Tracks

October 1, 2012 By in Petulance 73 Comments

Photograph by Ellen Von Unwerth

Over the weekend I worked out a schedule for the rest of my book. I broke it all down to specific tasks and parts of work: the rough draft, due from me to myself by the first of the year; the revisions parsed into sections, to be complete by April 1; any remaining issues to be dealt with over the rest of the month of April, with a complete manuscript to be ready for my editor on May 1, 2013. It took me a while to work this out. I wanted a schedule that would push me through each small step with just enough time to reasonably finish, but not so much elbow room that I will waste a month polishing my toenails instead of getting to the business at hand.

The schedule represents a final desperate attempt to get around what the writing books call my ‘internal editor’, who sees what I’ve written and immediately itches to scratch it all out. My pages look like a toddler got hold of them and tried to draw me a picture. I have started and restarted over and over, trying to figure out this story and write it the fuck down. I have snarled and cursed and paced around the living room, leaving tracks in the carpet and flecks of spittle on my keyboard. Little Izzy is starting to realize her new owner is a raving lunatic. You should see her worried eyes.

This is it. If I can’t get a draft down by the end of the year, I will shoot this fucker in the head and start something new.

You heard it here first.

Let’s have it, yo. What are your intentions? I want dates, word counts, commitments.

73 Responses

  2. Next week I will be on a week-long writing residency. It’s only one measly week, but already I have such goddamn big plans. I secretly expect to plan out and write an entire novel draft, revise six short pieces that have been gathering dust, write a few more new short pieces, read five novels and do yoga every day. I know this is not realistic and that I’m putting all my eggs in this one residency basket (“oh, it’s okay if I get nothing done this week — I’ll have all of next week free!”) but I can’t stop myself.

    As long as I actually work on something all week, and really kick my own ass and buckle down, I hope I can report back that I’m happy with how it all went.

  3. I will commit myself to finish the second draft on this story by end of the month. I want to send query letters out by middle end of November. My commitments need longer to brew because I’m a slacker.

  4. I’m scared to make intentions, so lousy I am at keeping them. I don’t know how I’ve stayed faithfully married for, lo, these nineteen years (come February). I’ve been sober and vegetarian for over twenty. So I have kept some commitments, and they were tough ones. I can sit in a chair for twelve hours and work on a video. The way it works for me now is that I essentially paint myself in a corner, then let the pressure build: buy a month-long unlimited yoga membership so that I’ll go at least three times a week. Preach to other yogis about spiritual practices, knowing I’ll be a hypocrite if I don’t do the same. I can’t seem to do that with writing, no matter what I try, even as I sit here, spending fifteen minutes writing about writing on your blog. What could I write in fifteen minutes? Something is better than nothing, isn’t it? Yet I put it off because I think I need more time in which to settle down and think. Part of it is that I may be afraid to be alone with myself, even though I love to be alone. Is it unconscious, or just a bad habit of distracting myself that I’ve gotten into?

    Something tells me I have a book’s worth (or almost) of material hidden in my piles of notebooks, and all I have to do is dust them off and work on them, piece by piece. I think I’ve been trying to psych myself out to create a long narrative, paralyzed by the blank screen, when all that may be necessary is to is gather the pieces I’ve already started and discern the pattern: for my life, for a book.

    • Maybe you could make a date with yourself to simply read your notebooks. That’s all, just read them and see what comes of it. Rather than focusing on what you need to write, spend some time getting familiar with your own work. I’ll bet if you read it and begin a little light organizing, you’d feel inspired to make something of what you already have.

      Facing yourself, tricking yourself, getting around yourself is the hardest part of writing. That confrontation happens literally on an hour-by-hour basis and I think you have to attack it that way.

  5. In two weeks I’m taking my WIP away for a month in the country to finish it. I vowed I’d have the final revisions of my first novel to my agent before I leave. And I will. Act first and the feelings will follow is my motto.

  6. I intend to start querying Pigeon by the end of this month. Probably.

    But I am doing Nanowrimo this November to jump start the new novel. Most likely.

