In the last 2 days, I have written 40 pages in a piece I have had sitting on the back burner for about 3 months. Half of it I will end up throwing out - Hell, I might toss all of it. But once I sat down to work, once I gave that work space in my head, and in my life - the floodgates opened. I have been gaining momentum.
If I continue to write 20 pages a day - and do so for 2 months - I will have a novel in no time. Perhaps it will be a bad novel - but it will be a novel. Once I start writing, I cannot stop.
My goal is the end of February. You can hold me to that.
At this point, whatever I am writing is creating itself. What I wrote yesterday felt like one long extended tangent - it had nothing to do with the main thrust of the piece - but then it occurred to me, as I re-read it later, "Maybe THIS is the story. Maybe the 'tangent' is the actual story."
Time will tell. I'm not ready to factor anything out at this point. That's not how I write. It's improvisational, my process. I just GO.
Perhaps I need to structure stuff out more, make outlines, etc. But that doesn't seem to come naturally to me at this moment.
A good friend of mine, who is also a writer, emailed me yesterday and asked me how the writing was going. I said, "I'm writing something - but I have no idea what it is about right now."
She wrote back, "Even when it's published, you might not know what it is 'about'. In fact, you'll probably be the last to know."
The point is - to keep going. And so I am.
Posted by sheilaWasn't it Hemingway who said the hardest thing about writing is staying in the chair?
Keep going!
Posted by: Ken Hall at January 21, 2004 10:33 AMKen -
I wonder if he said that because he primarily wrote on a bar stool ...
Posted by: red at January 21, 2004 10:37 AMIt's self-defeating to try to create a piece of your own art according to someone else's rules. Just do whatever feels most natural for you.
Personally, I like the idea of doing a first draft quickly so as to give yourself something to work with in shaping and shading the exact story you're after.
Posted by: MikeR at January 21, 2004 11:21 AMMikeR -
My process is quite messy - and I actually kind of enjoy that. i write long-hand, like a Tasmanian devil - Then I type it all out and edit it strenuously. Chop chop chop, remembering the most important thing from Strunk & White's Elements of Style:
OMIT NEEDLESS WORDS.
The best advice ever
Posted by: red at January 21, 2004 11:36 AMIf messy works, then stick with messy.
It doesn't matter how nice and efficient a process is, if the end result is crap. I'd be willing to bet that Jackie Collins' writing process is so well-organized, she doesn't really even need to be there. ;-)
One of my professors told me that 'writing is a discipline'. Waiting for the muse to arrive is an exercise in hope. Therefore, I try to follow his advise and tap away at these keys on a daily basis. So keep on, Sheila!
Posted by: Noggie at January 21, 2004 01:29 PMHi Sheila,
I had a huge smile on my face when I read that you are writing what may be the beginnings of a novel! The reason is that, for several weeks, I have been developing a story in my head. At the most random moments (ex: while cooking), I will suddenly think of something and run to my notebook and write it down. The only problem is that my story has NO structure and a very poor excuse for a plot...just little fragments of ideas and images, like a montage of thoughts. I think it would be a serious stretch to convert it all into a short story (I'm not even going to dare to use the "n" word!). But still, as futile as it all probably is, it makes me so happy. To see something grow in my head, like a plant. There is an Iranian movie called "Baran", about an Afghan refugee. One of the main characters places a vine near a window at the beginning of the movie...and by the end, it has expanded across the wall. Such a beautiful image, which conveys the kind of satisfaction that writing creates. I hope that your writing is published someday so that we can all read it. But even if it isn't, I'm sure you will always have the private pleasure of reading it. Good luck. :)
Posted by: sina at January 23, 2004 04:02 AMSina -
I know just what you mean about having no structure, no plot. I've found, through trial and error, that I structure the thing LATER. Once I get it all out on paper - once I roughly blurt out all the events of the story - then I go back and mercilessly chip away at it.
It's a bit stressful at first, because I read good books, and then I look at my own shapeless mass of words - with a bunch of isolated events described - but no connecting thread, and I think: Damn! Am I getting anywhere???
The image you give me of the spreading vine is quite wonderful. The point is - to let this writing take on a life of its own.
Good luck to you too!
Posted by: red at January 23, 2004 07:48 AM