A Productive Day
Got up at 8:30 this morning and couldn’t wait to get to the computer. I’m caught up on my word count now, but still struggling with my Inner Editor and Inner Critic. I had to start this morning’s writing session in a brand new document just to resist the temptation of going back and fixing the sloppy writing that raced across my mental teleprompter while I tried to fall asleep last night.
Meanwhile, my main character continues to throw me for a loop. Despite a rather detailed outline, the book is taking on its own direction. She has let me know in no uncertain terms that SHE is in charge and that my job is simply to type whatever she chooses to reveal, regardless of all my well-considered plans.
On my way back to the computer just now, I wound up having a conversation with my daughter that perhaps only another writer can understand:
Me: “Do we have any bourbon and oranges?”
Princess: “Why? I thought you weren’t going to drink for a month.”
Me: “Yeah, but I need to remember what an old-fashioned smells like.”
Princess: “Uh, why’s that, exactly?”
Me: “Because Corinne likes them, and I’ve forgotten how they smell.”
Princess: “Who’s Corinne?”
Me: “Oh, she’s the main character in my book. Weird, I’d had her pegged as a white wine-kinda gal but apparently she likes old-fashioneds.”
Princess: “Mom? You do know she’s just somebody you made up, right?”
UPDATE: Jeff Harrell gets me.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Where in the world do you find the time???? I’m lucky to find time to just post on my blog!!! Guess I’m not as good at time management as some!
Well, you can see I was up early today and didn’t post much.
Tomorrow’s going to be another matter as I try juggling homeschooling during the day, dinner-making chores in the evening, and writing while the VH watches Monday Night Football.
But in all honesty, I couldn’t do it without VH. He knows how long I’ve been wanting to write a novel, and he also understands how hard it is for me to carve out any free minutes during my day. We made a deal last month that as long as I diligently put my ass in my chair and work on this book each and every chance I get, he’ll pull double-parenting duty. I’m keeping my word, and he’s doing an amazing job at keeping his.
I suspect, however, that he’s got a couple of ulterior motives, the first being that as long as I’m closeted in my office I won’t notice how much TV he’s watching or how many video games he’s playing. The second is easy: he’d love for me to write not just this one book but a slew of them, so many, in fact, that we could afford for him to become a man of leisure.
Which really isn’t such a bad goal, ya know?
UPDATE: I should probably also add that I’ve had this book building pressure in my brain for over 3 years, albeit not in the direction my main character has since decided it needs to go. There’s something to that, I think - the gestation period of art. I’m writing because I need to write (that’s why I blog) and it just so happens that this time I have something within me that must come out. (Oh, my. I just had a mental image reminiscent of ‘Aliens,’ which is not to say they don’t share some traits in common.)
Most days when I sit down to update EV or the other blog it’s because I want to write and need the catalyst to do so. This time, I had both the desire and the catalyst, and thanks to VH I also have the time.
That may sound strange, just as I thought it odd about two weeks ago when I read someone’s description of NaNoWriMo as “the most amazing time” in their lives. Oh, please, I thought. Try getting married. Try having babies. Try, I don’t know, breathing through your navel while holding the plow position for 45 minutes straight. A month to write a book’s not an amazing experience, I thought. It’s pressure. Sheer, unrelenting pressure.
But now I get it.
Having the support VH is giving me, being freed to let my fingers dance as my character dictates and sitting behind a closed door with a chance to get lost in my own brain as I fall in love with these creatures of my own mind who are rabidly, insistently telling me their lives stories… Well, damn. Amazing doesn’t begin to describe it. In nearly 40 years of living, these past 4 days have been the best. The best.
I’ve got a book sitting half written on my laptop right now. I wish I could motivate myself to get in and finish it.
Good luck for the rest of the month
I envy you! I have been working on a novel for 4 years. But juggling a career and being a single dad on the weekends makes this a very slow process.
It sounds like you are on a roll, though. I hope it gets published …
Me, too.
“Meanwhile, my main character continues to throw me for a loop. Despite a rather detailed outline, the book is taking on its own direction. She has let me know in no uncertain terms that SHE is in charge and that my job is simply to type whatever she chooses to reveal, regardless of all my well-considered plans.”
I’ve heard/read other writers say the same thing. I think it’s just your inner Muse/subconscious saying this story needs to go another way. I think it stems from your own experience of where apparently good stories suddenly fell short of their initial good starts.
Outpost57, I much prefer your explanation to going psychotic.