  7. By the end of November, I’ll be done. I’ll shop it around in December and that’s it. Cut and dried. On to the next thing, whatever it is. (OOo! I see what you mean. Putting it in writing makes me believe it’s real.)

  8. first, for you, sweet averil, write it the fuck down and you will figure it out as you go. ass in chair. every day. write. damn it. it will unfold before you as you go. trust me. trust yourself. you have to travel the road to know the road.

    second, for me, i’ve never been a so-many-words-a-day writer. not have i been much on deadlines, unless an editor had one and then i am pure professional. i spent the past spring and summer reviewing all my unpublished stories, polishing those that still had burrs and blemishes, and regrouping them along with those published (which, thank god, i don’t ever have to work on again), and a few new ones to fill in the gaps, into short story collections that i try to get small presses to publish.

    a project i’ve also been working on the past year is a rewrite of a screenplay to convert it into a novel. i decided i needed to do a bunch of research first. i had thought i would have the research done in august, but now it looks like it will be done by the end of this month. after that, the rewrite should be done by the new year. it can then join my other nine unpublished books in my perpetual game of bang-my-head-on-the-wall-till-something-gives.

    • Tetman, oh Tetman. I am so lost. I’m showing up, believe me, but the words are coming out all wrong and I don’t know how to make them right. I decided to set aside everything I have and begin again without all my scraps in the way. All my previous work is on a separate hard drive; out of sight, out of mind. I have three moleskin notebooks and a set of pens. I will not look at the scrapalanche until I’ve filled all three, on December 31, 2012.

      Whether this plan will work, I don’t know. I have a silver bullet just in case.

      You are the kind of writer I admire, working up a sweat with the hammer and anvil. You don’t need any of this.

      • don’t try to “make them right.” the harder you force them, the more they resist. it’s like trying to push your fingers through a cornstarch-and-water mix, or like trying to herd cats.

        clearing the decks and beginning again can work. it can be scary, but it can work. there’s more than once–many more times than once–i’ve had to do that. this is something all us writers are familiar with, this having to toss the damn thing out and start over. good thing the cost of our materials is so low.

        one important difference between you and me, averil, is you have an agent and a contract and i have neither. you’ve got one book on the runway, preparing for takeoff, and another book in the hanger, being assembled. you can do this.

        i have every confidence in your ability to write your book. relax. let it flow. let it come out as it will and as it does you can fashion it into a final work. what we writers do is not unlike what a sculptor does. we have our tools and our training and our experience. part of what our experience teaches us is that the material has its own properties, which must be respected and worked with in order for us to craft out of it the final acceptable piece.

        • Yes, it’s scary but also freeing. I need to regain perspective and stop trying to press the characters into my idea of the story. Doing so has robbed them of dimension; I haven’t been able to know them because I’ve already made all their decisions, turned them into cardboard cut-outs and glued them into their scenes. That’s the wrong way to go about this. I need to let the characters pick their own fights and come up with their own solutions. It’s the only way to bring them to life.

          The above is a brand new discovery, brought on by your thoughtful comments. Thank you, Tetman.

        • averil, that’s exactly it. let them live. they will show you who they are. get them to dance the steps you want them to dance. they won’t all hit the right steps the way you envisioned the choreography, but they will be alive.

          the world they are in is one you have created. you have the over-arching control. you are never in any danger of losing that. but as you see, for your people to be free within the constraints of this world you have made, they must be free to “pick their own fights and come up with their own solutions.”

  9. i need a plan. i’ve lost my direction. thank you for the push.

    in a month and 8 days, i’m headed west to visit three of my favorite writers. sooooooo…

    october 1: i’m stating it right here, right now, i gotta get my shit together. tomorrow morning, i’m back to morning pages. no excuses.
    october 3: i’m blogging a list of articles/essays i wanna write (10–i’m listing 10 titles)
    october 9: i’m picking one of those titles and writing the mother fucker
    november 8: i’ll show up with a list of places i pitched the essay

    there. no word counts, but it’s more intention than i’ve put on paper in weeks. thank you thank you thank you.

