Tag Archives for on writing

another sunday night writing post

I’m only a day or two from finishing this revision (knock on wood) and I can’t wait to be normal again. Seriously, I’ve spent the last week eating nothing but cheese for dinner (you think I’m joking) and only doing enough dishes so that I can drink coffee and feed the cats. When I haven’t been at work, I’ve been on my couch trying to revise this novel. No time for petty things like dishes and vacuuming and making food.

It’s probably good I’m not a professional writer, I’d never put on clothes or get off the couch or eat a vegetable.

Anyway, I’m going to switch couch cushions and carry on. How are all my writer friends doing out there? Don’t forget to brush your teeth!

sunday night writing/revising/arrrrgh

I’ve finally started revising this novel again, and I’ve gotten to the part where I had previously figured out this annoying complicated plot knot, but since I lost all of my notes and revisions when I was burgled I now have to figure it out again. My brain already hurts.

But in lucky things I have a hockey game to listen to as I work, because iiiiiit’s playoff time! GO SHARKS!

 

keep on keepin’ on

I’m writing this from the Harvard Square Starbucks (the big one), where I have spent the last 3 hours:

  • writing (2K words!)
  • eavesdropping on neighboring tables
  • consuming too much caffeine and a fair helping of whipped cream

Which is basically the summation of my perfect Starbucks experience.

I’m glad to get those 2000 words. Writing has been hard recently (only recently?). For once I know exactly what happened to stall me, but that doesn’t make it any easier to fix the problem. I’m beginning to come to the conclusion that being a writer is one massive mind game you play with yourself.

sometimes

Sometimes the idea of writing makes me panic. Like, I have a visceral reaction and my heart rate goes up when I think about facing whatever my current project is. I’m afraid of ruining what isn’t there yet by getting my grubby writer hands on it. I’m afraid of not being good enough.

Sometimes opening up the word document is like ripping off a band-aid, something I just have to face and get over with. Here I go.

Maybe.

 

rules, shmules

If you are a writer and you haven’t yet checked out Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling, click here. Very interesting, thought-provoking, and (I hope) useful for getting out of a writing funk. A few of the rules that stick out for me:

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

#1 is so important that I’ve started repeating it to myself, like a mantra.

You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

Today, a cool 75 degrees here in Boston, I am sitting on my living room floor with a Red Bull and Project Runway and a pile of index cards, trying to sort out my current story. I’m hoping the Pixar rules, which I just printed out, can give me a bit of direction as I work, because boy do I need it.

Writing. So painful but I can’t live without it.

talking to a writer

So I know I haven’t been around much, but if I had been, here’s what our conversations would have sounded like:

Day 1: “Yeah, so today I sat in front of my computer for 3 hours and made up stories about my imaginary friends… Oh, you actually, like, went places? And talked to real people? How weird.”

Day 3: “Today I stared at the bump in the wall and tried to figure out what makes people walk down hallways. Why do YOU walk down hallways? …Where are you going?”

Day 5: “Sorry, can’t chat. Busy reading every baby name book ever.”

Day 11: “I’ve decided to sit on each couch cushion for no more than 45 minutes at a time, so they wear out evenly.”

Day 15: “Today I spent 4 hours at my computer. It made this groove in my lap.”

You get the picture. The problem with being a writer is that it’s sometimes not very interesting.

raindrops and writing

You can tell it’s spring because it’s been cloudy and rainy all week. It was sunny for a few minutes today, but that was amid dark angry thunderclouds of doom. I actually like cloudy rainy weather; it makes the world smell like Spring.

New Novel is… well “chugging along” might be a bit of an overstatement, but things are sort of moving in a forwardly direction. I think I’m in the intermediary zone of first drafting between “not started” and “full steam ahead”—I need like one more thing to click before this process turns into a true first draft fire. But I’m chipping away at it. Amazing how long it’s been since I started a first draft.

Old Novel (maybe I need some codenames…) is still simmering. My beta readers have given me some good things to think about, so I am thinking.

