The Paula Process

Learning to learn

2009-10-29T13:11:00.003-04:00

I hate being unskilled. But let's face it, that's what I am -- an unskilled writer.

Oh, I can put words together, often beautifully. I can plan a novel pretty well, I have an inexhaustible imagination.

But I can't put one word in front of the other in a sustained fashion. I begin to doubt. I get impatient. I want to feel that I am an expert without taking the time and trouble to develop the expertise.

I begin to think that because writing is hard, it is not for me; I think writing is easy for successful writers, and that finding writing effortful is evidence that I am not good at it.

When the going gets tough, I give up. And I give up despite the evidence that I have talent. I forget Woody Allen's observation that 80% of success is just showing up.

Another false start

2009-09-22T12:26:00.003-04:00

The idea that was going to make me famous doesn't work, at least, not in its current form. It has an interesting protagonist, but her conflicts aren't fully fleshed out. Her antagonist is society generally, but her society doesn't have good enough reasons to hate her. The twist is interesting -- the story takes place three decades from now.

I think these problems are fixable, and maybe one day I'll fix them.

What I do not think is fixable, or at least, not obviously so, is the setting. The setting is not interesting -- it's just New York City, but not any particularly interesting aspect of it that I know about. At most, it could be a Sex in the City-type setting -- so you see the problem.

So I have gone back to the project that originally inspired this blog, which has so much setting that I was inspired, early in the project, to try to draw a picture with a fountain pen -- and I don't draw.

I've updated my word count to reflect drafting on that project so far. I am doing Holly Lisle's How to Think Sideways course, and I'm going to work on that project in the course. The course is scheduled to take six months, and that's fine. I'm not going anywhere.

626

2009-09-02T09:35:00.003-04:00

Because I have not written for a few days, the number of words per day that I have to average in order to have 100,000 words by the time I go on vacation in Aruba has risen to 626. I set up some formulas in an Excel spreadsheet, so that all I have to do is update the number of words in my draft and push a button to recalculate the sheet -- and then I'll know what my average word count has to be. If I haven't written, I just push the button to recalculate the sheet, so that the number of days until Aruba is updated and reflected in the calculations.

If I can figure out a way to turn this spreadsheet into a widget to put on my blog, maybe I can share it with other people!

236

2009-08-29T09:54:00.002-04:00

That's my average number of words per day on my novel so far, counting from August 4.

At this rate, I'll have a 100,000-word first draft in approximately one-year and two months. *heavy sigh*

On the other hand, what was I doing one year and two months ago? I certainly wasn't writing a novel, but if I had been, I'd have a first draft by now.

I have a new goal date to finish a first draft -- I want it done before my husband and I leave for our annual Aruba vacation January 31, 2010. *pausing for effect* I figured out I'll need to average 613 words per day to hit that target.

"Clustering" to the rescue!

2009-08-25T09:52:00.003-04:00

Hadn't really moved forward to a new scene for several days, been feeling a little stuck. The first lesson of How To Think Sideways describes "clustering," which I understand as brainstorming using a map. Being a left-brain person, I had to fight a little resistance to doing it -- but thankfully, I rebelled at Holly's effrontery in labeling me and attacked the assignment with gusto.

In fewer than ten minutes I had gotten so much information from my "muse" that I went right to my draft and typed out the first few hundred words of the next scene. I had reached the state of clarity on what needed to be communicated that had been lacking, and which had frozen me. I really need a clear picture of where people are, what they're doing, what they're thinking, and why they had to be where they are before I can get going. I have to feel like I'm kind of taking dictation to draft.

So, a few hundred words isn't a deluge, but I feel energized and looking forward to completing the scene when my day job releases me again!

Back to school

2009-08-23T17:36:00.002-04:00

I've signed up for Holly Lisle's How to Think Sideways course. I always did well in school and I'm going to try to recreate the kind of positive outside pressure I got from course deadlines.

Or something.

Little things mean a lot

2009-08-16T14:33:00.002-04:00

I have been writing in dribs and drabs today, a few hundred words at a time. This does not mean I have waited for a respectable clump of words to accumulate before updating my word count meter. On the contrary, I have been updating it obsessively every time I finish a few paragraphs and feel in need for a break.

I think I've changed the word count four or five times today already. It's extremely gratifying to see the word count increase, even if it's only by 250 words at a time.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

2009-08-14T08:08:00.002-04:00

I keep re-reading the bit that I've already written and making little edits. Little edits, mind you, because I like what I've written so far. But I know that no-one's allowed to read what I've written, including and especially me, until the first draft is done.

OK, that's an exaggeration. I can re-read as much as is necessary to launch me into the next drafting assignment. But I am afraid if I keep re-reading and approving the first 2,000 words, I won't be able to throw them out if if find, when the draft is complete, that they simply don't work.

