Needed: a new structure

I have deemed this draft of the novel done. I need to let it sit now for a week or two before looking at it with fresh eyes and seeing what the hell I have actually written.

Which leaves me without the structure that was so vital for this last month of prolific writing productivity. So I need a new structure. A new plan. And this is it: on the weekends I am going to take a break from writing on any specific piece. Not from writing itself. The weekend is for playing. For freewriting and just filling up pages. I did 2 twenty-minute writes today. The topics were:

1. The Woman I Kept to Myself (from the title of a book of poetry by Julia Alvarez)
2. What was it that I wanted? (from a line in one of her poems)

I have 9 hand-written pages and it was so much fun to just let my mind wander and roam without a specific goal in sight, only to keep my hand moving for 20 full minutes.

My goal this week is to get a story ready for my workshop on Sunday. 2 hours (at least) of revision daily. It won't feel as productive as the 2000 words a day was. That was a straight ahead no matter what goal. Revision is less linear. More of a spiral process so I think the time quota instead of pages or words will work. We'll see.

Now I am going down to our art space in the basment for more creativity with k. She is finally feeling better. The fever broke and she can eat real food again.

Quote:
If you want to see your own face, if you want to drop off the old yellow coat of yourself, pick up the pen.
- from a symposium on writing and zen.

I love the line "the old yellow coat of yourself." That could be a writing topic for tomorrow.

And for more inspiration, check out this link:

http://www.laserrania.com/odysseys/houston_why_i_write.html

It's an essay by Pam Houston.

Day twenty-eight

Word count: 52,327

Quote:
Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.
- from "Wild Mind"

Not much of a difference in word count between today and yesterday. A little less than 200 words but I'm amazed I got that much in considering I had to go pick up k. at school because she was sick. I squeezed in another Dr. appointment I already had for e. to check out her ankle that has been hurting for a month. After an hour and a half at the dr. they sent us to the urgent care for x-rays of the ankle and to the pharmacy to help soothe the wicked viral infection for k. She just had some broth and a pill and now needs to gargle with benadryl and maalox- yummy... Obviously she will not be going to school tomorrow and the dr. said to plan for a rough weekend. Perfect...

Oh, and I've always loved the above quote from N.G. My writing has all kinds of energy when I remember to do that.

Day twenty-seven

Word count: 52,138

Quote: Follow what you love and it will take you where you need to go.
- from a symposium on writing an Zen

I think that maybe I have completed this first draft. It's far from done and there is so much to flesh out in the middle but a first line - perhap "the" first line" came to me as I was writing today so I feel it is time to swing back around to the beginning of the story. I thought I might want a break from it before tackling the rewrite but maybe not.

Day Twenty-Six

Word count: 50,142

Writing is a way to connect with our own minds, to discover what we really think, see, and feel, rather than what we think we should think, see, and feel.
-from "Long Quiet Highway"

Yes- that is not a typo up there- I did pass the 50,00 word mark today. Three days early. But it still isn't quite wrapped up. I don't expect it to be a completely finished, polished story but I do want the dangling threads to begin to come to some kind of closure. Most of my stories do not have neat and tidy endings so that's not what I'm going for but maybe by tomorrow I will reach a point where I feel that this particular draft is done. It reminds me of a class I took where we had to write a complete short story in three to five pages and I always struggled with that. It can take me that many pages to begin to learn what the story is about. So it's like that but on a larger scale, trying to show a complete story arc within 50,000 words. I can see the benefit which is why I am scrambling to get it to a kind of closure. I want to be able to look back at the story with a fresh eye and see a story that then needs to be fleshed out. And who knows- maybe the fleshing out will take the story in a completely different direction which will then lead me to a totally new ending.

