this is an analog version of what I'm talking about
Hmmm. If writing *were* my job, I might have been fired yesterday.
Or put on probation.
Not because of the brazen visits to Pottermore or Buzzfeed. Not because the more-than-necessary tea breaks. (Also, my mom in law was in minor fender bender - she's totally fine but was FREAKED out, as she's never had a car accident in over 40 years of driving. I had to go help her out. That was my only legit excuse.)
I broke my own first draft rule. I let the Little Editor out of her cage. And she was red-pen mad.
Here's how it went down. It's been a while since I worked on my WIP, so I decided to read through the last chapter. Okay the last five chapters. Then something I was writing didn't square with something I wrote before (a timeline issue, no biggie) so I went further back. I ended up reading from the beginning (this draft is currently 42k so this took a while). That's when the Little Editor made her power play. I rewrote sentences. I cut things and put them back. I wrote an entire piece of dialogue to explain something that didn't need explaining. (I did cut that out, never fear.)
In essence, I tinkered.
Tinkering in the first draft is VERBOTEN. I am going get a t-shirt that says exactly that.
So, on today's agenda I aim to be more modest and more surgical in my drafting.
I will map out where this scene is going - an outline within the outline - so that I don't stray off the path.
I will NOT rewrite diddly. That's for laters.
I will not try to wizard duel ANYONE today.
This has been a bad summer for writing. After an intense spring of BEA, writing conferences, writing and critting, somewhere around July 1st, I hit a wall. It wasn't laziness. (I tell myself. Myself is only somewhat convinced.) It was the muchness of life. We went on vacation. My husband got a new job (yeah, Tim! Art Director at Quirk Books!) My mom came to visit from Uruguay. Uruguay did not win the World Cup but became famous for biting jokes. You can see how this would break my concentration, no?
In 22 days I will get to know, at long last, what it feels like to write like it's my job. I will have actual 'office hours' that are longer than two hurried hours on a bar stool at Starbucks watching the clock until my littlest's preschool is over. Because littlest is going to Kindergarten. 8:40 On the Bus. 3:40 Off the Bus.
I still have work to do that isn't writing. I have APW (actual paying work) and I have blog/critting/reading work. But I will suddenly have this huge chunk of glorious time.
I'm afraid of blowing it. I'm afraid that I'll wake up on October 1st having written very little but having perfectly polished fingernails and an alphabetized book shelf.
So this week (while both girls are at Girl Scout camp) and my mother is engaging in a long-distance romance with her boyfriend (they are currently on the outs, but it won't last) I am going to practice Writing Like it's My Job.
Here's how I'll do it:
1) I will dedicate a minimum of four hours (pee breaks allowed. shopping breaks not allowed) a day to writing, thinking and researching. NOTE: Researching does not happen on Lainey.com or Perez Hilton or Jezebel.com.
2) I will allow myself one hour first thing in the morning to reach out to long neglected writing pals and connect with them on their blogs, twitter etc. I will read and comment on blogs. I will do this ONLY FOR AN HOUR, lest it become a consuming vortex.
3) I will not berate myself for not doing more. Word count is not my game. Story through line - hat's my goal this week.
4) I will not compare myself to others or moan about why I have not reached the achievements they have. I have my own achievements. And if I want other ones, I have to move my blooming arse.
5) I will not let the overgrown grass or the honeysuckle vine choking the boxwood deter me from my appointed task.
6) I will report back on how many of these tenets I actually adhere too.
I am in the middle of a new/old project revise and am in the WEEEEEEDS. I'm a smidge exasperated and a heap exhilarated so I guess I'm in a good place. But my blog? Not so much. So, instead of insightful, academic-level spoutings (cuz, that's what you normally get, right?) I've got a list for you to distribute to your non-writing friends, family and neighbors. What NOT to say to a writer.
ONE "You're still doing that writing thing?" Variations:Weren't you doing some writing hobby? You're still on that jag? Oh, I thought you'd moved on to something more practical..." Rudeness level: 3 slaps Polite response: "Yup, I just keep plugging away at it. Got to have dreams, right?" Mean (realistic) response: You still have that crappy, drone-like job working for the soul-crushing corporate pigs? OR you can just blast Sonic Youth's Kool Thing in their faces - especially Kim Gordon's deadpan "Are You Gonna Liberate us Girls from Male White Corporate Oppression?"
