On Writing a Novel, Entry #8

Well, trying to do what I failed at last night. First priority, staying awake with functional cognition. Second priority, painting a beautiful tension between Sammy and Lydia, a tension of distances intimacy, a convenience of time, place, and loneliness, and a two-sided fear floating them like repelling magnets.

On a far less literary subject, I am absolutely loony with distraction, as in 43 minutes the NFL free agency season officially begins. Of course, I do not expect the Bears to be active immediately, if even within the weekend. But still...what if?

So: first writing, then reading as a reward.

Oh, and back onto a literary subject: I received Kenny's book in the mail today. Somehow I ordered it from a British shop selling a book printed in America by an American author. Odd. That book has as many stamps on its passport as I do.

First I am going to read his book of short stories. I read a few before, but never read through the whole thing. That is my first order of business. My second is to read his novel. And my third is to leach off any useful information he can provide me regarding publishing, the pursuit of an agent, the cynical yet necessary financial consideration, and, of course, just some catching up. It has been too long, with so many of my high school friendships that I've let slip away. I must get better at that.

I must also get better at my faithfulness to Sammy and Lydia, and the others in Cedar Fort and Axtell.

On Writing a Novel, Entry #7, addendum

I cannot do this tonight. 150 words later, I am exhausted.

Goodnight.

On Writing a Novel, Entry #7

I am exhausted.

I skipped writing last night for the sake of Steinbeck, so tonight I am getting back on track. 1000 words.

I realized something yesterday. My 10,300 words is a full 5.5 pages less than Amanda's 10,300 words. It is the unfortunate side-effect of a character/narrative-driven story, rather than a plot/dialogue-driven story. My pages are "thicker."

But, the more I can do to press myself forward, the more I will accomplish in the end. I find myself questioning if I can pull off this piece--and I think that is the right place to be. Were I confident in that ability, I would not be striving hard enough, and would not be using this writing as an expansion of myself, but rather a continuation of the status quo.

Tonight I am trying to delicately weave a conversation where Sammy is trusting Lydia more and more, and enjoying her int he present but not ready to let her into his past. He feels an impossible and wrong fear--a fear that causes him to shift the conversation to her, rather than on himself.

I think she will like this shift, and start to think more about him than an idle conversationalist/companion. So I have to show: his fear, his diversion, her surprise (and pleasure), and her story. Will she dive into her story? I am not sure. I think she, too, is willing to give the present but not the past. And I think that will be enough for tonight.

On Writing a Novel, Entry #6

I got distracted with everything but this blog and forgot to start here. Perhaps that is why my brain is constipated tonight--there is no flow, no sense of direction. I have cerebral thoughts and ideas, but no passion to put into them, no reason to make them alive. Sammy is a transparent character in less than 10,000 words right now and no person.

They are all characters and contrived and desperate. Every one of them is desperate because this is all they have, their only chance to live, and I am the poor vessel chosen to bring them to an uncaring world.

Ugh. It is melodramatic, that is for sure.

The more I write, the more I realize I will have to write. There are an absurd number of words to be written so far, and what is there needs years of work to make readable. As it is, I have the accolades of people whose compliments are insulting--this is crap, I know it is crap, do not patronize me.

I suppose if I simply can't get published, I can always just twist the ending to mention Jesus and settle into the friendly (if mind-numbing) world of Christian fiction. Perhaps I should be there in the first place; after all, I am a Christian. But I simply can't believe writing hokey stories of salvation for bored and listless housewives is a worthy pursuit.

Is that my call, Lord? (Please no.)

--Ice cream break--

Even this post is crap. This is stupid. It is not my night.

Perhaps if I just write I will soon enough find something worth saving. Or something worth throwing out in a fit of cleansing. I suppose either one will be cathartic at some point or another, and even necessary.

On Writing a Novel, Entry #5, addendum

1,124 words. 2 am bedtime.

I rule. I suck.

On Writing a Novel, Entry #5

Well, I've hit it--the wall, if you will, if there is one, it has been hit and I am, rather than charging through, laying content to play on this side of it.

It has been eleven days since I have posted a blog entry (I'm sure all of you, the readers I don't have, are anxiously awaiting more), and in those eleven days I have actually lost some of my total word count. On the plus side, I re-worked much of page one. I probably cut out 150 words, which were all superfluous. (Well, superfluous at best--plain bad at both worst, and most common probably.)

So, it's 12:41, I've wasted the last two hours (at least), and I'm sitting down to write, not knowing where I'm going. But, I'm writing. I'm writing and I'm putting down words--I'm planting a seed and raising a tree, that will someday become a large tree, which will someday become a log, and then become a log cabin for me (or, for Sammy) to dwell in for a time. Something not only built by my own two hands, but something tended, carefully created out of the smallest of something in the first place.

In some ways it is beautiful. In the reality of this moment, though, it is tiresome. I have any excuse you need: my long fingernails hit the keys funny, I should trim them. It is late, I should be in bed. My outline isn't in front of me, and I'll probably change this whole section anyway. I've waited 11 days, why not make it a round dozen? (And then, a baker's dozen? A fortnight?) Whatever the reasons, at some point my resolution has to be stronger than the cunning of my sloth. Tonight is a night where industry wins, though "industry" will probably be offended when I read back over what it creates and realizes the whole thing was a waste.

Still, it is a means to an end, or an investment in a future, for myself and my family and the Lord. I cannot imagine not fulfilling this gift--it will kill me if I cannot get words out beautifully.

Sammy, you better be worth it. (Patrick, you better be worth it.)