Day Twenty-Five

Word count: 48,438

Quote:
Writing is a great journey. It is a path with the possibility of making us free. And it can do all of this while you sit at a desk.
- from "Wild Mind"

New scenes keep popping into my head and I frantically type them in, adding more and more words to this novel, knowing that it is not in any kind of sequence that makes any kind of sense yet. That will come during the revision process. I just keep telling myself that this is the down draft. I am just getting everything that I know down. The next phase is the up draft, where I fix it up, deepening what I know, adding layers. I have read a few pages here and there and while it is far from perfect I can feel some sparks there on the page. It is the kind of book I would be drawn to read.

Day Twenty-four

Word count: 45,347

Quote:
The reader wants to come along with you. Take her.
- from Thunder and Lightning

That's it...long day.

Day Twenty-Three

Word count: 45,347

Quote: Our voice emerges when we're jolted, loosened, connected to ourselves in a way that's bigger than ourselves.
- from "Thunder and Lightning"

I didn't get a chance to sit down here at my computer until 7:00 tonight. Today we cleaned the house and tackled the basement which is also our art area. Then I worked out, made lunch and went grocery shopping. Got home just before 5:00 when the girls' sleepover started. So now the house is filled with five "tweens" but I managed to sneak in here and add another thousand words to my story.

Day Twenty-Two

Word count: 44,266

Quote:
Your mind has its own paths to travel. Just step out of its way.
- from Long Quiet Highway

Just squeezed in over a thousand words today. I showed up but nothing magical happened. I probably won't even use what I wrote today. It was all cheesey and trite. But at least I wrote it and got it out of the way so maybe something better will appear tomorrow. I think I am letting a certain idea I had influence the story. This particular plot line feels forced. Maybe I just need to let it go. Or as the quote says: step out of my own way.

Not sure where the day even went today. I did talk on the phone to my best friend from high school for an hour and a half, washed and changed all the sheets on the beds, did other laundry and even went Christmas shopping, bought two presents and wrapped them when I got home. So all in all a very productive and satisfying day.

Here's to the first day of the last week of this particular challenge but really, it's not the end. It's like a diet is never the true answer. There is no quick fix. Sure, I am writing this novel in thirty days but what really matters is what I do on the 31st day. And the day after that. And on and on. It's a matter of staying connected to my writing on a daily basis. It's a matter of showing up even when -or especially when- I have no idea what happens next. It means finishing this draft, putting it aside, revising an older story, getting some stories circulating out there again then going back to this novel and reading it with some clarity and distance and starting the process of writing it all over again. Each day I begin again. And again and again...

Day Twenty-One

Word count: 43, 254

Quote:
The more deeply we can allow ourselves to sink into the darkness of our own selves, the more we can settle into the mind of being a writer.
- from "Long Quiet Highway"

As I close in on the final 10,00 words of this draft I am frantically fitting in scenes of conflict and escalating the trouble in my characters' lives. Much of the revision process will involve the pacing of the conflicts, not revealing too much or too little too late or too soon.

Day Twenty

Word count: 41,093

Quote:
Writing is the willingness to see.
- from "Long Quiet Highway"

I just printed out the pages I have so far (130), three-hole punched them and put them in a binder along with all the scrap papers with my precious notes. I can see the end in sight and know that I will need to be semi-organized to tackle the revsion process. I didn't really find my structure until I was a good 50 pages into it. After this initial draft is done, I need to map out a timeline to hang in my office here to refer to as I rewrite. Right now I am just getting the scenes down as they come to me, knowing that the sequence can be fixed later. Some scenes I am writing, knowing they are a little too cheesey or melodramatic but I put them in anyway. It's all about just getting it "down" now in order to have something to fix "up" later.

Day Nineteen

Word count: 38, 773

Quote:
When we actually write and lift that heavy pen to the vast page, beings seen and unseen help us.
- from "Wild Mind"

The pen felt very heavy and the page extremely vast today but I actually sat down and wrote and those beings appeared. Go figure...

Day Eighteen

I waited until the last possible moment to start writing today- 2:00 and I just finsished as daughter number one got off the bus a few minutes ago. It is a cold, rainy, dreary day. Perfect for curling up with a good book. But I did finally haul myself to the computer, adding some 2000 words to my story. I wasn't sure where I was starting today but it ended up in an interesting place. A couple things changed and I wasn't sure how that would work but I followed it anyway and it feels inevitable. And I only found that out by showing up. I know I sound like a broken record but it's the lesson I keep having pounded into me day after day and it is the lesson I so needed to learn. And will continue to have to learn over and over again.

