Five Weeks Post-Partum and Back to Work!

I seem to have figured out a new working system, even with 2 kids under 2 underfoot ... woo-hoo!

Mornings I take one child into the world, and leave one at home with our housekeeper.
Afternoons I leave them both home with our housekeeper, and go write for 2-3 hours.

It seems to be working. So far, I have FINISHED FINISHED the pilot I wrote with a friend on this schedule, and started sending it out. I have returned to the novel, AND set up a meeting to return to the book proposal.

Granted, I have to do everything in teeny, tiny increments -- baby steps, as it were. But even baby steps move things forward, and I'm pretty damn impressed with myself for having gotten it together this well despite a 5 week old new baby who eats EVERY SINGLE MOMENT of every night.

Progress report

Entering Chapter 13! Five weeks or less till Baby #2. Dream of completion of draft by then growing ever dimmer with news that baby may be coming earlier than expected ... hmm. Still, since June I've cranked through Chapters 5-12, and am hoping to finish 13 in the next two weeks, so that's not bad for a few months work.

Book proposal for client nearly complete. Still have to write the sample chapter, though, and need to really crank through it considering the "life deadline" approaching.

Spec pilot pretty much done -- have one last scene to tweak and then it's time to get some outside eyes on it.

All in all, not a bad couple of months in writer-land.

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,