Writers' Methods. Everyone is different...

The new book is going well, but I won't mention word counts; if you've been following, you'll have noticed the increase in the side bar.

I always know things are humming along properly when I hear interior conversations between the characters when I'm supposed to be watching the news. I apologize to Jim Lehrer's Newshour, but sometimes it does drag, and that's when I sneak off to the computer to get that dialogue down.

Perhaps it's appropriate to mention how I write. I've discussed it before, but some of you could have missed it. We are all so different in our approach to the work, but it can't hurt to hear my take on it.

Once I begin physically writing - that is, not writing in my head, but typing - I am very fast at getting the words down. I usually do a complete chapter before I stop and get off the rollercoaster. I'll take a break, then come back and read that chapter again, correcting, amending, and, I figure, improving. I then go back to the previous couple of chapters and re-read them. Something I've just written could well upset something I'd said earlier. If I'm really on a roll, I might start the next chapter. About once a week, I re-read the whole manuscript and do another clean-up, which never - ever - ends.

In other words, the manuscript is being vetted, and added to, as I go. I am constantly inserting new snippets (which came to me while I was washing up, probably) into previous chapters and this will go on for the whole book. I could be adding something to the fourth chapter when I've reached twenty-seven. When the book is finished, that so-called first draft, which is really a misnomer, I'll give it a final overhaul, but basically it should be ready to be queried.

Some of you speak of pecking away, not really into it, suffering over it. I can't work that way. If I have nothing to say, I leave it alone. A couple of days later (even a couple of years later!) the fire's back. It's worth really thinking about your own methods. Is it tedious for you most of the time? Are you writing because of guilt, thinking that you must write something or you're not a real writer? Don't do that. Don't beat yourself up. When that little daemon critter is firmly residing in you, you'll know it.

I believe that writing should be an enormous pleasure. It shouldn't be making you miserable (although there could be some of that if you're writing a particularly tragic book, but this, too, can be cathartic in a positive way). Crying over your work is one thing, but bleeding over it (metaphorically) is crazy. It should be the reason you get up in the morning, although not necessarily every morning, because we all have dry seasons. But you should definitely know what that feeling is like. It might happen for you once a week, or just once a month. You have so many other things going on in your life - most of you work full time, for Pete's sake. Don't force it. Don't put huge demands on yourself. The writing will come when it's ready, and not before. This is how you are. Accept that. Everyone is different.


For those of you who are dejected at being rejected, take a look at Query Tracker's Suzette Saxton's posting on GOOD rejection letters. Hope you get some renewed enthusiasm after reading this.


In a couple of weeks, I'll put up the first three chapters of (tentatively titled) Summer Must End. By that time, the bulk of revising and snipping should be finished on that part of the book. Not that it will be ready as the infamous First 30 Pages an agent could ask for on a good day (knowing my constant need-to-tweak), but it will be close.

AppleFest is on here this weekend, our salute to fall. This is apple country, you know. There will be dozens of stalls all along my street, and outside my house, offering their collectibles, and art, and food, and so on. And here's me freshly cash-poor because of my cunning local antique dealer.

I got seduced into buying a vintage post office desk, about the size of a large suitcase, the sort that's meant to be attached to a wall. It has a drop down door, which becomes its work surface, and it has loads of pigeonholes and drawers. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing, especially when the antique shop displays it right outside, where I can't ignore it. I tried to avert my eyes, honestly. Today I spent a good two hours trying to make room for it on my desk, moving my screen and laptop around, disrupting my dozens of paper notes, clearing an area where I think it will fit comfortably when it's delivered.

Which reminds me: that's why Macs are so good. I have the other sort. What on earth do I do with all these damned wires?

Have a great weekend.

Writing chronologically your thing, or being bold with back-insertions?

I understand that movies are shot out of sequence, perhaps not all, but definitely some. I have no idea why this happens, other than obvious things. Outside shooting would require the right weather; the actor needs to lose weight within the film (Cast Away's ending was shot at the beginning - it was easier for Tom Hanks to get really thin before the start of production, then take time off to bulk up for the early scenes); the director's preference; and other reasons beyond my knowledge.

It must be one of the greatest challenges of movie acting (other than the boring time sitting around between takes) with things so disjointed and each day's shooting unrelated to that of the day before. I really admire film editors, too, who give us the final product.

In Belle's blog recently, she expressed her dislike of writing out of sequence, the disjointedness of it. I'd never considered my feelings on it, but I've always done it. Long after I've completed chapters, an idea will pop up that simply has to be expressed in Chapter 2, or an event in Chapter 20 needs a reference to it in Chapter 10. In fact, I write about a quarter of the book, I'm guessing, out of sequence. I've inserted great chunks of dialogue into beginning sections, because I suddenly want to introduce some new event now, in this later piece of writing, and it needs an earlier clue. I imagine that all mystery writers must do this.

