Flow and Answering Your Own Questions

When I write page 1, I don't know what page 2 is going to be like. I write the book to know what's inside. - Julian Green

Particularly when I write during National Novel Writing Month, I tend to start a story without a clear idea of where I'm going. I get the feeling I've written about this topic before in here, but I'm going to continue anyway. I'm with Julian Green: I write the story to find out what happens. During NaNoWriMo I generally reach a point where I need a plan. The story faucet, up until that point flowing freely, begins to taper off until it becomes a trickle. Then I need to start with the outlining. Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket? Who's in this story? What important things are going to happen? What needs to happen before I can write The End?

In five years of participating in NaNoWriMo, I don't think I've ever actually written The End. My story may wind itself up, but it's never a total beginning-to-end manuscript on the first of December.

But on my original point: I write to see what happens. That's a lot of what gets me through NaNoWriMo. I want to succeed, I want the purple progress bar, and I want the certificate. I want the satisfaction of having a 50,000 word manuscript in my hand, that tangible, meaty sound it makes when I drop it - thunk - onto my desk. But day-to-day, one of the primary motivators is the same as it is when I'm reading someone else's work: what's going to happen next? Will Sarah and Aristotle escape from the beast? Will Dobroy ever give back that oh-so-important chess piece he took? Can the robot convince the two alien races to live in harmony? Will Hypatia stop being crazy? In order to find out, I had to write. And all of those questions have answers now. Each of them lives in a NaNo manuscript I've completed (except for the first one, which got a sequel of sorts in 2008, bringing its total to 76,000 words).

If you create a story you want to read, you're forced to write it until it reaches an end, or forever wonder what might have happened. Go create a question and answer it. Or wait until November and then do it. I'll meet you there.

Contests and Lifeclutter

I'm considering trying my hand at Toasted Cheese's A Midsummer Tale contest. The style is creative non-fiction and the topic is 'make believe'. There are more details on Toasted Cheese's contest page. The deadline is June 21st.

Speaking of deadlines, July is rapidly approaching and I have a lot of work to do on my manuscript before it's ready to be sent in for a proof copy. An entire chapter has to be rewritten. There are several transition scenes that need to be written. When I originally wrote this story in 2005, I hadn't quite gotten into the swing of National Novel Writing Month. I was struggling with the pace and I left out a lot. I was just trying to get to the end of the story. In the process I skipped over things which now need to get put back in to fill out the story.

The bad news is that as I try to get something going for Toasted Cheese's contest and finish my manuscript, I also have other creative projects clamouring for my attention. The worse news is that other things in life are taking precedence, mostly in the form of forcing me to sit here and try again and again to phone this person or that person, only to get voice mail or no answer. It's disruptive, as I ususally start around 9 am, the same time I really get going on my morning work and writing. It's very difficult to get writing flow going when you have to stop every fifteen minutes to call Mrs What's-Her-Name. Again. The sooner I get that done, the sooner I can dedicate my morning time to writing projects. I have a lot of them, and many have gone by the wayside. Poetry, short stories, articles. They've all been mostly shunted aside as other, more pressing things barge in and camp out on the sofa of my mind. Once I feed these freeloaders and send them on their way, I'll be able to invite my Muse back in for a cup of tea and some cookies. Gotta have the cookies.

I hope your creative projects are uncluttered and your Muse is unfettered this week!

Pressure and Deadlines: The Fire Beneath Your Butt

"Writers are attuned to deadlines. Most, as students, wrote their term papers the night before they were due. We are energized by impending doom, motivated by a sense that now the work really must be completed; someone is waiting for it." -- Susan Shaugnessy, Walking On Alligators





"A deadline is, simply put, optimism in its most ass-kicking form. ... Because in the artistic realms, deadlines do much more than just get projects finished. They serve as creative midwives, as enthusiastic shepherds adept at plucking the timid inspirations that lurk in the wings of our imaginations and flinging them bodily into the bright light of day." -- Chris Baty, No Plot? No Problem!

Raise your hand if you've ever written a term paper on the bus on the way to school because you'd put it off for two weeks. Yeah, that's what I thought. Anyone who's done any writing for a class, whether it be a term paper or a short story, knows how it feels to wake up with the cold realisation that it's due. Today. And it's not finished yet. It may not even be started. "Crap," we may think, "and I was going to really try to do a fantastic job on this thing this time. Oh well. Let's get it banged out so at least I don't get an incomplete for not turning it in."

My school life was full of such thoughts. As a long-time hard-core procrastinator, I frequently stuck my fingers in my metaphorical ears and sang, "La la la, I'm not listening!" when I had a project to do. It's the most difficult for me to get started. Once I get the work begun I find I build up a sense of momentum and it's easier to carry on. But when the realisation dawns that this five-page paper I've conveniently shuffled to the back of my mind for two weeks is due in three hours, some of which need to be spent doing things like eating and riding or walking to school, panic sets in. And panic is never, in my experience, conducive to writing something as pedestrian as a term paper.

It can be useful for fiction writing, though. National Novel Writing Month is a perfect example. Your plan is to write about 1600 words each day. Not a big task. If you start to slip, though, if you miss a day of writing, or put up a low word count for the day, the task gets bigger. Now you need even more words to catch up. At the end I'm usually behind at least somewhat, and that 'Oh My God I have to HURRY or I'll fail!' feeling sets in.

And I write. I write like the house is on fire and sometimes it's contrived and stupid, with wooden dialogue and idiotic plot leaps. But sometimes it's good. Sometimes my characters surprise me, for good or for ill. When a secondary character suddenly runs off to war unexpectedly, it can be great for the word count, but potentially bad for the plot, which spirals off in an unintended and perhaps useless direction. More often than not, though, I find that those side-tracks can lead to more character development and even a subplot all their own.

There's a feeling of triumph, of accomplishment when a thing is done. When I've finished up in here, particularly after beating Blogger with a stick on the days I'm composing my initial post in it, I feel like I've made a checkmark in a worthwhile box. "Well," I think, "that's finished. Maybe now I should feed the cat. She's been trying to paw my door down for half an hour."

I write here in this blog six days out of seven. Even bloggers get a chance to rest, right? I sit down and write nearly every day because I know someone is reading it. And even if those people aren't waiting with bated breath for the next post to appear, it means something to me that they're waiting. They're anticipating. And it gives me the motivation to deliver. Even on days when my mind is being crazy and coming up with all kinds of weirdnesses, it's part of the process and it's my dim hope that someone's entertained by it. My audience forms my deadline, the expectation that I'll produce this blog (nearly) every day, and gives me the motivation to write.