Copywrite

I’m thinking about doing NaNoWriMo again this year and my problem is that I don’t know what to write.

Julia Cameron says that “writing is the art of taking dictation, not giving it. When I listen to what I hear and simply jot that down, the flow of ideas is not mine to generate but to transcribe. When, on the other hand, I struggle to write, it is because I am trying to speak on the page rather than listen there.”¹ It may seem a bit touchy-feely but I believe what she says is true.

This is not to say that there isn’t concrete work a writer does (what did people wear in the 1970s? What was sex education like in public schools? How do home equity loans work? What’s the geography of the place where these people live? These are all constraints that must be researched). More, though, is that it’s like meditation, like opening your mind and listening the characters talk to you. And there in lies my dilemma. I’ve “got” two ideas for novels this year, and only one set of characters is talking.

For one book, a fantasy novel, I can see my heroine (my main character, really, since this would be a book of heroes and big themes) as plain as if she were standing in front of me. Brash, jaw jutted out in defiance, so young yet so full of herself, a warrior in the making.

For the other book, a mystery, I can see my heroine (perhaps she’s not supposed to be my main character but she’s the one that spoke first) but there isn’t much to her. She’s afraid, hiding in her own skin, hoping to become invisible to avoid being hurt. And yet, she can’t seem to disengage, to not need people. When I try to see her she looks back at me with these flat eyes, a look that says “Really, you don’t want to know me. If I convince you of that, I won’t have to worry what you think of me.”

The fantasy novel tugs, and has been tugging since last year’s NaNo; the mystery novel just seems to sort of lay there, more saleable, it’s true, and requiring less research (what would peasant farmers with no “technology” do during the winter besides try not to die? What do they eat? How cold does it get in this place? It’s all more than daunting).

The main character for the fantasy novel came to me again today, while I was vacuuming the couch no less. Can I afford to ignore her for another year, or is it time to be a big girl writer and take a real plunge?

¹ Julia Cameron, The Right to Write (New York: Penguin Putnam, 1998), “Let Yourself Listen”, 10.

Last fall I entered the collective insanity that is National Novel Writing Month: you agree to write the first draft of a novel in 30 days beginning midnight 01 November and ending at 23:59:59 30 November. It’s not as hard as it sounds as the NaNo people consider “a novel” to be 50,000 words, which works out to 2,000 words per day.

Two thousand words, for most of us used to sitting in front of a computer, is not much more than a long e-mail or blog entry, right? The problem is that unless you stuff yourself into some mythical NaNo format, even if you make 50,000 words by or before November 30th your book probably isn’t going to be finished. And NaNo’s hard work, make no mistake. It illuminates for you how much of your life you spend doing other things besides writing (like watching 18 year-old Patrick Swayze movies on TV ’cause you’ve had a glass of wine with dinner and since you don’t drink any more you’re kind of a cheap drunk and when you’re slightly drunk you’re too stupid to do anything but suckle from the glass teat).

Some good things came out of the disciplined insanity of writing a first draft in a month: well, obviously, most of a first draft (I didn’t really “finish” the book until January); I met Jim; and I learned once and for all that writing is not a group activity.

But now I have this first draft of what is a moderately good novel and what the heck am I supposed to do with it? I skipped National Novel Editing Month because I don’t believe it’s possible to “speed edit.” The past few days without electricity, though, gave me the perfect opportunity to commune with the book. And what I discovered is that editing the sex is the hardest.

Yes, that’s right, there’s sex in my book, and as Susie Bright tells us “a good sex story is something that arouses the author.” The problem is, it’s damn hard to figure out if that comma should be deleted, or if an act is physically possible or it bends the characters into a parallelogram, when you’re all hot and bothered.

So I read it, made some small edits, and moved on to the rest of the book. Now that I’ve been through the entire thing once and gotten the obvious mistakes, I’ll go back and rework the sex. It’s a sacrifice but somehow I think I’ll manage.

Note: this entry, minus this note, the title, and the URLs, is 409 words.

and I still think I’m a talentless hack.

I’m not sure what’s wrong with me but here’s hoping there’s some drugs for it or something.

The book is actually going pretty well. It looks like my story line is going to exceed 50,000 words, though I’m still not sure about that yet. I’ve got a lot of stuff planned and I’m slightly past the half-way mark which is where what happened in the last 2,000 or so words should have happened.

Number of Chapters: soon to be 18
Number of pounds gained: still 0, thankfully
Number of emotional crises weathered: 4 3 (depression is a real bitch sometimes)
Number of secrets revealed: 1, possibly 2 (it needs some editing)

<sigh>

Sadly, the novel-in-blog experiment has come to an end as I’ve been gripped by writer paranoia again (I knew I should have gone with my gut instincts and never even put the thing online) with relationship to something called “first publication rights.”

Now, I don’t believe that putting any or all of a rough draft, NaNoWriMo novel into Movable Type and publishing it as 30 separate blog entries would preclude getting a dead-tree publisher to buy it but, as they say, better safe than sorry (copyright and future sales being one of the instances in which I believe that it is better to ask permission than forgiveness).

That being said, I’ve password protected the book so if you want to read it give me a shout: woodstockdc AT yahoo.com and if you ask nicely, I’ll give you a username and password.

Total word count to date: 27,757
Pounds gained: 0
Emotional crises weathered: 3
Real people I’ve borrowed for characters: 1 (hope you don’t mind, Carrie, I borrowed your librarian)

Well, I’m biting the bullet and declaring my blog officially on hiatus while I engage in the insanity that is National Novel Writing Month.

There may be periodic updates as my mood swings back and forth from “I am a writing genuis!” to “Kill me now, I’m a talentless hack!” and every point in between, but most of my energy is going into the book.

See you in December!