Fizzle Fizzle Fizzle

Now that November is drawing to a close, it's always hard for me to maintain focus. When it comes to certain things, I am NOT a procrastinator. I normally finish my 50,000 words for Nanowrimo in the first couple weeks (a little more if I've had to take days off). The problem is that once I've set my goal at a certain number of words and I achieve that, it's hard for me to maintain the focus to keep going until the project itself is finished. Even moreso if I've identified parts back at the beginning that I want to change.

I think that my second takeaway for Nano this year is that my goal needs to be bigger. I can write fifty thousand words in thirty days. I can write fifty thousand words in ten days if I need to. What I need is to challenge myself in a bigger, more fundamental way. I need to FINISH A STORY from "Once upon a time" to "The End." That's a little more difficult for people who start out with no plot, but I rarely have that problem.

Okay, got it? Next year, the idea isn't to get to 50k. The idea is to FINISH THE STORY.

Go Away!

We're coming up on the first part of the bingeing season, and one of the things that Thanksgiving affords is a FOUR DAY WEEKEND. How is gorging going to help your writing? It's not. BUT, the extra two days off that most of us are granted this time of year ARE.

One of the best ways to boost your productivity is to get out of your own environment for a significant period of time. It's tough to write in your natural habitat, either at home where there are always chores to be done or family, pets or plants demanding your attention, or at work where your inbox is stacked up to your very eyebrows.

Leave your natural habitat! Go to your local library or park. Go to an aquarium or zoo. Even going to your local coffee shop is fine, although for many people this is not so far out of your natural habitat. At least one isn't tempted to get up and do all the dishes.

I went on a retreat last week and wrote ~17,000 words in the time I was there, and still had time to do a little sight-seeing and take more hot baths than my skin was strictly happy with. I mentioned to my husband that the key to really productive writing and overall happiness was having no other responsibilities whatsoever. He mentioned that it didn't sound sustainable.

I'd love to find out.

Thinking: Enough vs. Too Much

Writers and artists pride themselves on the fact that their pursuit is wholly intellectual. It takes a certain amount of brains to sit down and spin out a scenario that doesn't, and in many cases couldn't, exist in real life. But a lot of writers sit in front of their computers and just stare. And stare. And stare. How do I get Maude and her sister from the party to the castle? I've just locked Throckmorton in a room with a hyena - what next?

For these occasions, I find it tremendously helpful to take off my writer hat (while keeping my writer gloves on) and just watching the action, taking dictation as it unfolds. In real life, most things happen fairly quickly. It takes a split second to run a red light, hit another car, and kill your family. It takes less than a minute for piranhas to rip apart and devour a frog.

When closing off your brain and just writing words as fast as you possibly can, you do two things: you allow events to come up naturally without overthinking or second guessing, and you move your plot forward by leaps and bounds. I have to say that my own experience has been that my plot and characters came together in a more realistic, more satisfying way than they would have if I'd sat down and planned it all out. And again, isn't that more like real life? You sit down and plan your day, but the minute you walk out the door, all bets are off. Anything could happen and sometimes, it's just a matter of time before your plan falls apart.

In real life, we don't spend a lot of time thinking and planning our every move. We tend to plan things in broad swaths and allow for the inevitable chaos that follows. Let your writing be more like your real life!

My Life Does Not Have a Rockin' Bass Track

Those were the words of my third ex-husband. He saw the soundtrack of my life being much more akin to the soundtrack from "The Little Rascals," rather than the soundtrack to "Fight Club."

What's your soundtrack? A recent study has shown that listening to happy music not only elevates your own mood, but can be good for you. My gut feeling is that it's true. I can be moved to tears of joy by music. I can also be moved to tears of grief, rage and hopelessness. And I listen to that kind of music far more than I should. My family knows exactly what I've been listening to in the car by the look on my face when I get out.

With the widespread availability of iPods and other devices that put enormous musical libraries into containers the size of cigarette packs, it's a common sight nowadays to see people plugged in everywhere - at work, at the gym, walking down the street, at the grocery store. In effect, everyone's life now has a sound track.

I have put my sound track to work for me. Each story I write has its own soundtrack so that if I'm interrupted in the middle of something, I can slip right back into the mood I was in when I wrote it. Normally it's music from the area or era of my story, but it can also be techno or country, or whatever it is that made me think of that story in the first place. It's sad to think that many of my characters have lives that are utterly governed by a rockin' bass track, but I myself am tootling along.

Read Vs. Write

I have heard a zillion times the advice that if you want to be a good writer, you have to read a lot. Various published authors have published their lists of recommended books (here's Philip Pullman's, and Nicholas Sparks', and here is a whole list of author's lists). I find most of these lists to be pretentious, saying not just "see how much better taste I have than you?" but also "see how, because I am a successful author and you are not, I have all the time in the world to track down and read obscure books?"

I don't need to be reminded of what a precious commodity my time is, and of the fact that every time I sit down with a sudoku instead of picking up Okot p'Bitek's White Teeth, I'm squandering what little time I have.