  10. Dates? Word counts? Commitments? As I read this, I nearly bent down in your general direction out of respect. I can corral marketing ideas that way (sometimes I have to work at not putting carts before horses) but I’ve been getting into trouble when I try to schedule words. So far my brain only cooperates when it feels like it.

    • My brain never feels like it, that’s my problem. Every writing session is a slog during the first draft. I would so much rather be revising, that’s where the joy comes in. I have to keep reminding myself that I can’t get to that part without going through this part first.

      • I hear you. But can you let your (very precious) past experience and the current interest in your work, from the publisher as well as your friends, wash over you as you move forward? Maybe you can slog through this at more of a glide by privately being hyper aware of how good you are in the driver’s seat — by seducing your brain with an unexpected, smug knowing smile. You’re the boss. Make it follow you to that joy of revising. Maybe make it scream the good scream along the way …

        • That’s sweet of you, Ré, and I won’t deny that it’s wonderful to have such a network of support around me. But I’ve found that in the wee hours when it’s me and the blank white page, no amount of encouragement is enough to get the words down. Desperation is the only certain motivator.

          Screaming helps, though, either way.

          XO

  11. I’m really bad at this. I’m way too go-with-the-flow and then I’ll have a day wasted on a car breakdown. And now it’s even worse – I’ve just come back from a writing conference where everything seems possible. Argh! Sure, I can write a sequel to DLC (they keep asking for it), sure I can concentrate on literary fiction and drag that thriller I was dumb enough to mention out of my drawer. And yeah, the story collection coming out next year I’m supposed to be finalising for editing – of course I’m focused on it.

    Confusion reigns here. Perhaps I should go to the bar with a notebook and sketch out my plans.

    • I suppose this is what happens when you’ve been writing for a while. You end up with piles of work and all these options about what to focus on next. I can see that the choices would be paralyzing.

      I’m for the bar idea. Have a glass of wine and write yourself a game plan.

  12. I have no doubt you will do exactly as your plan suggests.

    Leave me a cord wrapped up in a hundred knots and I’ll sit and untangle them for an hour. Hand me a blank page and a pen and I’m suddenly gasping for air. What TP said resonates strongly. Part of it is that I may be afraid to be alone with myself, even though I love to be alone.

    • Interesting, this love and fear of being alone. I’ve spent a lot of time alone here lately and there will be many more weeks (years?) of that to come. When my son is at school, I turn everything off and just listen to the silence, and the birds outside, and the voices in the park across the street. Part of me loves that lonely time, and another part is casting about for engagement. So I get you.

  13. I’m a guy. We’re scared of making commitments. I’ll be happy just to get a couple more short stories in what I think are final form by the end of December.

  14. I feel kind of silly doing this because I’ve done it before to no avail, but maybe there’s more power here.
    Okay. November 24th is my deadline. I am on book five of seven journals as far as typing. By that date all will be typed, rearranged, and I will throw myself on the mercy of at least one person who I’ll beg to read it.
    Man oh man. Such a scary thought.

    • Okay, Lyra, November 24 it is. You can do this, chickadee. Schedule the shit out of it, every step of the way. Put your inner businesswoman on the case.

      XO

  15. By end of October I will edit a short story I wrote last year and get it submitted to the same journal I didn’t submit it to last year. Thanks for the boot.

  16. First draft of WIP probably by the end of the year. Then into the closet it goes for a couple of months, while I turn my attention to start the big project–a rewrite of a historical fiction I wrote 3 years ago, before I really knew what I was doing (not that I know now, but maybe I’m closer).

  17. I am booking along. Hahaha. No, really, I am. I’m on about the 3rd or 7th draft, depending on the chapter or section, so right now I’m allowing room for steady (read: constant) editing and rewriting. I’m working 4 or 5 days a week, sometimes for 2 hours, sometimes for 5. I’m giving it all the emotional energy I have and then going to bed at 8:30 at night. I’m boring as hell, but my book is not. (I tell myself this to keep trudging forward.)

    So to your question: I have no deadline. If I have a deadline, I’ll panic and freeze. But I am on my way to finishing this fucker. I am I am I am. Steady as she goes.

