips that take some time to bounce back from.
So, I should probably give myself some credit and rethink what it is possible to get out of this. Maybe my goal should be to go home in a few months with a good story to work on. Or with all the background and character sketching worked out. Or with ideas for 5-6 major scenes. And to get there, I probably have to take some pressure off myself so I can be more productive with each writing session. I've been sitting down to work with the expectation that I know what the book is and am producing a good draft, so that every second that ticks by is a failure to live up to that expectation.
I don't want to give up on the theory that it is possible to plan out a book and then write it, but it's not what happened in this case. At the very least, I didn't take enough time to plan it. Probably it's something that will have to emerge through the writing.
My real problem, I think, is that I have a severe aversion to and sense of guilt about waste -- wasted time and effort in this case -- and the feeling that I am wasting them adds pressure and decreases pleasure. I'm not having any fun exploring and inventing. It should be more fun than I've allowed it to be. Not only is this is the world's worst writer's retreat. I may be temperamentally the world's worst candidate for a writer's retreat.
And a very different experience from what I had planned. I was way off in two assumptions -- that I could plan the book out and then write it and that this period of time would be a naturally productive time to do that. On the first point, the honest truth is that I still don't really have any idea of what the story is and what I'm building. Second, this so-called writer's retreat has been anything but. I knew it would be a challenge -- I'm living in a temporary situation in a developing country with all the quirks and discomforts and failures (power failures, for example, which we had this morning) that go with that. Every errand takes 5 times longer than it would at home. Even if I can protect a morning to write, I have to beat back more than the usual share of mental list-making. And then there are other distractions like side trips that take some time to bounce back from.
So, I should probably give myself some credit and rethink what it is possible to get out of this. Maybe my goal should be to go home in a few months with a good story to work on. Or with all the background and character sketching worked out. Or with ideas for 5-6 major scenes. And to get there, I probably have to take some pressure off myself so I can be more productive with each writing session. I've been sitting down to work with the expectation that I know what the book is and am producing a good draft, so that every second that ticks by is a failure to live up to that expectation.
I don't want to give up on the theory that it is possible to plan out a book and then write it, but it's not what happened in this case. At the very least, I didn't take enough time to plan it. Probably it's something that will have to emerge through the writing.
My real problem, I think, is that I have a severe aversion to and sense of guilt about waste -- wasted time and effort in this case -- and the feeling that I am wasting them adds pressure and decreases pleasure. I'm not having any fun exploring and inventing. It should be more fun than I've allowed it to be. Not only is this is the world's worst writer's retreat. I may be temperamentally the world's worst candidate for a writer's retreat.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
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.
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.
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