So, Paula -- you have been warned. Knock it off.

By the way, today is August 14th. In case any of you nudniks are keeping track.

One bird at a time

2009-08-13T09:11:00.004-04:00

That's how I feel it's going this week: bird by bird. Not too upset, just wishing my 9 to 5 wasn't quite so absorbing and draining.

The day job is actually going well, better than usual this week -- but unfortunately, that means it's claiming more mental space than usual, perhaps legitimately so. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, no matter how wonderful my book will eventually turn out to be, it is wildly unlikely that I will ever make as much money as a writer as I currently do in my day job, where I'm pretty successful. So the job is worth a little care and feeding from time to time.

It always helps to complain

2009-08-07T09:09:00.003-04:00

Perhaps this is how I need to start every writing session: by complaining about how much I do not want to write and how afraid I am of failing and then having to give up the writing dream.

It's time for me to go off to my day job -- but I've managed to put down over 600 words since my previous post just one hour ago.

Are we having fun yet?

2009-08-07T08:11:00.003-04:00

No. We're not.

Today I am a not-having-fun writer. But I have determined, after making an addition to my private "Angst and Complaints" journal, that being a not-having-fun writer is much better than the alternative: being a not-having-fun something-else.

Not that I've had much opportunity to write this week. I am looking forward to a writingful weekend.

I didn't really mean to . . .

2009-08-04T09:10:00.003-04:00

. . . but I just wrote the first paragraph of my first draft. Sixty-five words.

I sat down in front of my computer this morning wondering: what's the next step for me on this project? I attempted to prompt myself by looking at at some notes I'd written yesterday morning. And without even thinking much about it or even being fully conscious of what I was doing, I typed up the first paragraph of the book, and liked it for a start.

So there ya go. Drafting starts August 4th. A little ahead of my original schedule.

Inventory

2009-07-29T08:01:00.007-04:00

Let's see . . . I've got a five-page synopsis. I've got over 70 scene cards in narrative order. I have about 150 pages of novel pre-writing notes on characterization, themes, plotting, structure, Snowflake . . . and pages of journal notes complaining and agonizing along the way.

I've decided that I need to ease myself into beginning the draft the way I would stick my toe in the water before diving in. I'm going to take Ingermanson's advice and do a "treatment" of up to 50 pages as a "-1" draft. Then I might do a screenplay as a "zero" draft. When I get to the official first draft, I should have a good idea whether the plot is hanging together, and whether there are enough conflicts and tension.

Finally, the result of my "one-pass" revision will really be a fourth draft, and by that time the baby should be of age and I'll have to shove her out the door and start working on something else.

I have already considered and rejected the possibility that I am procrastinating, so you can shut up about that right now.

I'm being polite, you know. I have chosen not to remind anyone that my original deadline to begin a first draft was in fact August 14, not August 1.

I ain't missin' you at all

2009-07-25T13:04:00.002-04:00

Been missing deadlines right, left and center this week. But still very much heads down on this, so I don't care. I still feel like it's going really well, and I'm still shooting to start drafting August 1st.

It's amazing how much things can change in a month. At the beginning of this month I started drafting on a completely different project in a different genre -- science fiction. Now I'm writing general fiction.

Of course, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Different project, same procedural posture, as it were. I have never yet finished any book project I've started. But there's always a first time.

Another one bites the dust

2009-07-19T22:39:00.006-04:00

Another deadline, I mean. And I mean this in a good way, as in: I met another writing deadline. Today was my deadline for finishing a four-page synopsis.

I finished a very unpolished 14-page synopsis, 4,440 words. Hey, at least I have an excellent idea about what's going on in the story.

I wasn't really trying to meet this deadline, because I wasn't aware of it. I thought I was trying to meet a deadline for telling the story from the point of view of each of my major characters -- yesterday's deadline, which I missed. (I'm trusting you with this. Don't tell anybody.)

Sometime early this afternoon I realized I was making excellent progress on a synopsis, and I thought I was ahead of schedule. *shrugs*

I have two days to set my initial scene order. I've already identified a lot of scenes, so I'm well on my way.

On deck

2009-07-19T13:39:00.000-04:00

The view from my deck as I write . . . wouldn't you love to work here?

As opposed to what?

2009-07-18T09:17:00.005-04:00

I heartily recommend Thinking Directions, Jean Moroney's business of dispensing practical tools and advice for setting priorities and thinking clearly.

One tool of hers in particular is in my mind a lot lately, and of course, I cannot think of it by name. It involves asking the question: as opposed to what?

As I battle the angst and self-doubt any writer or aspiring writer endures, and I listen to the interior monologue telling me writing is hard, it sucks, it's not worth the time, it's stupid, it's silly, why make up stories, don't I have something better to do . . . I have a dueling voice gaining strength and stridency in mind, and it asks: as opposed to what?