In a way, it's the opposite of revision, where we must remove irrelevant passages (despite how damned good they are). Just as I take out brilliantly conceived paragraphs, or even whole pages, I also need to insert things.

I'm surprised that writers would have a different take on this; I assumed everyone worked the way I do. I guess it could be perceived as scattered thinking, but life is scattered, when you think about it. We go along day-to-day, and things from our past unexpectedly come rushing in at us; events long-gone now intrude; memories temporarily blot out our present; a casual conversation reveals an unknown snippet of history that totally changes our view of someone or something. So it is with my writing.

In fact, during the writing process - not the "ass applied to the seat" work, but the internal writing, while I'm doing housework, walking, whatever - I am rarely thinking about the future content, other than the basic plot outline. I'm analyzing what's happened previously. Did he really say that in the right tone? Would she have done this willingly? Should she have spoken to him first, before acting on it?

Whatever method we use, it makes no difference to the final outcome, as long as we're enjoying the writing process - all of it. I don't like to hear that people are agonizing over their work. Of course it's brain-taxing, and often emotionally-draining, but it should always be a joy. It's temporarily painful to remove some of your brilliant words during revision, but I believe there should be nothing but love involved in adding to the original work. No tortured writer here.


A rather chicken-pecking word count yesterday - just 1600 words. They resented being put on the page, but are thankfully satisfying to read. It happens sometimes, doesn't it? The little writing muse tells us to back off a bit, take it easy. But I prefer Tally-ho! writing, the Boadicea approach. I have a feeling it will be back this weekend.

No changes to my stats this week. Still 9 Pending, 1 Partial, 1 Full, 10 No Response, 12 Rejections, for a total of 33 queries for Hafan Deg, my orphan in agent-land.

Have a good weekend, and - if you're lucky enough to have him in your life - show Dad you love him.

 

How do you write? Fast or slow?

I finished another 2200 words over the past two days, bringing me very close (I keep saying that!) to my cut-off point for the World War II memoir-within-the-novel, prior to concentrating only on present day events.

Bonnie commented that she can't write so quickly, but needs to analyze each and every word. We all have our own methods. I can't work slowly, or interrupt my flow, as I mentioned in another blog. If my writing isn't moving like a torrent, I become irritable. For me, revision can only come after those exuberant words have been poured out onto the pages en masse.

There is an excitement during this period and I barely take a break, needing to get back to it. I revise after about an hour's work, it seems, although I certainly don't time myself. This is a quick revision for obvious errors and to get a clear feel for the structure, but I don't spend too much time at it, because I don't want to spoil that zone I'm in. I then get back to the actual writing, and then revise, and so on, again and again, including the earlier sections I've already dealt with during this session.

After about four hours of this, usually by the end of a chapter, I'll do a more thorough, more or less final revision. Then I start pecking around like a chicken, finding a better word, refining a phrase or a sentence, and correcting typoes. This is slow work, as all of you know, but it's the only time I am slow.

After that, I send the whole thing to my Yola site, suitably re-fonted for readability online. At this point, it gets edited again, because errors pop out with the larger font I use there. It's then ready for those of you who are reading it online to catch up with Strachan's adventures.

Once this manuscript is complete, I'll then revise, revise, revise, for the almost final version, print it off, and edit the hard copy completely. That stage could take weeks, or months. I've been doing so well with this particular book (it wasn't so easy with Hafan Deg, for some reason) that I'm making an assumption that the revision work will not take too long at the end, because I'm very satisfied with what's complete now. I may well add more segments on the War, because I keep coming up with new anecdotes that would just add that extra something, but, at the same time, I need to keep an eye on my word count. The last thing I need at the conclusion of the work, is to have to go back and chop major sections out because I've written too much.

Were I well-published, selling, receiving some critical interest, I could easily produce 150,000 words, but lacking that stature means I must stick close to 95,000 if I want an agent to consider me. They don't like flogging new work to publishers if the work is too long. (Something to do with their costing/revenue projections, I think.)

On days when I have few other household, art blog, or online reading demands, I write at my computer from early morning and, if the buzz is in me, will work right through until dinner time, when my cats start bugging me for food. I more or less work office hours, and this suits me. I am still writing in my head long after I've switched off the computer, of course, which makes for little piles of notes on the coffee table, scribbled out when I'm meant to be following the news, or a movie. It's really hard not to go back to the computer sometimes, and I have to be very firm with myself. I guess some of you might think this is a bit obsessive, this work routine, but it's a huge joy for me, having the time to devote to it.

I've freelanced for years, working from home for other people, and I made the decision when I came to Brighton, this quiet, not too exciting (but cheap!) town, that I'd do MY stuff, be it painting or writing. Of course, the writing is the clear winner at this point.

We want to be published, need it for some vain proof that our work has substance, that it could somehow move people who read it. But that's not the reason we write. Ultimately, this need that we have, this drive, goes beyond public recognition. It's simply necessary for ourselves. We are, in fact, in love with it.