On Writing a Novel, Entry #4

Tonight I sit down to a very late start. I spent the weekend off--enjoying Tennessee, the mountains, great grilling, great friendship--the only thing lacking was great writing. That was in very short supply. And by short supply, of course, I mean non-existent.

Perhaps it was good to leave Sammy for a while, to step back and relax him, relax my brain and my fingers to let the story simmer and develop. But I think it was more laziness. I was starting to develop a steady rhythm (which is abnormal for me, and I was overly proud, as you can tell from my last post), and suddenly the rhythm is gone. And now I'm realizing that the end of this week is the mid-point of the semester, at the end of which I am supposed to have 100 pages written.

I have, concurrently, 21. I have 4 more hand-written, and one 1/2 more typed for the future. This means I will have to triple my current output to complete on time. And I wonder how much it is worth it--how much value is there in spewing out page after page of crap, and how much more or less valuable is it to make sure the foundation is solid before I move on to the next chapter? I suppose it may not be possible to perfect a chapter first (if ever) because it could change to fit the story as it develops. Obviously I am not completely sure where I am growing, so how do I know how to build the foundation?

I need to know where I'm going, but I suppose until I do I can enjoy the ride, and my stops camping along the way. We're not in a hurry. Take it in, breathe it in and enjoy the crisp mountain air of literature.

On a side note: I purchased Kenny's first published novel tonight. I'm proud of him. He's a hell of a guy, and I'm proud to have called him my friend. I should call or write or something--reach out to stay in touch with him. I really, really suck at that. Really bad. I hope I get better someday because there are so many invaluable people from my past that I would love to draw back closer to me.

Perhaps someday. They all, after all, have made me what I am today. And so every word I write is them, too.

On writing a novel, Entry #3

For a time, tonight, I thought that I couldn't bear the thought of sitting down to write. My excuses were plentiful and effective: I got home from work at nine, and needed to relax. I spent so much in preparing for and going through my peer review today that I simply did not have any energy left for writing. I have misplaced my chapter outline, and having finished chapter three, I don't know now where to go.

I also thought, perhaps, to cop-out by doing edit work, or by letting my manuscript "rest" or "breathe" or whatever other romantic procrastination I could think of.

But I found that when I sat down to write a small entry, excusing myself to my unreading internet audience, that I couldn't stand the idea of not writing tonight. I do not want to go to bed without 1000 words having been created, find their way from my brain to my fingers, to the computer, to art. So I brewed a mug of tea, opened my work-in-progress, and now go to figure out what to write.

On writing a novel, Entry #2

So far so good. Last night's limitations got me to bed earlier than has become the norm, and with a greater sense of satisfaction than I have had in quite some time. I had always heard that any writer serious about his craft should write no less than 1000 words per day--now, accomplishing the practice of it encouraging in that I am finding a discipline and determination that I never knew existed. I honestly do not know if I have been this determined about anything as I was when I first knew Christ, or when I peaked out in my running career.

Which is, of course, at once encouraging and discouraging. How many years have I loafed through my various pursuits, seeking the easiest way to impress others, rather than the best way to treat myself and my gifts?

But regret and melancholy do not do me any good. We are now in the IS, and it is enough to know that I continue to plod forward, taking strides, and believe in the best that lies in me.

Tomorrow we will be workshopping my first 5000 words in class. I am sure to be at once entranced and enraged at the comments of my peers. I suffer from an obstinate belief that I know more than anyone else and will come to greater things through sheer intelligence and determination. I may be wrong, but I do believe that given enough determination I will be right. Of course I do appreciate insight, any insight, but I am the fastest I know to defend and dismiss as myopic rather than accept my own blindnesses. Perhaps it is the ownership I am not feeling, the pride, the sense of doing and creating. This is my story, Sammy is my character, his life is, in many ways, my life but more--my life extrapolated, distorted, onto frame of different dimensions. Same yet totally different, but still mine nonetheless.

And I will learn to live by my words, which I should now go commit to paper.

Entry #1

I am currently writing a novel. I no longer say "attempting" to write, because I have now decided that I am simply going to write. That I will be a writer, that I am an artist, and that I have greatness within me.
Steinbeck wrote to a friend as a "warm-up" before digging in to write. I think, perhaps, this approach may be more helpful to me than attempting to start cold. Once rolling, I know that I can find prodigious results, but all too often it is the starting that stops me. Perhaps ten, twenty, or thirty minutes, or an hour (or a day) after I sit down I will finally begin to write. So here is my warm-up, my stretching as I attempt to go in already moving. Getting a running start.
Hopefully, too, I can work out tiresome athletic metaphors and not fill my prose with that sort of rubbish.
Back to the decision to write: I will write. I will write and write and write. Steinbeck wrote a self-imposed minimum of 1000 words per day. I see no reason I cannot do this. I often wondered how writers did it, but I believe I am learning. With repetition comes productivity, with productivity comes love. I love writing. I love sitting down to create. I love the realization that, come hell or high water (I am working out cliches too, I suppose), I will write until I have written something worthy of being read. And then I will write more, until I write something more worthy of being read, until someday I can write something that needs to be read.
Steinbeck did it this way. I suppose he is, in some ways, my current muse--by necessity, because of my SR class, but also as an inspiration from a person whose personality nearly mirrors my own, even if our philosophies and theologies do not easily co-exist. (Indulgent side note/extrapolation: The more I learn about Steinbeck, the more I see similarities to myself. Which is encouraging in that I do have the makeup, the constitution, the inborn ability to be a writer...if I can cultivate that, discipline the puer aeternus, chain the eternal boy to a desk and mine until I find diamond.) It is going to happen. It is simply a mechanism, now, of work and time.