This sits my butt back down and makes me write words, any words, any words that move me any perceptible amount forward towards my goal.

[Have a look at her "Thinking Flow Diagram."]

Whoo-hoo!

2009-07-16T21:01:00.001-04:00

I gave myself a small writing task, set myself a deadline, and met it! Without an inordinate amount of angst or procrastination! And with three hours to spare!

Deadlines

2009-07-14T20:31:00.004-04:00

Today I "decided" that I would sell my book for a $250,000 advance six months from now, or by January 14, 2010.

I assume you've been rendered catatonic, making a collapse from hysterical laughter unrealistic.

Really, this is just an as-if exercise, pulled from the pages of Barbara Sher's Live the Life You Love. The idea is to write a "press release" announcing some dream event that is at least theoretically possible, and then reverse engineer what has to occur in order for the dream event to take place.

Memoirs of a Geisha was Arthur Golden's first novel, and he sold it for $250,000 in 1996. You may choose to point out to me that it took him ten years to write it, but I think that would be a very hostile position for you to take. *riffing off Anne Lamott*

If you can write 50,000 words in a NaNoWriMo, in theory, you can write a 100,000-word draft in two months. Most saleable novels are in the 70,000 to 100,000 - word range.

Holly Lisle says you can complete a "One-Pass Revision" in a couple of weeks -- and that a good one-pass is revision enough.

So if I take two months to write a draft, two weeks during which I don't look at the novel at all to take a breath and get a fresh eye, two weeks to do a revision -- that means I could be sending queries to agents three months after I begin drafting.

My target date to send the first queries is November 14. That's four months from today, and it gives me two whole months from queries to target book sale date of January 14, 2010. *waits for people to recognize irony in previous sentence*

I'm just sayin', is all.

Bird by Bird

2009-07-14T07:56:00.003-04:00

Re-reading Bird by Bird, the modern writing classic by Anne Lamott. It's funny. There are good nuggets of advice in there. It's also annoying, because of how important God is to her. But on the whole, worthwhile and inspirational. Particularly her exhortation to write short assignments about what you can see through a 1" x 1" picture frame, as beautifully as you can.

Relates to Holly Lisle's advice to do things all-out for ten minutes at a time. For some reason, the time thing doesn't resonate with me. Maybe it sends me into rebellion, I get wrapped up in what seems to be "someone's" arbitrary deadline. But thinking about it conceptually -- that is, identifying some tiny writing goal, focusing on executing that, and only after it's complete moving on to the next one, perhaps after taking a break -- that speaks to me.

It's been a whole week . . .

2009-07-11T15:42:00.002-04:00

. . . and I still like my latest brain wave!

Right now, going with Randy Ingermanson's "How To Write A Novel Using The Snowflake Method". Seems like a pretty methodical way to develop an idea, or determine that it's a bunch of crap that can't be developed. He says if you do it right, you could spend 100 hours setting up a book and another 150 writing the first draft.

I could have a first draft completed four months from today if I average 2 hours a day on his Snowflake Method. Sounds good to me! If it's going to end up being unsellable, as is likely with a first novel, it will be good to have not spent too much time on it!

Workin' hard or hardly workin'?

2009-07-09T08:48:00.001-04:00

Workin' hard! Doing novel pre-writing, solving plot and characterization problems, having fun.

This project requires very, very little research, which is good, I should be able to move to drafting pretty soon.

That's the assignment for this weekend -- give myself some deadlines to move to drafting quickly.

And another thing . . .

2009-07-05T08:57:00.001-04:00

I just thought of a last line for this new book that brought tears to my eyes. I have never done that to myself, made myself teary, with any fiction idea of my own. Never.

Fame and fortune, here I come

2009-07-05T08:28:00.003-04:00

Ain't blogging great? Now the whole world can know the exact moment when I came up with the book idea that's going to make me rich and famous. *snorts her coffee*

Seriously, though, I was half-asleep in bed this morning when I came up with an idea that really excites me. This actually happens to me quite often, but this one does feel different, in that it's a very broad theme presented through a very specific, controversial and in some respects hilarious character. It's a satire, which I don't have any idea how to write. So this could be another one of my great ideas that just never comes to fruition.

But I bet if I told Murdoch about this one, she'd tell me to marry him quick because he's a great catch.

This sucks

2009-07-03T19:17:00.002-04:00

The last time -- the only other time -- I did NaNoWriMo, I seem to recall it starting off better. This is not starting off well. I am glad that I am writing a few hundred words every day. I mean, if I write 800 words a day for 100 days, that's 80,000 words. But I don't like what I'm doing, it's not exciting me.

