Writers as Over-Caffeinated Termites

According to Walter Kirn:

At the beginning of a novel, a writer needs confidence, but after that, what's required is persistence. The traits sound similar. They aren't. Confidence is what politicians, seducers, and currency speculators have, but persistence is a quality found in termites. it's the blind drive to keep on working that persists after confidence breaks down.

This breakdown usually happens in chapter five or so, but sometimes it comes as early as chapter two. The book's characters have been introduced by then and given a world to live in, creating atmosphere. The challenges they face have been described and made to seem monumental, creating tension. Finaly, the novelist's friends and family have been pushed away, creating loneliness. Now what? The mind is powerless to answer, leaving the nerves and glands to do the job, assisted at times by caffeine and other substances.

But such chemical helpers only help so much. The mysterious energy required to turn silence into words perpetually uphill originates deep within the soul--so deep that its sources resist analysis. Novelists who pretend to understand what keeps them scribbling are really just guessing. A profound, unmet childish need to be acknowledged? Maybe. It hardly matters, though. The termite that asks itself why it keeps chewing risks becoming sluggish and inefficient, as does the writer who grows self-conscious in the middle of chapter five. Stopping to think is fine for characters, but not for their creators.

They have to work.

Yeah. Word. Finished Chapter Nine today, just by pushing on, 500 words a day, no matter what, 5 days a week and three nights ... (Husband rocks on, btw, by giving me that third night ... slightly increasing the very long odds that I can write eight more chapters in the 9 or so weeks before Two-ie arrives.)

I couldn't agree more ...

"In his 1908 essay 'Mathematical Creation,' Poincare insisted that the best way to think about complex problems is to immerse yourself in the problem until you have hit an impasse. Then, when it seems that 'nothing good is accomplished,' you should find a way to distract yourself, 'preferably by going on a walk or a journey'."

-- The New Yorker Magazine, 7.28.08

I tend to go to lunch, a movie, or a pedicure when I need "distractions," though a walk tends to work pretty well, too, and those moments when you're gassing the car and have an aha! moment are pretty common, I find.

Nesting again ...

The biological urge to nest is um ... well. Of all distractions a writing mother could face, the last months before arrival of a new baby are the worst. All I can / want to think about are:

-- new blinds for the room First Child will be sharing with Two-ie
-- slipcover for the upholstered glider
-- building Two-ie's crib
-- hanging art to reflect the new addition, including getting mats cut to match the existing art that will then be set into photo frames where I want pictures of First and Two-ie to go
-- hanging First Child and Two-ie fabric letters to spell their names across the window
-- going through First's clothes to get things ready for Two-ie, clearing space in the the closet, and the changer
-- getting a new, double unit expandable monitor
-- a toddler table for First Child, and getting her art supplies
-- a new rug for the play room / my office
-- a new, fancy schmancy diaper bag for me ;)

Yeah, I'm obsessed. Getting myself to actually WORK is getting pretty tough around here -- especially since the nesting isn't just in my head, but about to actualize itself in an 18 month reno of our house, and a new deck for the house we own (and are living in) next door to our house ...

That said, I am still managing to get things done, just more slowly.

For instance:

-- NOVEL -- I am halfway through Ch 9. I would really really like to think I can power through a full second draft of the book by DUE day ... but it will be a real push (no pun intended) and is getting less likely every day, honestly.

-- SPEC PILOT -- took my pass at the First Draft today, and think this is in pretty near ready-to-show-trusted-reader shape. Meeting with Writing Partner Monday night to discuss and um, come up with a title ;)

-- BOOK PROPOSAL FOR CLIENT -- finished a Rough First Draft a few weeks ago, and reading it yesterday am actually pretty pleased about the shape it's in. Just a few more hours on that and I think it's good to go ... which then, of course, sets me up to bid and write the SAMPLE CHAPTER ... jeesh.

And of course, if that weren't enough on the plate, what I really want to be working on is my short story collection ;)

But that's for another post.

Once again, MOTHERHOOD as the antidote to SLOTH

Well, Baby 1 got me to finish Draft 1 of the novel before she arrived in January '07 ...

Baby 2 (who arrives Nov 08) has got me pushing hard towards (1) completing Draft 2 -- I'm in the middle of Chapter 8, which is about halfway through the narrative -- AND, SOMEHOW, got me to (2) agree to write a TV spec with a Writer Friend AND (3) take on a new client, for whom I'm writing a book proposal.

1. THE NOVEL -- I'm writing this draft while semi-con-currently showing chapter drafts to my Writing Group, who are being incredibly helpful. I'm desperately trying to complete this draft before Baby 2, with an eye towards writing Draft 3 in the first part of next year, giving THAT to a larger circle of Trusted Readers, and writing the FINAL DRAFT in the later part of next year ... and sending it out into the world early in 2010. In practical terms, this means I'm writing a minimum of 500 words per weekday, and by October will probably have to up it to a seven-day-week if I really intend to finish before Baby.