TWO "Oh, I want to write a book too. I have some notes scribbled on a napkin, can you look at it?"
Variations: "I wrote a book once. It was genius. No one understood it, it was so ahead of its time." "Everyone's writing books. It's like the easiest thing it the world, right? I mean, suburban housewives, fifteen year old girls. How hard can it be?" Rudeness level: 1 slap Polite Response: "I'd be happy to take a look at your book idea. I can send you some information on professional organizations that can get you started." Mean (realistic) response: You do not want to write a book. You only think you do because you see authors on the TODAY show and you want to be on the TODAY show too. If you had any idea how hard it is to write and then how much harder it is to be published, you wouldn't be so damn cavalier. I mean, do you go up to Rocket Scientists and tell them that you could totally do their job if you had the right lab coat?
THREE "So you're like the next (Suzanne Collins, Stephanie Meyer, James Patterson -fill in the blank)" Variations: "Does your book have vampires?" "I don't really like books with fantasy/reality/zombies/people/pets/mermaids/buildings or words." Rudeness level: 1 slap (2 if they compare you to someone while sneering.) Polite Response: No, I won't be the next anyone. I'm just hoping to be the next 'me' Mean (realistic) response: Comparing me to someone, even someone famous and successful just makes me feel like you think I'm a sham. Sure there are some writers who will just write whatever they think is popular to try to get published and showered with gold coins* - I am not one of them! I write because I have stories in me that would bust out Aliens-style if I didn't write them down.
(*BTW, I would not say no to gold coins. Especially chocolate ones.)
FOUR "So, what's your book about?" Variations: No variations. This says it all. Rudeness level: 0 slaps, but man, I hate this question. When asked by people outside of the writing world, whatever you say will sound wrong. Even the elevator pitch you prepared for agent pitch fests will not be enough for this person. They will look at you blankly and say, "Oh. That sounds nice." and you will die a little inside Response: *FLAIL* say you have to go to the bathroom. Escape.
FIVE "You wrote a book? What's it called? Maybe I can pick it up at Barnes & Noble." Variations: "Have I heard of you?" "I have a book club, maybe we can read it for book club." Rudeness level: 1/2 a slap. This is not really even rude, it's just uncomfortable. Again, non-writers don't understand the wide river that must be crossed between writing a book and having it published. Some authors never make it, or they have to build their own little boat (the SS Self Publish) to ford the river. Response: "No, not published yet. Working towards it. You know, the way the publishing industry works is really quite interesting. Let me elucidate using long, boring anecdotes and circuitous storytelling until you beg me to let you leave..."
BONUS RUDENESS!
"When are you going to get a real job?" Variations: "How about a real job? Does your wife/husband mind you slacking off all day? Must be a nice life having to do nothing but write all day." Rudeness level: off the chart slaps, nija hands of speed slaps. Response: There is no response that is adequate for this question. Break up with your boyfriend or hang up on your Aunt Mildred (or whoever the rude person saying this was.) Sometimes, rudeness is an incurable disease.
What do you wish people would stop asking you about your writing? What do you wish they WOULD ask?
Now, I'm not one of those people who say that they can't live without writing. Believe me, I envy those people who say they'd die if they couldn't write (I envy them, and I suspect them of hyperbole.) To be so overwhelmingly consumed by your art that you think you'd expire without being able to do it, that seems like a level of passion I can only aspire to. I've lived just fine without writing. Yes, I've always been creative, whether it's drawing or writing or singing or other expressions of art. But I won't die if I don't write. I'd do something else.
Having said that, I hate when the writing stops. There's a natural life-cycle to writing, at least for me. There's the bloom of an idea - which is my favorite part of writing - then there's the excitement of starting the project followed by waves of elation and despair and hard work. I'd say that in the last 1/4 of writing a book, it's a job (you could argue that it's always a job, and I agree. What I mean is that it feels like a job.) But I like that part. I know that I have Monday/Wednesday/Friday from 9:30-11:30 to write my ass off. On those days, I'm raring to go. I'm Pavlovian on those days. I open up my WIP and say to myself, let's get cracking.