Total word count: 36, 241

Quote:
When we write we begin to taste the texture of our own mind.
-from "Long Quiet Highway"

Day Seventeen

I am tired, cranky and not focused today but I still ground out just over a thousand words. I can't emphasize enough how important it has been for me to show up everyday to this story. To my writing. It keeps me connected to it. It is always there, wandering around my subconscious, which is why I have so many scraps of paper with little what-if notes to myself scribbled on them, most of which I am incorporating into the story.

Total word count: 34, 184

Quote:
Each time we sit down to write we have to be willing to let go and enter something bigger than ourselves.
- from "Long Quiet Highway"

New current working title: "A Kind of Shelter"

Off to do the grocery shopping for the week...

Day Sixteen

I'm finding myself really enjoying the expanse of a novel. I love having all this space to roam freely in and out of my character's heads, lives and pasts. I wrote part of a novel eight or so years ago then freaked myself out and decided I didn't know what I was doing and maybe I should focus on short stories just to learn about the craft of fiction in a smaller form. Since then I've written forty or so stories. So I am used to the tightness and control of the short story form. But now, especially making this mad dash through 50,000 in thrity days, I am feeling free to just let it rip and see where it takes me. It is an amazing ride.

My goal this weekend is to do 1000 words each day. Just to stay connected to the story but letting myself have a bit of a break.

Total word count: 33, 161

"Trust your own mind."
- from "Long Quiet Highway"

Day Fifteen

It's amazing how the more I write, the more material is churned up and needs to be written. Even at the movie theater yesterday I had to take out the notebook I carry dedicated to this novel and there in the dark scribbled two pages of ideas that came to me as I was watching the movie. I looked at them this morning and not only can I actually read them, but they all seem to still be good ideas.

I thought I was going to describe the house today but Lucy's scene, that I thought had ended yeseterday, went on for the full 2000 words today. Now, it won't all stay in the order I've written it in this draft, but most of it will find a place- somewhere I think. I hope.

I now realize how writing everyday takes a certain physical readiness. During these last fifteen days I have been eating really healthy food which,for me, means not too much sugar; working out 30-60 every day; plus 20 minutes of yoga and meditation early in the morning; maybe walking again in the late afternoon or early evening where I usually get some good ideas for the story; and I've been in bed by 9:00 most nights. If not for that structure to support me, I doubt I could continue at this pace.

Total word count: 32, 136

Quote:
"Writing brings you back to the natural state of mind, the wilderness of your mind where there are no refined rows of gladiolas."
- from "Wild Mind"

I love the line: there are no refined rows of gladiolas

Off to another mid-afternoon flick. Aaah... the sweet rewards of slowly reaching my goals.

Day Fourteen

Well, I set a goal of breaking 30,00 words today and I just reached 30, 024. According to the schedule in the book I should reach 30,000 by day 18 so I am 4 days ahead of schedule.

For a reward I am treating myself to a couple of movies. Today I am seeing "The illusionist" and tomorrow it is "The Last Kiss" with Zach Braff. I loved his movie "Garden State". We'll see if this new one is just as good.

Quote:
"Don't wait for 100% acceptance of yourself before you write,or even 80%. Just write. The process of writing will teach you about acceptance."
- from "Wild Mind"

I am just writng everyday. Just showing up and seeing what happens. Accepting that whatever gets written that day, even if it doesn't survive the final cut, it still was necessary to get me to the end. Everything I write tells me more of what I need to know about the story and characters. So accept it all, even if as you write you know the scene is a little sentimental or the dialogue a little cheesy. It can all be fixed later. Now is the time to just write.