2. THE TV SPEC -- Nearly 10 years ago, I met Writer Friend at a dinner, over which we discovered a great love for all television things Bedford Falls. By the end of the meal he was suggesting we write together. For the next nearly 10 years, he continued suggesting that. I assumed he was making said suggestions the same way people say "Let's do lunch" ... but this spring, he handed me the first 18 pages of a pilot he was kicking around, I liked it, we sat down to start writing despite ALL my reservations about writing with other people (short version: I HATE DOING THAT MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE ON EARTH ON EARTH ON EARTH) and it turned out to be ... fun. And surprisingly easy. Since the end of June, meeting for a few hours one night a week, and writing a little bit on our own time, we've managed to come 11 scenes short of a Shitty First Draft. By Monday, we should be actually FINISHED with said Draft, putting us well on our way to having something sort-of-readable by Labor Day. Who knew.

3. THE BOOK PROPOSAL. Well, it had been awhile since I'd taken on clients -- before Baby 1, in fact. And I was approached by someone whom I like, with a project I find interesting, and some part of me, worrying I might never make a cent in my chosen profession again, agreed to take her on. It's been a learning experience, as I'm doing most of the writing, based on discussions and emails with her, and that's a little backwards for me, professionally -- usually, I edit more than write. And like all things of this nature, the further in we get the less simple the project is -- right now, in fact, I'm about halfway done with all the elements but have completed none. However, I'm shooting to have a First Draft of the proposal for her before we decamp for Colorado next week.

All this writing is a) great for my sense of accomplishment and therefore my scale of happiness and b) is making for a crazy-busy summer / ramp up to Baby 2. I haven't had a single moment to do any of the things I did the last time I was pregnant -- get my nails done, get massages, go to yoga, go to afternoon movies -- and I'm tired as tired can be.

All that said, I have discovered by necessity that I can accomplish an extraordinary amount of writing if I carve out 4 hours of working time a day. My basic working routine, in this four hours or so, looks like this:

-- drive to place where I can eat and sit for hours without disturbing staff
-- order a big enough meal to justify my sitting there for hours, and read while I eat
-- order a latte, write 500 words of my novel, then turn to either the TV Spec or the Proposal
-- drive home

Two nights a week, I take additional hours, which were meant to be Yoga Nights but have evolved into Writer Group meeting nights, TV Spec writing nights, or extra writing time ...

On nanny-days, I get a little more time. On no-nanny-days, it's a strict four-hour window, which I've negotiated thusly with Husband:

-- one of us gets 8am - to 12pm to ourselves, one of us gets 12pm - 4 pm.

So far, the system works great, and I'm hoping I can keep to it even after I become Mom of 2 under 2 ...

Famous Last Words

See last post, dated 2007.

This is, obviously, the first post I've made here in over a year. This is not to say I've been completely UN-productive on the writing front -- I am five chapters into the second draft of the novel.

That said, I'm also 16.5 months in mothering Child #1: 17 weeks into growing Child #2; 10 months into running new business with husband; and a couple weeks shy of moving house to prepare for 18 month renovation of original home (not to mention the fact that I spent most of last year renovating the house we're moving into). So it's been a busy year -- but that said, words need to keep hitting the page and I'm hoping, still, against all hope, to finish the second draft of the novel before Child #2 arrives in November. That'll be a push, of course, but hell, if I can deliver a baby in under three hours, I can finish 2/3 of a manuscript in five months, yeah?

(Closing eyes and moving forward with the same blind optimism that led us to think having another baby right away was such a grand idea :))

Ironically, demands of mothering INCREASE productivity!

I have returned to work. Small Child is now 3 months and ten days old, and I have been back at my desk for a few weeks now, having discovered yet another amazing talent Small Child possesses: she is about A THOUSAND ZILLION times more effective at rousing me from my warm bed than an alarm clock.

So for the last few weeks, I've been getting up to feed her around 4:30 am AND THEN GOING UPSTAIRS to the kitchen table to write until she wakes up for the day around 7:45. It's been an amazingly productive period, since none of the demands of Small Child, Husband, nor Things That Have to Happen Between 9 and 5 can claim me. In the last three weeks since I started doing this, I've made notes on my long story, "James Dean My Love My Copyboy"; read the first draft of my novel; and drafted the 30+ page notes memo for the novel, too.

I've loved working in the wee hours -- I've loved working! But a troubling thing has happened in the last couple of days ... Small Child has slept until 6. Which cuts my work time down by several hours, as that means I'm only alone at the kitchen table for about an hour before the household stirs around me ... Small Child is, of course, a rockstar for sleeping so well, and this of course makes me the one and only Mama on the planet who wishes her daughter would sleep LESS so Mama could be awake and working MORE ...

