1930 words--and the unexpected inevitability of fall

There are four people in my little family.


We go to four different schools:

• four different first days,
  
• four different last days,
  
• four different winter breaks, and, usually,
  
• four consecutive spring breaks.

A predictable pattern of free summers and excruciatingly busy school years has been a part of my life since I was five years old. Still, I always find the slow-down in my writing life when I start teaching again to be a surprise.

But this year, I'm working with it. I'm pretending that the intensification of grading, appointments, illnesses, chilliness, rain, darkness, and grouchiness is the climax of a novel, and I'm trying to appreciate the unexpected inevitability of it.

I'm also creating, at a very tiny snail's pace, a kind of unexpected inevitability in the climax of my real novel. I've written just under 1,000 words on it since my last post over a month ago, and each one of those words has come at the price of something or someone who needed my attention: my bursting email inboxes, the sticky goo on my sink, my (ahem) family.

(My son, for example, having noted that I was not "doing" anything but typing, just moments ago asked if he could get something to eat, and I told him quite pleasantly that he could do anything he wanted as long as he left me alone--and that leaving me alone included not making strange noises from the kitchen that I could hear in the living room. He understood.)

So, I'm making very tiny snail-like goals for myself now. Twenty minutes of writing three mornings a week maybe. Or one hundred words a day for a least a few days in a row.

Or maybe even this: taking the evening before Fall Break to update this blog, to tell those of you who are following me (hi, Mom and Dad!) how much I appreciate your inevitable encouragement.

18,200 words--and help through the Gordian Knot

I've never been able to decide if the tale of the Gordian Knot one of brutality (Alexander the Great was ruthless, after all) or of relief (from releasing an agonizing tangle).

This past weekend, I (being the kind of person who claps her hands because she really does believe in fairies), decided that it's probably both.


Our critique group (The Ladies of the Gordian Knot) retreated last Friday into an idyll of writerly delight: a cabin on a lake in weather that, if weather could be eaten, you would describe as ambrosial.

There, we sliced into each other's Gordian Manuscripts with both brutal honesty and sweet relief.

(Unlike Alexander, we Gordian Knot Slicers are ruthless only in our passion for good story--and we trust each other to save the drama for our stories rather than stir it up among our fellows.)

Plus there were cookies and purple M&M's.
It was all good.

And. . . .

• with one slice, I gained a playful new structure for the picture book manuscript. (I am now so glad I did not send it off in the first rush of infatuation).
• with another, I can envision how it might look not to cram every idea I have into a single, overwhelmed journal.
• with yet another, I learn the value of sharing a rough first draft rather than honing a plot that I haven't thought out yet.

There were slower unlayerings, too.

One quiet sharing of a character and a setting, and I get goosebumps imagining what this picture book author will come up with as she begins her first novel.

I became even bold enough to ask for help in sketching out the climax of THE BOOK DROP DWARVES.













(The climax is when the story is woven so tightly that everything comes together in, as Linda Sue Park phrased it, an "unexpected inevitability.")

So: here is my end-of-summer recipe for Gordian Ambrosia:

1. Mix brutal honesty, courageous listening, and purple M&M’s loosely in a bowl.
   
2. Share it outdoors, near still water, with mugs of strong coffee.
3. Serves as many readers as might someday enjoy untangling a well-tied plot.

17,600 words--dragged out of me like a mule

One of the many reasons I love Stephanie Bearce is that she wrote a novel--a whole novel!--in 15 minutes a day.

She did this after her husband died.
She had two children to take care of on her own.
She was afraid.
She imagined she just wouldn't have the time and energy to write--even though writing was the work of her soul.



(Stephanie is in good company, by the way. The first woman who ever made her living as a writer, Christine de Pizan, did so because her husband died and she needed to take care of her children.)






I, on the other hand, have in this moment a family intact, and I make my living as a professor--which means that, denial notwithstanding, classes begin for me next week. The momentum of LyNoWriMo has dissipated after the LA conference, and it is weirdly absorbing to explore Twitter.

Still, there is that public humiliation thing. Many wonderful people have asked how the novel is coming. So I determined not to post again till I had written 1,000 more words.

Which I did! I finished yesterday, weaving them into a day full of laundry, just-missed appointments, overshot bus stops, water and kitten-food concoctions in every bathroom, serendipitous meetings with neighbors in the neighborhood library, and electronic gadget failures.