Day Thirteen

Got my latest start yet. Didn't sit down at my computer until 1:00. But it's 3:11 now and I just added another 2000 words to my novel. Not sure if this scene even works. Some of it feels forced and trite but at least I showed up. That's what this little experiment is all about.

Total word count: 27,343

Quote:
Ask yourself, "What do I love deeply? What has brought me to my knees? What has totally broken me?" The combination of these answers can give you a voice.
- from a symposium on writng and Zen

Day Twelve

Word count: 25, 311

Which puts me officially past the halfway point.

I think that deserves some sort of reward. I'll have to think of something.

It took twelve days but the necessary structure and voices have finally risen to the top of all the pages I've written. So although I don't know exactly everything that's going to happen, I look forward to showing up each day to find out.

Quote:
In writing,stay with first thoughts, that raw energy that comes from the bottom of the mind.
- from "Long quiet Highway"

Day Eleven

Well I had an amazing writing day today. A new character emerged who I think will be pivotal to the story. Her voice was strong and the words just flew from my fingers.

Word count: 22, 529

That means I did over 2300 today. Yes!

Quote:
The only failure in writing is when you stop doing it.
-from Wild Mind

Ain't that the truth!

This pace of writing a novel in a month has permeated my life but not consumed it. I feel there is the perfect balance right now and I am savoring it. Last night as I read before falling asleep, all these new "what if" questions regarding my story and characters came up so I had to jot them down in a journal I keep by the bed for just such instances. I filled two and half pages and this morning they all still felt relevant.

Now it's time to switch gears and put on my graphic designer hat before the kids get home from school and all the homework/dinner/bedtime fiasco begins.

Day Ten

Well I did it. I broke 20,000 words today. 20,202 to be exact. That is almost half way there. I haven't hit a wall yet. The characters are moving around a bit more on their own which is always interesting and exciting. My youngest daughter just came in and gave me a high five when she saw my total word count come up on the screen. My dad and step-mom sent me a beautifully encouraging card and my writer's group is full of admiration and enthusiasm for this project. It's wonderful to have all that support and energy behind me.

So far, and I hope I don't jinx it, but it hasn't been excruciating at all to get my word count quota done for each day. The least amount of time I've spent is an hour and a half and the most is four. This is exactly how I pictured my writing life should be. Slow and steady. Just consistently showing up to the page.

Quote:
Be willing to speak from a different place, to discover memories you didn't even know were there.
- from "Thunder and Lightning"

Here's a book you must read. Stephen King called it the best memoir he's ever read and I have to agree. It is "A Three Dog Life" by Abigail Thomas. The thing I admire most is how she writes thoroughly and completely to the raw truth of her experience. I can feel her slow and steady pace. No flying past the uncomfortable parts and no dwelling in melodrama. A must read.

Day Nine

Okay, so I got my 1300 words in for today and am free to enjoy my neighbor's party this afternoon. Hopefully the rain that just started coming down will stop by then.

I think the biggest lesson I will take away from this experiment is how important just showing up to the story is. Just show up every day even when you have no idea what happens next. You show up to find out. And showing up everyday keeps the story alive. Suddenly everything I come into contact with becomes possible fodder for my story or characters. I am living with them everyday and the more I live with them, the more they come alive for me.

Quote:
Move close to the aching hunger you have inside.
- from "Thunder and Lightning"

Total word count: 18, 756

Day Eight

No, I didn't flake on my word count for Day 8, just on posting to my blog.

Word count: 17,431

Quote:
Our job is to wake up to everything.
- from "Long Quiet Highway"

It's the weekend and I am into my second week. I would love to make it to 20,000 this weekend. That's less than 1300 a day. But weekends tend to be more difficult for me. The girls aren't in school, giving me that seven hour block of uninterrupted time. And we have a party to go to this afternoon. Plus tomorrow is writer's group. Will post later tonight on Day Nine.

Thanks so much to all of you who are leaving encouraging comments. It really helps.