Drumroll, Please ...

I finished the first draft of the book (aka "THE SHITTY EYES CLOSED FORWARD AT ALL COSTS DRAFT")! It's 342 pages and 2 inches thick -- and while it's no masterpiece, there is a beginning, a middle, and end.

Plus I managed to complete the mss in less than three years from first glimmerings of an idea in February 2004 to typing THE END today -- less than two years (20 months, to be exact) if you start counting from the day I began writing the first page of this most current and complete draft in March 2005.

I am very pleased with myself. I managed this while ALSO planning my wedding, taking the entire summer of 2004 off to wed and honeymoon, taking five weeks off in 2005 to gallivant around Africa, AND taking much of this summer off to work on my essay for "Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys."

So I rock. Especially since the last novel I wrote from start to finish took me eight years and eleven partial drafts before I completed a start-to-finish mss.

Now, before we all get too excited about this, let's remember: I finished the FIRST draft. There are at least two more draft coming before I'll feel comfortable showing the book to friends and family, much less professionals. So don't expect to see a glimmer of it until near the end of 2008 -- I'm going to put this draft aside through the holidays, read it with pen and post-its and a legal pad in hand in Jan '07, try to brainstorm the issues I discover during that read from Jan '07 through Memorial Day -- I'm assuming that brainstorming is all I'm really going to be good for in the first months of sleep-deprived baby-haze -- then try to start Draft 2 over the summer.

Draft 2 will be the "FIX THE STRUCTURE, PLUG THE GAPS, REALIZE THE PLOTS AND CHARACTERS AND THEMES DRAFT." Once Draft 2 is done, I'll start the process again: set the mss aside for a month or two, then come back to it with pen and post-its and a legal pad in hand, then brainstorm the issues and begin Draft 3.

Draft 3 will be the "POLISH FOR TRUSTED READER FRIENDS DRAFT."

Draft 4 will incorporate reader notes into the "AS GOOD AS I CAN MAKE IT DRAFT," and then I'll release it into the publishing world.

Wow. Amazing. Taking the next few days off to mark the occasion.

Then it's back to work, focusing on story drafts for my collection,

Resistance Resolved

I returned to the novel a few months ago, surprised to find that I had a lot less to accomplish in order to finish this draft than I believed. I quickly wrote Chapters 12, 13, 14, and 15 in less than a month, and assumed I'd motor write through Chapter 16 -- the final chapter -- in a similar fashion.

And then I stopped.

I finished Chapter 15 on a Thursday morning, so I took Friday off (I try to take a day off when I finish a chapter or story, a recommendation I picked up from Dorothea Brande's fabulous book Becoming a Writer). That evening, Husband and I headed off for a weekend getaway to Berkeley, our last shot at some vacation time before the two of us become three.

Monday I returned exhausted, so I took another day off. Normally I might have pushed on through, but again, "woman's work" intruded--the exhaustion attendant to the growing of Number Three won out over my work ethic, and even dulled the guilt a little bit b/c it's not just me I'm thinking about when I sleep most of the day now.

Tuesday, I forced myself back to my favorite table at my favorite cafe--and discovered another problem related to Number Three: I'm no longer comfortable for long periods of time in the cafe chairs, so after several hours of producing NOTHING I gave up and went home. I spent most of the afternoon working on transforming our office to Three's room.

Wednesday I woke up determined to work at home, in my far more supportive chairs. We all know how it ends when I try to work at home. More energy pumped into Three's room.

Thursday and Friday I decided that as long as I was resisting work, I might as well give myself REAL permission to do so--and so I poured myself into Three-related projects, with no thought to the novel at all. The only condition: Monday I would return to work.

And I did! Yesterday I made notes for what will be the last chapter of the first draft of this book, and today I wrote the first 500 words of it!

Despite the "lost week," I don't feel as badly as I usually do about walking away from my writing. Part of that has to do with listening to the David Allen podcasts at www.43folders.com. One, in particular, is about procrastination, and ways around it/through it.

Regarding working THROUGH procrastination, it was suggested that often the problem has to do with the task at hand not having been broken down to the most basic WIDGET property of itself. In the case of Chapter 16, then, I set myself the MOST BASIC WIDGET STEP of reading the notes I'd been gathering for the last several years regarding the ending of this book.