    • “I’m on about the 3rd or 7th draft, depending on the chapter or section”

      Oof, I hear you. That’s how my last book went toward the end. Keep after it, Teri, you’re almost there and your book is going to be amazing. I can’t wait to read it.

      XO

  18. I stepped away from my first draft about six months ago. I was lost and life was complicated so I gave myself permission to stop. But now I’m thinking about it again, considering new plot ideas and making notes. I must be ready to try again. And so I will. My goal is to have the first draft done by the end of June next year. I think I’ve got something here, but it needs me. And now, finally, I need it. I write better in the winter time anyway. So end of June, here I come.

    • Winter is so much better for writing, isn’t it? The house is cozy and it’s dark all evening, and there are stews and casseroles that can bubble away while you’re writing. Good times.

  19. OK, Averil, you want fear? Here it is. I’ve got 60,665 words staring at me. Hurry up and make us good.

    How about a chapter edit a week? It might not be an entire reworking, but a significant revision or tightening. That would get me a new draft in *ulp* May or so.

  20. I’ve been peeking around the door all day because I don’t want to answer this question, but I guess I already shared it with you so why not here. I’m still shooting for the first draft done by the end of this month. Very scary, but kind of a good thing too. It’s making me refine my process because I have to think about how I’m going to get her done when it’s not an open ended proposition.

    • Self-imposed deadlines are a big deal for me. I need the ticking clock (or is that a bomb?). I need to make plans, or I’ll never get anything done. I hope it works for you too, Deb.

      • Yeah, makes sense. You consistently produce good stuff, so there has to be something to it. I’m finding planning is almost more important than the writing. When I plan, and know what I’m going to work on, the writing part is actually quite easy and I enjoy it. It’s the working out story lines, what to include, what to cut that is taking most of my time. But putting it all up front in a visible format saves me hours of writing time.

  21. Hey Averil – the way you write here is amazing, I can’t even imagine what your book will read like…

    For me, I’d like to have a rough draft by the first of the year too. Word count = nothing less than 85k. At this point, all this writing I’m doing is nothing more than creating a backlist, but what the hell. It’s fun for now. It might not be when the budget for Ramen noodles runs out.

  22. You’ll get there, lady. No fear.

    I’m in major deadline meltdown mode myself. Draft due in 2 weeks and I know I’ll get there too, but my fingernails (or lack of them) tell a different story…

  23. Oh dear. I have a 40 minute period every morning in which to write. I am not looking at word counts but attempting to write out one scenario each day. They are stories of my mother’s childhood, which she told me over the summer. And also stories of my childhood relationship with my mom. I’m not sure of any order yet, so I figure I’ll write them into story format, one a day, until something clicks.

    Also Wry has me looking into writing for some local publications, journals, or magazines. She’s convinced me I should try it. So my goal is to have a short piece or two to submit by end of the year. I assume I’ll write what I know here – teaching and parenting!

    • Well, if you’re going to write about teaching and parenting, you should check out Jess’s blog, if you haven’t already. She’s had some great success in that area and might be able to offer you some advice about publication.

      I love the idea of telling your mother’s childhood stories. No matter what comes of it or what shape the collection takes when you’re finished, that’s work worth doing.

  24. Okay so I’m late to the party, it was my birthday on the first, I got depressed on the second and today I’m bummed about…well I’m just fucking bummed.
    Anyway, Averil my dear you are too much. How the hell do you have time to write, you’re answering everybody….go girl.
    Anyway again, by the time I leave for work, around 9:30AM I’ve checked my email, answered what needs to be answered, blogged, posted, commented, facebooked and started another column. After work, I check to see who has commented on my wonderful words of wisdom and stink-pile, eat, watch husband fall asleep on couch and slink away to laptop the rest of my column, (did I tell you I hate deadlines?) and then I work on my latest novel, which I will have first draft done by, I think, yes, maybe by, sometime before the day with a heart on it. Yes, by heart-day or sooner.
    If my husband sleeps through Jeopardy and Wheel I’ll have an extra hour to write.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 111 other followers