Whew.
Now I can turn up the volume again on my Tweet Deck.

Re-entry Things To Do

I'm taking the sage advice of Kathleen Duey, who is glorious both in presence and in person. She was the last keynote speaker at the Summer 2009 SCBWI Conference in LA.

(This is the conference where I took the master's class with Linda Sue Park, by the way--the whole reason for starting this blog and finishing [almost] my novel draft. More on that class to come.)

Here is my interpretation of what Kathleen advised:

• Write down bits of conversation you enjoyed--to help deepen your relationships with the people you enjoyed meeting.
• Annotate your notes--as soon as possible. (This is such good advice that I spent much of my three-day train trip home doing just that.)
• Write on the back of every business card you receive. If you're like me, you'll have to learn this the hard way. I have a huge stack of cards, and I'm doing internet searches to "friend" and "follow" them (on Facebook and Twitter). It's easier to push through the technology when I've made a note that reminds me when and how I met the human whom the card represents.
• Send thank-you notes. If you've met an author or editor or agent who spent a few minutes connecting with you, deepen that connection by letting her know you appreciate her time and wisdom.
• Get on Twitter. I know. I resisted, too. But honestly, just do it. (Six Reasons Why Every New Writer Should be on Twitter) Where did I find this article? By following @Inkyelbows on Twitter. In fact, make it easy on yourself to start: 1) Create twitter account at Twitter.com. 2) Follow @Inkyelbows (www.inkygirl.com). After that, just follow your heart.
  
• Print out the gems you hear and put them on your wall. (Or on your Facebook wall.)
• Google all things that make no sense to you. (This may include, for examle, "tweet deck.")
• Explain your intent to all your loved ones. Build social support.
  

This last one is hard, but I think it's the most important. Do you guys find it hard to ask for support?

16,600 words--and leaving for LA in six days. . .

I have never written anything so badly before.

Okay, that's not true. I've been doing a three-page "morning page" brain-drain (from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way) for many years now, and virtually all of those pages are really, really, really badly written. Really.

But something that is badly written is not necessarily a bad story. (I know. Even Yi-ping here is confused. Bear with me.)

I repeat: My badly-written prose-novel draft-thing that is currently weighing in at some 16,000 words is, magically, forming itself into rather a good story.


(This is a refreshing change. Usually, my beautifully-written prose forms itself into rather a confusing story.)

My plan for the next few weeks and months, then, is to . . .

• slop on through these last two chapters,
  
• print everything out to take to Linda Sue Park's workshop at the SCBWI Conference in LA,
• read it on the train and be horrified at how badly it is written,
  
• work hard and happily to form my puddles into scenes,
  
• come back home and do what I love to do: edit and revise and polish to pieces.

So, yes: I've never written anything so badly before.
But what I've written is not actually bad.
See?

(Bonus for grammar lovers: Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for verily, we have unearthed a life-affirming difference between adverb and adjective. Go forth and live in peace with one another.)

15,300 words--and Glory Days

This is my dad and me, in Bedford, IN, watching my brother play Glory Days flag football.

My brother lives in Dallas, and I live in St. Louis.

My uncle also lives in St. Louis, but I mostly see him in Indiana, where we gather for reunions.

Today, my uncle asked me if I needed to have a certain routine, or a certain pen, or a certain kind of paper to write with.

Ah, such luxuries I indulged in only before kids and job juggling. I vaguely remember the luxury of knowing, for example, the location of my special pens, papers, notebooks, time of day, desk. . . .

In my real life, though, I am learning to write where I am. Any time. All the time. In the flow. As I can.

Which is why I now have a painted dining room, a family reunion, a high school flag football fundraiser called Glory Days (no--I didn't play; I screamed and hugged people) . . . and over 15,000 words.

Something I never managed to do back when I had the luxury of special routines.

P.S. For those of you who are reading my mind as the story develops (because I'm not about to let anyone, even the lovely Ladies of the Gordian Knot, near this version): our timid hero is about to hatch a plan to rescue the missing Library Dragon. He would rather be reading a biography.

13,700 words--and now back to our regularly scheduled life

This is King Arthur.

