What's Taking So Long?!?!

"What's taking you so long to finish writing that book?"
There, I said it. You know you've thought it.

Well, let's see. In the past ten days, I've rethought the first chapter, the first page, the first line, the first few chapters, the whole first quarter of the novel, the climax, and the ending, not necessarily in that order. And let's not even talk about the middle...

I've realized, among other things, that:

• The events of the novel start mid-school-year (January), not the previous September.
• My main character, Gabby, is a sophomore not a freshman -- about to turn 16.
• What Gabby is missing/lacks is as important to the story and to the reader's ability to connect with her as what she desires most. (Thank you, moodywriting.blogspot.com, for that insight.)
• Gabby has another flaw I hadn't quite discovered or consciously identified until last Thursday.
• The character who turns out to be one of Gabby's greatest allies is in her grade, not a year ahead.
• I was way too kind to and protective of Gabby in the first draft -- didn't make her squirm enough or at the right moments. (A common mistake of first-time novelists.)
• Certain characters know more (or less) than I thought they did about a certain main event.
• Something I thought was just a subplot is actually quite possibly the main plot. (Adverbs intentional.)
• I need to totally rewrite the scene in which the antagonist enters the story --and take her out of the one she originally showed up in -- to give her more power.
• The next three chapters up for revision -- or what were the next three in the first draft -- will most likely not make the final cut at all. (It's like they say: "Kill your darlings.")
• The climax I wrote for the first draft is not the real climax -- there is something even more powerful working its way to the surface.

Add to that a herd of smaller details that shifted or emerged in the past week or so, including what posters are on the walls of Coach's classroom, what speech or document they are discussing on Gabby's first day in  history class, how a certain note is discovered and by whom, what popular '80's song Gabby's friends dedicate to her at her roller-rink birthday party, Gabby's grandfather's favorite beverage, and the subject of the puzzle she and Grandad are putting together in the most recent version of chapter one. And so on.

I was relieved to read that this is completely normal for writers like me. Author and head of the literary agency bearing his name, Donald Maass explains it this way in his book Writing 21st Century Fiction:

"Organic and intuitive writers tend to need more drafts, which are often radically different, and may wind up with a manuscript more original and unexpected in its form, but also less tight, sharply focused, or smartly marching." (45)

This is not the revision process I applied to high school or college essays. You know the one -- rearrange a couple of words or sentences, check for punctuation and spelling errors and call it done. No, this revision process feels like mini-earthquakes shifting the ground beneath my writing feet on an almost daily basis. A bit unsettling. And a good sign, I think.

What's taking so long? All of the above and more. For me, this is about more than writing a book. Or becoming a published author. Once again, Donald Maass says it beautifully:

"To write high-impact 21st century fiction, you must start by becoming highly personal. Find your voice, yes, but more than that, challenge yourself to be unafraid, independent, open, aware, and true to your own heart. You must become your most authentic self." (4)

And that, dear readers, is a journey that cannot be rushed.

Life's Little Victories

Each year during the season of Lent, I dedicate myself to creating a new habit or way of being. I find this practice much more powerful and potentially life-changing than the alternative of giving up something (like chocolate or ice cream) that I inevitably go back to when the 40 days of deprivation are up. Besides, no woman -- or writer -- should have to live without chocolate or ice cream, Lent or no.

Inspired by author Kate Messner's keynote address on failure (see Feb 2014 entry) in which she reminded an audience of 1,000+ writers and illustrators (and all around awesome human beings who share the unfortunate tendency of dwelling on their flaws and imperfections) of the importance of pausing to celebrate the little victories in our work and our lives, I made a promise to do just that: celebrate life's little victories at least once every single day.

Now, instead of getting to the end of a day and dwelling on all the things I didn't get done or that didn't go as planned or that went decidedly (or even the slightest bit) badly, I take a moment before bedtime to reflect on what little victory from my day I can celebrate and share it with my Facebook family.

Already, this practice has had a happy side effect. I look for the little victories (consciously) during the day and notice them when they happen. For example, as I write this, I am celebrating that the high, gusty winds of the last 24 hours did not knock out our power or bring a tree down on our house. Admittedly, that one is entirely up to Mother Nature and the power company and other forces beyond my control, but I'm pretty sure Mother Nature doesn't mind a little gratitude every so often when we stop complaining about the winter weather or gloomy skies or unending precipitation (snow, rain, or ice) for long enough to pay her a compliment.

There is plenty of bad, depressing, and otherwise yucky stuff going on in the world, and the media is more than happy to report on it (repeatedly), broadcast pictures (whether or not we care to see them), and generally raise our collective anxiety level to ridiculous heights (without our permission).

So in the spirit of countering the yuck, I encourage you to develop a habit of celebrating your little victories and of sharing them with family, friends, the Twitterverse, or the dog. And we will happily celebrate right along with you.

From the Writer's Confessional

I have a confession to make.

As a fiction writer, I struggle to create detailed characters and settings -- at least in a physical sense. Sometimes I forget that the reader can't see what's in my head as I write -- what the girls seated around the cafeteria table are wearing or what posters are hanging on the wall of the main character's bedroom. And sometimes, I can't see the finer details clearly enough to write them in. Or, if I can, I can't translate those images into words that give the figures who haunt the shadows of my mind life on the page. Yet.

Maybe this is because of something in my creative DNA. Choreographer Twyla Tharp calls it "focal length." In her book The Creative Habit (a staple on my writing reference and inspiration shelf), she proposes that "All of us find comfort in seeing the world either from a great distance, at arm's length, or in close-up." According to her classification system, I am a great-distance person. Or at best, on good days, an arm's-length person.

What does this mean to my writing? It means that the close-up, make-you-feel-like-you're-right-there sensory details don't come easily, or naturally, to me. This is something my critique group finds incredibly (or at least somewhat) annoying, even though they don't put it that way exactly. But they do beg and plead -- persistently -- for more visual and tactile and gustatory and olfactory (love that word) cues so they aren't left guessing.

It means, that at least in early drafts, my characters are doomed to float around in a vast, empty, undefined space. They are stranded in the middle of a big white room or left standing aimlessly in front of a blank green screen. After all, it's hard to tell what kind of sneakers a character is wearing or how she eats an Oreo when you're seeing the fictional world she lives in as a pea-sized blue-green orb floating in a vast universe.

It means silencing my inner critic long enough to get a first draft on paper, knowing that I'll have to work at adding arm's-length and close-up sensory details to future drafts in order to bring the story's fictional world into clear enough focus for my readers to inhabit. Not sure yet if that will happen in draft 2 or draft 92 (Jack Gantos swears he writes everything 100 times), just that it will.

Seems that the great-distance perspective creeps into my real life too, like the way I view the community of professional, published authors. I know it exists, have orbited it for a number of years now, and have even been lucky (or proactive) enough to visit it and get within arm's- (or even pen's-) length at writing conferences and book-signings. But for now it remains an elusive, shadowy world built on shifting sands of creativity, hard work, and inspiration.

For now, I content myself by keeping that distant marbled orb in my sights, knowing that my writing journey is bringing me closer every day. And that one day, I fully intend to inhabit that world just the way my characters will inhabit theirs.