Day Seven

Word count: 15, 286

Quote:
Go ahead. Say it: "I am a writer." Practice saying it when people ask you what you do. You might feel like a complete fool. That is okay. Step forward and say it anyway."
from Wild Mind

I've said it before and I don't feel like a complete fool. It's more like a complete fraud. Because inevitably the next question is "What book have you written?" Or "Can I buy your book in a bookstore?" And the answer is: "No books. Not yet anyway." And there is this uncomfortable pause that I sometimes rush to fill by detailing my own criteria for calling myself a writer. That i have had a couple of articles published. But they were in small publications. And not any of my fiction. But then I did get my fiction published and even won a first place monetary award. Yet I still feel compelled to qualify it. Well, it was a very small publication. It wasn't a large contest. Blah, blah, blah. I swear, if I won the Pulitzer I would still find a way to demean the achievement.

I am a writer because I write pretty much everyday. I am a writer because I can't not write. I am may not earn my living writing in the same way that I do as a graphic designer but I earn my life by writing. But people don't really want to hear about that. So when it does come up, I usually just say that "I write." Because I do. No qualifying necessary.

Day Six

Word count: 13, 279

Quote:
Let the furnace of writing be fueled by what pleases you, so as you write about rage or destruction, you don't get stuck there. The world is bigger than that.
- from "Wild Mind"

Day Five

It was the first day of school so I've been going since about six o'clock this morning. Only a half day so they were back before I even had my lunch. And tonight we get to go to the open house. So while I did manage to up my total word count to 11, 186 I must confess that I did lift a section from an old story and plopped it in this one. It works perfectly for now. It got Grace from one place to another and I did write close to a thousand new words. I left off with Grace hovering outside her daughter, Lucy's window after coming home early from the night shift at the hospital and finding the boyfriend's bike leaning against the house under her window.

While I like the way I'm doing this and it's working and it's helping me get over the huge hurdle of writing a "novel" I realize that sitting down to write each day isn't my biggest obstacle. I can easily (most days) sit down and let the words fly, racking up pages and stories. What I'm finding more difficult is really honing those stories once they get back from my wonderfully awesome writer's group. I must have twenty stacked up by now. I need to get over the idea that if I'm not typing at a furious pace or scribbling just as furiously in a notebook that it's not a productive writing session. Revision, especially at the stage that many of my stories are at, is a much slower process. It takes time.

Quote:

"Don't hurry to make sense. You might land too quickly and miss out on half your mind."
- from Thunder and Lightning

I like how it echoes my thoughts on not hurrying. Not making sense too quickly is usually when the great stuff happens. Things you weren't expecting. Things that surprise you, your characters and your reader. I know that as these next few weeks sneak up on me that I'll be pulling prompts from different places, not knowing how it will fit into the story or even if it will but if I just keep flying without landing too quickly there might just be some great surpises in store for me and my characters.

Day Four

It's just after 4:00 and I have my daily quota done. I am up to 8217 words. They really do add up.

The quote for today:
"Forget expectation. Just write."
from Wild Mind

Alway good advice. I think that I got stuck on the expectation part for the last few months. I forgot to let myself play and have fun. I wanted each and every writing session to turn up something raw and powerful and able to survive the revision process. So having this daily quota is all about letting me have fun on the page again. I didn't know at all what was going to happen today. Didn't know what they were doing. So I picked up a book I had sitting here, glanced at a page, saw the words "tuna fish" and ended up writing a scene in the kitchen between Otter and Lucy and a tuna fish sandwich. And even if it doesn't survive the ultimate revision process for this book, with every scene I write I get to know the characters a litttle more and that's always a good thing. And I only get to that point by showing up every day, not expecting anything except to write my minimum number of words.

Day Three

If I hadn't made this pact with myself and announced it to the world, today would've been a prime day to just let it slide. To just tell myself that I have enough short stories stacked up from my writer's group that I can go back and revise. Why pile on a whole novel on top of it? I am very, very good and talking myself into or out of promises I make to myself. But because I consider this a pact I sat down and typed. It took me four separate sessions to rack up my quota for the day but I am at 6168 words now. Not bad. My goal is 2000 a day, 1700 minimum so I still have a slight cushion as I head into my first full week which includes getting my family back onto a school schedule, never an easy transition.

