How to Write without Writing

For the month of February, I'm not writing. I'm researching persistent vegetative states. I'm trying to outline my next WIP (which I've never done before.) I'm making creole bread pudding. I'm drawing 25' long murals of Brazilian carnival girls.*

My brain is bombarding me with alternate scenes for the ms. that's out with betas (Should have shown the scene in Staten Island instead of just talking about it.) And for the one that I'm about to do a major revision on (You know, you could have Anne interact with the villagers. That would be really interesting.) And last night, as I got up with littlest and put her back to bed, I saw the clock read 12:34. I thought, It's not midnight that's the witching hour it's 12:34. The numbers become a ladder, leading you up into another world. (Wha? I was half asleep...) Then I had a dream about an automata museum I visited years ago in York. The machines all came to life at once and it was terrible and beautiful at the same time.

What does it all mean? Absence makes the heart grow finder and taking a break from writing makes the muse keen. At least it does for me. Now that I'm not actively writing something, ideas, images music and art are vying for my attention. Ideas pour out. It's a creative-palooza over hear.

Sometimes, I need to remind myself that writing isn't only about butt in seat, fingers on keys. It's about thinking and reading and doing things that have nothing to do with writing. That's where some of the biggest magical leaps of creativity happen.

How do you write without writing?

*my eldest daughter's school is having an International Fair on March 1st. Last time I did a rain forest scene for Costa Rica. This time it's Brazil and carnivale girls. drawing the howler monkey last time was much easier...!

My Favorite Part of Writing

Isn’t writing.

Last night I had to give eldest another dose of Lice Killer shampoo. This was followed by combing her absurdly thick hair with a literal nit-picky comb. We were watching the first Lord of The Rings movie so it went relatively well. But by the time we were done and I was finished with my own work it was nearly midnight. I don’t usually read in bed anymore – I’m reading so much during the day for betas and crits and for my own writing – I usually play solitaire on my phone until I get sleepy*.

I think the reason that people believed in muses back in the day is because of the way that ideas can seem to drop directly into your conscious brain, as if someone placed it there, like a present or a flower or a prettily wrapped bar of chocolate. It wasn’t there and all of a sudden it is, like the best kind of surprise.

So last night, as I lined up the red queen under the red king, two things came into my head almost at the same time, colliding like smashed atoms. First was an image of a boy swallowing children. Creepy right? I know. But I also saw him coughing them back up, the way an owl might cough up a bundle of mouse fur and bones. The children he coughed back up were fine, bundled in little cocoons and asleep. He’d been only keeping them, not consuming them. I realized then that he was a monster, a bogey man that parents warned their kids about to keep them out of the woods. But I also knew that he wasn’t monstrous. And then a piece of a song floated into my mind and I knew his name. I didn’t invent or come up with his name. I just knew it (maybe this muse thing is for real…?) And his name was Friend Catcher.

I stayed up another hour writing in my notebook about Thomas and his companions and the Village of Meek where they live, in perpetual winter, at the edge of an enormous wood. Holy EFF. I have a new book to write.

I can’t write it now. I have too much revision work to do on FIND ME and too much to think about with BOOKEND being on submission. But the spark, the start of  THE FRIEND CATCHER is intoxicating. I went to bed last night feeling like I’d just met a cute boy or gotten a promotion or won a prize. I had the almost tangible, flickering ember of something new in my hands. That’s my favorite part of writing.

Anyway, here’s the song that partially inspired Thomas’ fledgling story – no visuals just awesome music. The Friend Catcher by The Birthday Party

*Don’t judge. I find playing solitaire a great way to free up the subconscious mind. Worked, didn’t it? Can’t do that with Angry Birds.

Q is for Question Everything

This is probably advice to take with a pinch of salt from someone like me. I already have an innate tendency to question everything so much that it paralyses me. But this is a different kind of questioning of which I speak. This is questioning the easy.

So I'm in the middle of my wip and I get a visit from my muse. She says, "You need to put Mop into a different setting. Shock her. You need to send her back to high school." Never mind why my MC is not currently in school, or why this would be a shock when she's 17. The point is that the idea came like a little gift wrapped present. I could see tons of scenes of conflict and revelation. The idea opened up a vista, a vista, I tell you! I was psyched.

And then I questioned. Is this a good idea? Is it the best idea for this book, or is it just a convenient idea?

Sometimes I get ideas that are good ideas - but not now and not here. I need to question every path I go down, make sure that I'm not being lured down a path because it's flashy or easy or God-help-me-trendy.

So does that mean that Mop isn't going back to high school? Not necessarily. I'm going down that road anyway, seeing where it takes me. I'm fully aware that I need to question my motives and see if the new setting functions the way I need it to. I need brains, then beauty. I guess the companion piece of advice to "Question everything" is "Do it anyway." Then question again.

Let The Right One In

I'm slowly, almost preternaturally slowly, climbing back on the bicycle. It's been a month since a finished BOOKEND and started querying. I know I have to start writing again, everyone's said so.

But I had a problem. I've got a digital drawer full of ideas to work on and none of them were doing it for me. One seemed a little forced - did those mermaids really belong there, or was I just (pun intended) fishing? Another idea was fine, just completely uninspiring. If the author is uninspired, how in blazes can anyone else be into it? That idea also went back into the file. Revise the first book I wrote? Meh. Start on the second book in the BOOKEND universe? That was much more exciting a prospect, but I didn't feel ready to go back into that world yet.

I puzzled and poured over these ideas as the weeks passed. I got rejections and the only antidote to those poison pills is sending more queries and WORKING. So I was pressuring myself to come up with something I wanted to write.

And like all good things, it came to me in the night. I'm not a great sleeper at the best of times, and I often lie in bed thinking diaphanous thoughts, just letting them drift through and not bothering much about if them make sense. I swear on a stack of Elements of Style, that's how Mop entered my head. I could see her, easily, in my mind's eye. And I knew where she lived. I'm talking, I could walk with her down the halls of her apartment building, see the view out her window. I knew her mother and her mother's demons. And I knew what Mop could do. She can find things. Anything. She's a finder. She makes money for her and her mom by finding lost things for her neighbors, anything from engagement rings to lost kittens. But there are dangerous lost things that should stay lost. And Mop can't help what she is, she finds things, no matter if they want to be found.

I got my arse out of bed and wrote pages and pages of back story - just trying to flesh out who Mop is and what her situation is. I haven't been as excited about a story since I started writing BookEnd. That's when I knew I had the right one.

Now I'm almost ready to start writing Chapter 1. I just need to figure out the spark - the inciting incident.

How do you know when you've found the right idea to work on?