My advice for writing is not necessarily "write what you know," but "write something that you would like to read." Before you started writing, you probably read a lot. I know I did. And there's some stuff that I really like (military history, cheesy fantasy, non-fiction humor) and a lot of stuff I can't stand (romance, finely sliced histories of a single commodity or object, "chick lit"). Keep reading what you like, and don't let someone else tell you what you "should" read.

I'm off. I have many, many back copies of the Enquirer to get through. Deal with it.

Your Hat Collection

During November, I get lots of complaints to the effect that the writer has a day job and children and can't "fit it all in," and that I'm somehow unreasonable for scheduling writing events during the day or too late at night or on the weekends.

The first thing I think is that I can't please everybody, so I don't even try anymore. But the fact of the matter is that I have a day job. And a long commute. And a husband. And two children. And pets and a house with dirty laundry and plants that need watering and all of those things that everyone else has. AND I have writing that needs doing.

But even that can be broken out a little further. I have actual writing that I'm doing. And once something is written, it needs EXTENSIVE editing (I re-wrote this very sentence four times). When I've gotten something ready for publication, I have to research markets and prepare submission packets and send things off. I have to keep track of what I've submitted and where.

Everyone plays multiple roles in life every day, and the difficulty is switching effectively between those roles. Yes, you're being asked to wear a different hat for every hour of the day - now you're a parent, now you're a boss, now you're a customer, now you're a spouse - and it can take a little time to make that mental switch. The important thing is that YOU are the only one who can make it. While I have the greatest appreciation in the world for people with busy lives who are trying to fit everything in, I am considerably less understanding of those people who use their busy lives as an excuse. If you don't want to do something, don't do it. Please don't use the excuse "I can't find the time," because I am here to tell you that each and every one of us is granted the same number of hours per day.

To those people who find themselves buckling under the burden, I would respectfully suggest looking at your hat collection and seeing if there aren't a few that could be thrown out. That faded, fraying "reality tv" ballcap with the warped brim? Could that go? How about your Worlds of Warcraft battle helmet with the leather straps and metal studs and horns? Could that go? The jaunty little cap you wear when compulsively updating Facebook or Twitter? Look at all the hats you wear and make the hard choice about where you believe your writing hat fits in that collection. And then, having made that choice, act on it!

Who knows? After November, you might find that you like how you look in your writer's hat better than some of the other hats you've been wearing. Personally, I think it makes you look smart. And a little sexy.

They're Not Drinking

While my own November efforts are coming along swimmingly, it never ceases to affect me when others around me aren't going at it with the same enthusiasm. It makes me feel as though I've somehow failed.

Then I think of my harp. I took harp for a number of years (a very small number involving a decimal point) from a woman who makes her entire living playing and teaching harp. This woman spends hours every day sitting with a harp in her lap perfecting her technique, composing new pieces, thinking about new arrangements of old pieces. I'm sure that she was frustrated with my seeming lack of application - I'm not great at sight reading music, my fingers never seemed nimble enough to make the shifts from one chord to another in mid-song, and I wasn't properly apologetic when I'd gone from one lesson to another without having practiced at all.

It wasn't that I don't like the harp. On the contrary - I love it and think it's the best thing in the world. I just don't see myself ever becoming a performer on the instrument. I think it's fine if I spend five whole years trying to perfect "Garten Mother's Lullabye" and never play it for anyone who doesn't live in my house.

There are plenty of people who have no interest in writing a novel for publication. They couldn't care less about making their prose sing or seeing their books in the windows of bookstores. Those people have other things in their lives that they're striving for. They're excited about writing, but it's not their sole passion.

Each November, when I work on my new novel, I'm carried away by its possibility, and that passion informs not just the words themselves, but the speed at which I write them, but that's not the most important thing I do every November. The most important thing is learning more about myself and my own place in the world. Learning not to judge every person I see by my own standards and therefore find them wanting when they're not me. I'd like to think that the act of writing provides me one sort of view into my own heart, but that all of the work I do in accepting and being happy for the other writers with whom I surround myself gives me an even more valuable view into the parts of myself that need even more work than my first draft will.

Inspiring Others

My own personal challenge this month is not just writing my own novel - hardly a challenge anymore. It's being the guiding and inspiring force for others who are trying to do the same.

I have a dear friend, another writer, who has been active in many Bay Area writing groups for as long as I've known him. Wherever he goes, he attracts other writers to him by the force of his very positive personality. He is always encouraging and full of confidence not just in himself, but in the entire group. Being around him, it's hard to imagine that we won't all be rich and famous in no time at all.

My own attempts at inspiration seem feeble in comparison. I know that a large part of it is my own introversion. I love talking to people one-on-one, but I can't sustain that level of energy and enthusiasm for people in groups of more than three. I am deeply jealous of people like my friend who love meeting new people and can step with happiness and confidence into whole roomsful of people they don't know and act like they're all about to be best friends.