On Saturday, after the amazing Sue Bradford Edwards and I critiqued each other's stories, I rented a car, drove to West Plains to pick up milord, slept for a few hours, and then drove back to St. Louis--with teenage boy-king and his amazingly tiny new kitten named Yoda.

(When I post pictures, you'll see that Yoda does indeed look exactly like a Jedi Master with syntax issues.)

I know what you're thinking--and you're only partly right. You're thinking that I'm getting ready to apologize for not writing much these past few days.

But actually, considering that the dining room is almost painted and I'm almost sleep-recovered and we there are two almost-brand-new kittens meowling in the house . . . I've done pretty well. Chapter Six is drafted, and I have about 13,700 words.

13,700 very messy, disorganized, ugly, non-rhythmic, and often cliche words.

And I'm getting to the heart of the story now, the crisis, the conflict, the coming-together. I have no idea how to proceed.

So: I'm going to work on the trim in the dining room, find the third Encouraging Email from NaNoWriMo, knit, clean my desk, get the contract out to the tree guys to cut some trees (this is not an easy decision, btw), call our regular handiman to see if he can replace the shower and tile more cheaply than the new handiman, send out a Save The Date email for our November Conference, ask Floyd Cooper for autobiographical information, cook dinner, take a nap, avoid my email inbox . . .

You know. Live. So I can write.

11,500 words--amidst painting, novocaine, dancing. . .

Painting the dining room is good alpha-wave brain activity (though Boots the New Kitten's thorough enjoyment of the plastic drop cloth is probably not).

Serendipitously, just as I've gotten to the messiest part of the middle of the novel (which, by the way, is currently called "The Book Drop Dwarves"), I've gotten to the smoothest part of repairing the cracked and crumbling dining room wall.

So I'm taking the advice of the goddess-in-children's-author-form Donna Jo Napoli, who said at Chautauqua in 2006 something like this:

"I write my first draft very fast. It is AWFUL. I just keep driving forward, trying to get the emotion down. I never go back. If I'm writing along and suddenly discover I need a dog in this scene, and it should have been introduced it in the last chapter, I just scroll back to the last chapter and write DOG in big capital letters, and then GO ON!"

So now I have pop-ups like LIBRARY MONKEY and FIRE-EATING SALAMANDER--ANGEL? sprinkling my text with weirdness.

My amazing critique group, the Ladies of the Gordian Knot, is coming to my house this Saturday. By then, I'll have the dining room painted. But I think I'll not print anything out. I'll just tell them about the salamander and let them ask questions.


(For the thoroughly bored--a current list of the word-count by chapter:

• Ch. 1: 1545
• Ch. 2: 4280
• Ch. 3: 2880
• Ch. 4: 1650
• Ch. 5: 1135)

10,000 words: Happy Birthday to me

Yay!

I got up to 10,000 words, and in the process invented a creature that is somewhat like a salamandar, somewhat like a chameleon, somewhat like a GI Joe, and somewhat like an angel.

This is why I prefer editing to producing.

Still, 10,000 words feels good.
Other things that feel good:

• Dancing
  
• Celebrating my 44th birthday at the new place on the Loop that replaced Saleems
  
• Kitten fur
• Homemade birthday card

To all of you who wished me happy birthday on Facebook: I love you, and I'm sorry to be such a horrible Facebook Friend.

8300 words--and an empty house starting Monday

Today I read the Second Encouraging Email from the NaNoWriMo people. It seems that we are supposed to be thinking about plot more than character at this point, which is quite messy and depressing . . . so let's talk about something else.

Like how it feels when one of your dearest friends comes for a visit, and you allow yourself to do almost no housecleaning and almost no cooking and almost no sleeping and almost no writing just so you can talk.

If you don't grieve for too long at the end of the visit, you may find that you have enough energy to wash up all those dishes, scrub the bathroom sink, go blueberry picking with five-kids-and-two-moms AND write 1,000 words or so.

Plus, you might decide to go English Country Dancing with your husband as a way to celebrate your 44th birthday.

Then, if you have lived a VERY good life, you just might get the whole house to yourself for a week while your family goes to visit someone else's relatives on Monday.

Peace out!

7075 words--and three chapters drafted

As it turns out, telling everyone you know that you're writing a novel in a month is a good strategy. No one in my family laughed at me, and I even got a goodly amount of sloppy copy on the page. I also have three "chapters" completely drafted.