According to J.K Rowling, the British author Iris Murdoch said: "writing [is] like getting married, you shouldn't commit yourself until you can't believe your luck."

I'm not feeling very lucky at the moment.

Pulling teeth

2009-07-02T21:26:00.003-04:00

Well, I did another 1200 or so words, but it really felt like pulling teeth. Writing can be hard work.

Not even tempted to re-read what I wrote. I suppose that's good.

On the bright side -- I am about 1/20th of the way to 50,000 words.

It's a start

2009-07-01T21:31:00.001-04:00

I did just over 1200 words this evening. I'm going to need to average more than that every day if I want to hit 50,000 words by July 31, but I'm pleased with what I've done. This was definitely not an ideal day to write, for personal reasons.

I even like a lot of what I wrote.

And I enjoyed myself.

Hooray for me!

EEK!

2009-07-01T09:48:00.002-04:00

Time to put up or shut up. I have to try to take some comfort that it will only be a month-long sprint . . . a month of writing utter crap, I'm certain of it. I'm not really ready to start, there's so much background work this project requires. On the other hand, there's SOOOO much possible background work that could go into it, it's probably best to just work up a quick-and-dirty horrible first draft and get an actual list of holes that have to be filled.

Just sayin'

2009-06-28T13:40:00.000-04:00

The Paula Progress

2009-06-27T19:26:00.002-04:00

I found a word-count meter from Writertopia. I can change the mood of the cartoon character but I can't change the target number of words, which is set at the NaNoWriMo standard of 50,000. It's cute.

I'm at zero words but I feel fine, since my start date is July 1 and I continue to do background work on the novel. Currently working on world building, writing the history of the future.

Crosshairs

2009-06-25T19:36:00.005-04:00

Here's a picture that I drew as part of a thinking class exercise:

It's a possible scene from my trilogy (yes, trilogy) that I had a very clear visual picture of, and I wanted to see if by drawing it I could learn a little more about the plot or characters. And I did. But I'm not telling. ;-)

Another thinking exercise led me to try to drop my own sights, so to speak. So the short-term writing goal for this project is to pick about 50,000 words' worth of scenes that I have already planned, and then do my own NaNoWriMo in July to write a 50,000-word first draft using these scenes.

Who are they?

2009-06-24T08:49:00.000-04:00

I think it's interesting that I've done over 100 pages of pre-writing and have very few names of characters. I know the first names of my hero, his wife, and their two children. I know the first and last name of one of the main bad guys. I know the first name of the hero's sidekick. But I don't know the hero's last name, I don't know the name of the main villain, and have no ideas about the names of the other players. On top of that, I have no idea what anyone looks like! I actually think this is a good sign -- I'm focusing on characterization, not superficial things. And people's names or looks won't be important to what happens to them or how they act.

Apropos of characterization, in an attempt to really flesh out and emphathize with my characters, including and perhaps especially the bad guys, I've decided to write descriptions of all the real-life people I really loathe for one reason or another. I plan to shred whatever I ultimately write, but I think it will help me understand bad guys better. Then I think I'll do the same for people in my personal life I really love or admire.

Process, process, process

2009-06-18T09:41:00.002-04:00

This is definitely a blog about my writing process.

Holly Lisle's e-books have been good to me so far. Definitely don't agree with everything she's recommending -- the beginning of her character clinic is annoying me for its focus on Maslow and altruism, for Christ's sake. But it's so valuable to have a concrete place to begin, with very specific suggestions and questions to ask yourself to get the process going.

I do a lot of good thinking in the shower. Thinking about Lisle's character clinic and Maslow's needs reminded me of Myers-Brigg personality type, and that I need to go with my strengths in this area. Which made me theorize on the writing strengths of each of the personality dimensions.

Extraverted -- networking, writers' groups, seeking expertise, feedback and advice in person

Introverted -- willingness to do deep dives into the requirements of writing expertise, willing to spend time alone reading, thinking and writing

Sensing -- concentrating on the the actions of characters and plot, approaching both from the how and then moving to why

Intuition -- focusing on the big pictures of goals and motivations, approaching from the why and then moving to the how

Thinking -- directing critical abilities on proper process, recognizing plot holes easily

Feeling -- trusting subjective judgement, empathizing with characters

Judging -- setting and sticking to a writing schedule

Perceiving -- ability to roll with surprises that develop while writing and make use of them.

All this is my preliminary, knee-jerk take on the matter, of course.

Time to start posting novel progress . . .

2009-06-16T12:41:00.000-04:00

First thing is, I have to find a word-count meter to put on the blog page. This one has been recommended: http://www.spontaneousderivation.com/2008/02/06/6-word-meters-and-trackers-for-the-word-count-obsessed/.