My quote today:

Writing is a place where we can meet ourselves deeply, encounter the imprint of something immense running through us.
- from "Thunder and Lightning"

Honestly, I forgot to pick one until my third session so although the card is propped up against the edge of the monitor, it hasn't been inspiring the writing today. I can see how it could but really today was just about grinding out my quota. I think I must've checked my word counter a dozen times, just to see where I was at.

Day 2

So I managed to fit in a little more writing last night, getting my word count up to 2884 before putting my computer and myself to bed.

Today, in between our weekly Saturday house cleaning and shopping for school shoes (something which I put off until the last possible minute because shoe designers don't seem to realize that young kids sometimes wear women's size shoes but don't necessarily want to look like Mom or Grandma) and clothes shopping and going through closets to make room for all the new clothes and shoes and getting a pile of stuff ready for a garage sale and/or donation I did get my word count up to 4111 as of a few minutes ago. I noticed a POV shift in the second chapter but I'm just going with it for for. Lucy's voice seems to ring true in the first person. These are the kind of decisions I am just letting go of for now.

My focus quote today was:

"Don't worry about style. Be who you are, breathe fully, be alive, and write."
from "Wild Mind"

I've never really worried about style. I figure if I tell a story as true as I can it can't help but be in my style. I do like to play with style though by typing in paragraphs or even short short stories by writers I love. Typing them makes me really slow down and savor each word choice and become entranced by the rhythm of their writing. I highly recommend it as an exercise.

I just realized that I am trying something totally new for me. I am typing my first draft directly onto the computer. I figure if I am going to get 50,000 words done in 30 days I really don't have time to write it by hand then type it in. It wasn't a big decision that I struggled with. It's just how I started and it is working. I am scribbling in my notebook as I think of things I want to add. And I did handwrite a paragraph from Grace but that won't be until the next chapter. I like that the whole typing thing seems to be working. It's actually one of the things I like least about writing- the physical typing. But now I think I really just hate doing all the fun writing then having to basically transcribe page after page after page.

Day One

It is 12:30 on Day 1 and I have 2461 words under my belt. Not bad. My minimum is 1700 a day. So now I have a teeny tiny cushion and it is only just past noon. Maybe I can squeeze in another writing session later today. But I don't have to. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to write that this morning. That was after doing yoga and my morning pages. And that wasn't two and half straight hours of frenzied typing. That included time to get some water, grab a handful of almonds and just gaze out the window, trying to see what happens next in my story.

I found this set of miniature card with quotes by Natalie Goldberg. Since it was her book "Writing Down the Bones" that inspired me those many, many years ago to even attempt to write myself I decided to draw one card a day and use it as my focus. I will share them with you. Today's was:

"Writing is the willingness to see." from "Long Quiet Highway"

While I know that part of the "seeing" she is referring to is seeing the truth or seeing what is really there, I took it literally today and tried to see in my mind the scene as it unfolds. It helped to ground me as I started this adventure. In the beginning in can be too easy for me to get stuck in their heads. Closing my eyes and seeing the story was helpful. I noticed details that I think will be important as the story goes on.

I wrote what feels like a complete chapter today. Who knows if it will end up that way or if everyday will end up like that. I'm not counting on it. This story is told through the eyes of three main characters. Today it was Owen's story. Next is his sister Lucy then his mother, Grace.

Before I close the window on the story later today, I want to make sure I have at least the start of the next sentence typed in so I have a place to start from tomorrow. Isn't that an old Hemingway trick? If not the actual sentence then at least a prompt that I can use to springboard from when I sit down here on Day 2.

It's a good thing I sent out that email and set up this blog yesterday. When I woke up this morning I knew it would be really, really easy to just let this whole wild idea fade away. What I've always considered to be one of my greatest weakensses (caring so much what people think of me) is now being turned into a great motivational tool.

Thanks to everyone who sent me their good writing juju! It's working.
- Kim