I don’t really have a plan, like, “this first draft is going to take me four months, then I will revise my other novel again” or “I am going to let old novel sit for five weeks and then revise again, no matter where I am with new novel.” Planning: not my strong suit. So we’ll see how it goes.

In the meantime, life is busy and filled with rain.

and moving right along

So Draft #2 is with betas (whose responses so far have been both very kind and very helpful) and I… have started Draft #1 of a new novel! Because it is what I do.

Like, really. I don’t know how not to write. After sending Draft #2 out to betas I sat back in my chair and went, “so now what? what do people do when they aren’t writing?” Then I stared at the wall for a little while, did some dishes, fed the cat, and started brainstorming for my new project.

I learned a lot from this last novel, mostly about how I work and what I need to do to succeed. Here’s hoping I can bring some of those skills forward to this new project. (Not that I’m done with the “previous” project. There will be at least one more revision.)

I’ve never juggled revising one project with first-drafting a new project, so we’ll see how this goes. Any tips much appreciated! :)

on writing, distracted

Tomorrow is going to be a hardcore writing day (I mean, I will be hardcore about writing, not that the writing itself will be hardcore). This means you might see me online a bit more than usual, since a lot of “writing days” are also “tweeting days” and “blogging days” and “LOLcat days.”

Which, as I’m sure you know, is not how one is supposed to write. Distractions are the devil.

Distractions can also keep you sane. I consider them like quick stretches in the middle of a writing marathon, the way a jogger will stretch their calves while waiting for a light to change. It’s not like I’m spending half an hour agonizing over every tweet; they’re just quick bursts of thought. And when I’m hard at work, blogging is a good break, a different kind of writing requiring a different kind of brainpower. A good little stretch.

My biggest distraction, though, is television. I mean that in a good way, not in an “I don’t have time to write because I watch 40 hours of TV a week” way. If I were to guess, I’d say the TV is on 90% of the time I’m writing. Yeah. A lot. Not how you’re supposed to do it.

I watch TV the way some people listen to music while they write. It’s basically visual background noise. To hear me talk, it sounds like I spend my entire life watching reality TV and cartoons. What isn’t generally obvious in conversation is that I also wrote a chapter during that episode of Jersey Shore.

The key is that I’m pretty picky about what is on when I’m writing. The main rule: it’s either something I’ve seen many times before or something with no discernible plot. Some things that work especially well for me:

  • The Adventures of Robin Hood (I basically have this memorized)
  • Star Wars (see above)
  • The Avengers, Steed and Peel-style
  • Batman: The Animated Series
  • Justice League/Justice League Unlimited
  • Star Trek (original series)
  • Project Runway, especially the seasons I’ve seen a half dozen times
  • Real Housewives of Wherever the Hell

Things that do not work:

  • subtitles (which unfortunately rules out all Kurosawa and Miyazaki)
  • movies/TV shows I have not seen
  • movies/TV shows that are plot heavy (Babylon 5)

Of course, the question is: Could I be getting more work done if I were to just sit at my desk with the internet and TV off? The answer, honestly, is I don’t think so. I don’t think the distractions are detrimental. I don’t think I could write 6000 words in a weekend if I weren’t keeping myself sane with a few little sidesteps, and that’s my goal in the next two days.

When I’m in the zone it all just blurs out. I’ll look up and Snooki is in the middle of another hair-pulling fight and I have no idea why, or Batman has progressed 3 episodes and is trying to punch himself. I don’t need to know anything going on around the moment so I watch for a bit (a few seconds to a few minutes), loosen my brain up, and then I write more.

I’m not suggesting everyone who writes turn up the TV and bounce around the internet. It very obviously does not work for a lot of people. It doesn’t always work for me. But it’s my standard modus operandi, and it is how I will be spending a fair amount of the next 48 hours.

I love hearing about other writers and their techniques—so what about you? Do you need uninterrupted silence, or are you more like me?