So when the last stage of a book's cycle - the stage when it's in the Beta's hands and from here on in it's revision, not drafting, the schedule changes. Today is Monday and I'm floundering. What do I write? Where's my writing? I'm still so mentally engaged in my book that I'm having trouble thinking of other works, even the reading I'm doing (I'm reading THE NEAR WITCH, by Victoria Schwab.)
So this is my least favorite part of writing. I need to wrench my brain and heart away from my last project and prepare for my next project. I have to decide what that will be. A revision I really need to get going on? A new, slip of an idea that might be a short story? A fully formed idea I almost developed last year instead of FIND ME, but then decided to shelve. Will it be her turn, or will I jilt her at the altar again?
I don't know. I wonder if I should do some sort of Bon Voyage party for the project that I finished.* I could invite all the characters, make a cake (Lemon Drizzle, maybe?) and mix cocktails. I can wish them luck with the strangers that will be reading and judging them in the months to come and I could make sure they pack clean underpants for their trip. I could wave my hanky at them as they sail off into the sunset. I wonder if that's a good idea or if it's just me prolonging the inevitable. It's not like I won't see them again, HELLO, REVISIONS?
What do you do when you finish a project? How do you move on to your next one?
*I say finished. I think we all know I mean kinda-finished.
A couple of days ago, Lauren DeStefano tweeted this:
Look for a job that makes you say "screw the lottery."
— Lauren DeStefano (@LaurenDeStefano) January 9, 2013
I super-size heart Lauren and am waiting not so patiently for the third book in The Chemical Garden Trilogy, SEVER which comes out in ONE MONTH, people (!!!!) (have you pre-ordered your copy? I have.) (I digress.)
So when LD speaks, you know, I listen.
And I thought about it. What kind of job would make me say SCREW THE FILTHY LUCRE?
My mortgage says None. My kids, particularly when they want to eat, say None. My husband, who has been supporting us off his own back for three years while I try this writing thing - well, he wouldn't exactly slam the door on Publishers Clearing House if they came knocking.
But maybe the more accurate question is: What job makes you happy? Happy is such a weird word, such a tricky emotion to pin down. I've been happy while working. I've been satisfied with my job. But I can't remember a time at work when I felt happy without reservations.
You know, reservations, quantifiers. I'm happy but...I'd be happy if...When (fill in the blank) happens, I'll be happy. Those jobs were lovely. I had job satisfaction and an expense account and really the most awesome office Christmas parties. But would have traded them for the lottery? IN. A. HEARTBEAT.
Would I trade writing for the lottery? Errr.
I have the privilege of not wanting for food or clothes or shelter. I have a comfortable life if not an affluent one. I have the luxury of not needing to give up writing (at least not yet) in exchange for a full time non-writing job. I have options and those really are luxuries.
Don't puke on me for being so corny, but in some ways I feel like I've already won the lottery. This morning, I finished commenting on a friend's book I'm beta'ing, I turned in a script for an explainer video I wrote (and that was for kish-cash, I might add) and I spent work time reading an awesome book (David Levithan's EVERY DAY)
I got myself a cup of tea, looked out my kitchen window and thought - Damn. I am happy. This is a great life.
So I can only think of one job that would make me contemplate SCREW THE LOTTERY*.
This one.
*HOWEVER: If any state wants to throw money at me in a random way, I am not religiously opposed to it.
It's (almost) Earth Day! Yay for the earth and everything on it! I will be taking my kids to see this movie this weekend and you should too, because chimps are cute.
As much as I love chimps and recycling, now I want to talk about building a writing life that's sustainable. I don't believe that I'm going to be the next Suzanne Collins, even though every civilian (non-writer type) I talk to about writing asks me if I've written the next Hunger Games (Seriously? How am I supposed to answer that? Yes? No? Maybe? I have no clue?)
I believe that I'll keep going-writing and learning about the process. I'll keep meeting other writers and readers who love books as much as I do.
Creating a sustainable writing life has become my focus now. It means that there is no 'end point' where I can say I've accomplished it all. Every milestone (writing a book, writing another, querying, getting an agent, getting published, selling actual books into the hands of people who are not related to you) is an achievement - absolutely - but it's not the be all and end all.
I don't mean to pull out the desktop Zen Rock Garden or anything, but it really is about the journey. Writing is the ultimate long game.
What do you do to create a sustainable writing life?