But I must confess the numbers:

• Chapter One: 1255 words
• Chapter Two: 4275 words
• Chapter Three 1545 words

Clearly, Chapter Two is hogging its share of the spotlight--but in such cases, we assume both that chapter borders are fluid and that no one will remember what they used to be after they become what they should be.

Here in Bedford, Indiana, we were going to have a Parade, an Ice Cream Social, and Fireworks today. But the rain fell, all but invisible, all day. So we now hear only distant firecrackers--and I hear as well my parents' voices in the living room, talking with old friends. It is the sound of no fireworks, and it is comforting.

6200 words--and a break for the holiday

I do know, in fact, that this is only the second day of July, which means that I am only just now officially beginning my journey into LyNoWriMo.

But since I also knew I'd be going to Indiana's cornfield's for the Fourth, I got a head-start. I'll likely get very little writing done this week, and even less blogging.

But I do have 6200 words.
Yay.

5300 and counting

Today I have woven
words into a day--
the words I wrote to
the ghost child of my fancy
with the words I spoke to
the love child of my heart.

Today: 850 words for a total of 4350(ish)

Stephanie Bearce is always stepping in to save my life. She can't help it; it's just one of the super-human things she does as part of her quotidian.

Most recently, she came into my home and cleared out the piles of STUFF that I was too horrified to even acknowledge were taking up space. (Stephanie sang and whistled and kept my daughter entertained; I kept ducking downstairs to inject black coffee into my system.)

Then--AFTER saving my life that way, she saved it again by saying, "Before I leave, let's look at that novel manuscript you brought to the retreat." I fumbled about trying to find which computer my outline and plot summary might be stored on. She sat back and got comfortable, paying not a bit attention to my dithering. She read the summary on the computer screen, made a number of insanely cogent comments, and then went off to put the finishing touches on world peace.

And now (third time's the charm, after all) the manuscript we talked about that day is saving my life again. As I may have mentioned earlier, I need a complete novel ms. for LA in Aug. Guess which one I'm working on? Right. The one I dithered about that day with Stephanie. It now has about 4350 messy, incoherent, life-saving words.

Thanks, lady.

3500 words so far

Okay, I completely admit that I did not actually write 3500 words today. After all, I had to teach my 9-year-old to wash her own laundry.

She was so excited she popped in every 4.5 minutes to insist that the wash cycle was really done this time.

Hmm. Well. We're working on long-term benefits here.

BUT--I do currently have 3500 words of sloppy copy, about half of which are new today, and half of which have been in a mummified state for over a year.

And there are two people who are almost entirely responsible for the Unwrapping of Undead Words: Linda Sue Parks (see yesterday's post) and Stephanie Bearce (see tomorrow's post).

Oh yeah. There is one more person.
Me.

To Do List: Groceries, Post Office, Write a Novel in July

Today I got an email from Linda Sue Parks that mentioned, among other things, that when I go to the SCBWI National Conference in LA in August, I . . .

" . . . MUST BRING A MANUSCRIPT. The requirement was a completed draft of a novel that you want to revise."

Oops.

Guess I forgot to read the fine print when I rushed to sign up for the award-winning novelist's Master's Class. I actually don't have a completed draft of a novel. I do have brilliant bits and pieces of three or four novels-to-be. Um, but, see--I can't seem to complete even one actual novel. Instead, I write long, plot-challenged picture books and short, heart-wrenching poems.

(My best friend in graduate school called me the most constipated writer she'd ever met. No, I won't tell you what my worst enemies called me. I've blocked that information; not even therapy can get to it.)

Fortunately, I signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) last November. Of course, since I teach and have kids and, well, celebrate Thanksgiving, I didn't even have time to read the Encouraging Emails sent out during the actual NaNoWriMo, much less come up with 50,000 words of sloppy copy.

So, I'm declaring July to be LyNoWriMo: Lynnea's Novel Writing Month. This afternoon, I printed out all the Encouraging Emails I archived last fall.

The first one said, "Tell everyone you know you're writing a novel in November. Seriously. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse."

So, here goes: Everyone I know--listen up, please. I'm writing a novel--not in November, but in July.

I've even started a blog about it.