But easy as that should have been to do--the notes are very neatly collected in a binder that is tabulated into three acts, and the acts themselves are separated into chapter groupings--I still didn't wanna. Part of that, obviously, is my general weirdness about finishing things--I get a little wonky when the end is near. I know that about myself, which I why I am a hugely happy follower of the WIDGET approach--tiny little baby steps distract me from the finish line. I'm not COMPLETING THE FINAL PAGES OF MY NOVEL. I'm "preparing the chain of events" for the chapter; I'm "writing 500 words"; I'm "writing 500 words"; I'm "writing 500 words"; and somehow, 500 words from 500 words from 500 words from 500 words from now, I'll surprise myself by making it to the finish line.

Which is how, of course, I got back to work yesterday.

But last week, I resisted the WIDGET approach, and still, I got a lot done. I moved Husband's clothes in the master closet, and turned what had been his closet into Three's domain. I sorted all the baby clothes my mother had saved for 30+ years into bins by size, and laundered the clothes appropriate for Three's early months. I sorted through 6--count 'em, 6 banker's boxes of Husband's unfiled papers, and filed them. And I started selling books we don't want, to make room for Three's first library and storage system. I didn't write--but I did something important, and pressing, and this is also GTD-appropriate. Like Allen said in the podcast, if you're procrastinating one thing, then you better have a lot of other things you're doing until the resistance passes--and I did!

That said, by week's end I was near my usual "I haven't written in a week and I'm falling mentally to pieces" point--I do get crazed when I stop work. That was sort of a relief, actually--I'd been worrying that maybe I'd be okay, not writing, just doing house stuff ... and I'm pleased to report, I'm not. I can do it about three days before I start to ache for my writing. By a week, the ache is a full-blown "get thee to a word processor!" scream in my head.

I'm guessing the moodiness isn't easy on Husband. But he did get a fully organized, color-coded wall of the master closet in return for my week at home. And I got reassurance that despite the unbelievable amount of time and attention I devote to Three's impending arrival, I haven't yet completely lost myself.

So I'm happily back to regular programming.

Another Vote For Throwing Money at the Problem

I spend a lot of time thinking about gender issues in terms of marriage, about how I spend a lot of time doing dishes and laundry and paperwork and Husband mostly gardens, is in charge of buying and maintaining our cars, and feeds the cats. Note that what I do is a daily thing and what he does is less so, since he tends to walk out the door to work in too much of a rush to remember the cats, and I end up feeding them anyway.

Since he goes out to work, and I “work at home,” I also end up with most of the dog care. The “work at home” thing also means Husband figures I can be home for Fed Ex guys, or to make important faxes for him, or to get him the phone number for some person or another that he’s forgotten at home. None of this stuff is good for getting my work done so much as it is incredibly helpful for accomplishing his.

This was a struggle all summer, as he settled back into full-time, off-home-site work and I returned home from my rented office space. At first, I was thrilled to be home, because of the incredible savings on my office space rentals, but also because I could get chores done in the middle of the day, rather than waiting until I was so exhausted after dinner that things got lost in the mix.

Then he started calling. And calling. And calling. It’s nice that he likes to check in, and in fact I adore hearing his voice pretty much WHENEVER. But I like it less when I’m working, which tends to be in the mornings, before life is too distracting, and I like it LOTS less when the calls start, “Are you home?”

So I’ll be honest here: for a couple of weeks I just straight-out lied. My cell would ring, he’d ask, “Are you home,” and I’d say, from the comfort of my chair at our kitchen table, “No.”

That worked for awhile. But I was also battling the creep of personal affairs onto the territory of professional ambitions. Our life this summer has catapulted us into the realm of True Adulthood in a number of ways, and Adulthood requires a hell of lot of a person to do at home. It can take up every minute of the day, really.

The only thing to do when that happens is to get the hell out of the home, as quickly as possible.

This is not new information—I periodically realize I need to work out of our home. That’s why I rented office space. But I had just given up my office space, and it was hard to justify the thought of renting space when I had a perfectly quiet office space at home, thanks to Husband working elsewhere. Also, there was the question of the puppy. Can’t really leave the puppy home all day alone. She doesn’t like it, and she expresses her displeasure by ripping things up in a puppy-like way.

So, two problems: puppy needs exercise / baby-sitting, and I need a place to work that isn’t home. Solution: throw money at the problem.

On the puppy-front, we bought a monthly membership for daily doggie daycare, at a savings of $25 compared to what we used to spend for 3 days / week.

Even better, on the writing-front, there’s a fabulous wonderful café near daycare with ample outlets AND wi-fi and a space so large there is never any pressure to get up for the lunch time rush. Instead of spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars each month for my crack den office, I now spend about $3 in the morning for a latter, and $10 more at lunch on a sandwich – at a savings of about $400 / month compared to what used to be rent.

And I write like the wind. I’m now within 2.5 chapters of completing the first draft of this novel. Yippee! Go me!

Another triumph for spending a little money when you need to free up a bunch of time.