I guess what I can do is lead by example. I am a get up early, stay up late, keep working until it's done, do everything all the time sort of person, and yet, I think of myself as basically lazy and unmotivated. My trick is not thinking about it too much. I make my list of things and think neither of how many things there are on the list nor of the scope of any one of them. I just look at the next thing on the list, do it, and check it off.

"Write 2000 words." Check.

See? Wasn't that easy? Okay, now it's your turn.

Inspired by the Ridiculous

This time of year, there are lots and lots of people doing Nanowrimo, and one of the most common elements that people see in the discussion forums, in entries to the Nanowrimo LiveJournal group, in person at the writing events, is "I don't know what to write." Frankly, I'm always astounded by that assertion. I'm shocked that someone could exist on earth and have nothing to say.

I've always had the opposite problem. I have far more to write than I will ever be able to commit to paper. I've thought recently about why that is. How is it that I end up with an incredible surfeit of content and not enough time to write it? What I've realized is that it's my own failings and weaknesses that allow me a rich inner life.

I'm nearsighted and slightly deaf. The women of my family have all gone deaf at an early age. Here's a typical interaction with my grandmother:
Me: Grandma! I won a turkey platter at bingo!
Grandma: A turkey bladder? What on earth do you need that for?
Me: The gizzard and liver were already taken.

Going through life in a half-deaf myopic haze means that everything has a slightly magical tinge to it. People are much more attractive when you can't actually make out their wrinkles and pimples. And they're much more entertaining when just any old thing is liable to fly out of their mouths at any moment. (Luckily for me, my younger daughter, who speaks loudly and distinctly enough for me to hear at all times, is given to spewing random stuff all the time.)

I went through an entire six months driving by a large house surrounded by orchard and garden plots and reading the hand-lettered sign out front that read "Mary Ferguson Offered." I spun out entire stories about who Mary Ferguson was, and what she might have offered to whom that would move the offeree to want to let the world know. Was it a good thing? Or was this more like Hester Prynne's scarlet letter? And then someone who had never even seen the sign at all burst my bubble by telling me that it said "Massey Ferguson Offered," meaning that they were selling their tractor. And then, a few months later, the entire property went up for sale and my imagined stories became more sad and less fun and magical.

People are all in a rush to make sense of things. To prove how smart they are and how well they've figured it all out. It makes me sad because striving to prove your rationality every second of every day takes away so much of life's potential joy, and nearly all of life's moments of inspiration.

Throw away your hearing aids! Stomp on your glasses! Daydream in meetings and take all idioms literally (because they're quite silly)! Once you open yourself up to it, the world contains more inspiration than can ever be used up by any number of people.

Say It vs. Show It

This happens whenever I get busy. Just at the time that I have the most actual stuff that people might want to hear about (I'm writing another novel, I'm doing Big Things at work, I'm gearing up for the coming holidays), I am least inclined to talk about it all. I think to myself "I have five minutes to spare - I can either work on [name one of my zillion projects here] or I can write about something I've already completed. And who really wants to hear about my cleaning out my garage [or making chicken coop improvements or finessing my plot or creating a newer, better website] anyway?"

So, the reality is that when I'm writing least, it's because I'm doing the most. This month, I'm finishing one novel and starting another. That's huge to me, because I have high hopes for both of them.

The irony is that I am still keeping up with reading my friends' blogs and occasionally checking out Twitter or Facebook, so obviously it's not that I'm not interested in other people's quotidian lives. It's the introvert in me saying "I'm not that important. I'm not that interesting. And I'm really, really busy."

Even at this very second, I'm having to fight not to erase this entire post. So, if it has spelling errors, it's because I didn't dare proofread before hitting "publish," or I'd just chuck the whole thing.

November 1

Once again, it's day 1 of Nanowrimo. I was up bright and early this morning (although not nearly as early as I should have been - apparently when the Pirate woke me at 6:30 this morning, I told him to go away and leave me alone forever) and off to the site of my write-in. Despite doing a little bit of catching up with my bestest ol' bud, it was lovely to sit down and get boatloads of writing done. Very small boatloads (I'm only at about 2200 words for today) but still - I love being in the zone.

And I owe it all to outlining. I know - you're the creative type who just sits down and the Muses dictate to you and you simply channel their wisdom through your fingers. Well, I don't. I have a horrible tendency to know sort of generally what I want my story to be about, and I'll think up amazing beginnings and fabulous endings, but I sit down to write and I get bupkis. My beginning is fabulous, and then it sort of trails off and.....

Especially when I know I'm going to be interrupted, I can depend on my outline to keep my story from getting out of hand and going in all sorts of unintended directions. It means that my original vision stays true all the way to the end. I guess in a way, my outline is my muse. The muse Otolynis, muse of outlining, annotating and indexing. I'll take it.

P.S. I would like to mention that today is the 5th anniversary of my grandmother Lilia Quintana's death, so it's fitting that today is the day to remember her as my first muse and inspiration. It's all for you, Nana. I still miss you.