Trash · Memories

So here I sit, looking at some guaranteed undisturbed wee hours. Pandora rocks my headphones, cranking out Sissy Boy Radio... perfect conditions for writing... But the story is done.

I've finished my little experiment: How to Write 18,000 Words in One Winter Break, or How to Be
a Sort-Of Author in Three Weeks--From Home!

The Rationale: I'm going to be in school for the rest of my life. I am a writer who wants to be published. NaNoWriMo is impossible because November is FINALS, PEOPLE! HELLO?!? Ahem. Sorry. While in school, I have weeks at a time where I'm not working 24 hours a day at stuffing my brain (NOT in November *cough*). I have the option of three months off every year. Writing (well) takes time, hours a day, in fact. I have that time. So.

The Method: During winter and summer breaks, I will work on novel-length pieces, pushing as far forward as possible during the days I have "off." I realize that I will soon be a wife and mother, and soon those "off" days will be filled with all sorts of things that aren't writing. Hell, they already are. But. During winter and summer breaks, I will write diligently on one piece the entire time. Spring break, well, that's going to be our anniversary week, so all writing deadlines can kindly fuck off. Spring breaks are for WOO and nobody can take that away from me.

During the semester, I'll write shorter pieces of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. I need to feed my brain, but also leave the creative writing field way open. During this past semester, I finished a short story in about two weeks, and I know I can do that again. It wasn't the best short story in the freaking world, but it was solid. Most importantly, it was done. There will be papers and papers and papers to write and eventually to read, so I need to keep my commitments relatively low and my deadlines relatively short. I will probably crank out lots of fluff, and I'm going to forgive myself for that. Dealing with esoteric points of literature and grammar might make me a little crazy, so steam will need to be blown off. On the other hand, school offers me the unique opportunity to research to my heart's content. This semester, I'm taking an ancient history class. Do I really need to say anything else? I mean, really? Has anybody read any fantasy? Besides a class in Medieval history, nothing could be better. Next I want to take something about Westerns or the Victorian era. OK. I digress.

The Nutshell: Winter and summer breaks are for writing like the devil's after me. School sessions are for collecting crazy literary and historical minutiae and then producing short stories and nonfiction and poetry from it.

It's working out pretty well so far.

18,000 words, not to shabby, right? That's 62 pages in MLA format, you know. Maaaaybe... a third? of those words were written in 2004. But I get points for revamping them because that shit is some work. Also, with that estimate, about 12,000 of those words are new. NEW, bitches. NEW. And that's exciting.

I've come to an interesting place in writing. I've learned some stuff during my "dry years" that is helping me now.

I've learned most of the niceties of grammar and mechanics. I feel confident in the tone of my writing, and how to manipulate grammar to influence tone. For example, I know when to use short sentences and when to use long. I understand that short sentences can up the drama, especially after long. I understand that some characters' voices naturally consist of short or long sentences. I also understand the grammar that underpins long sentences, and how to make them read smoothly. I'm starting to get a feel for what the sentence needs, as far as phrases and metaphor and all that frippery.

I have also (wonder of wonders) begun to get a handle on dialogue. I'm developing a feel for how real people talk, and how to translate that into letters and spaces and punctuation. Dialogue format is particularly confusing. Do you start a new paragraph when someone new is talking? Do you need a tag? Do you need a comma? Why is Microsoft Word putting that stupid green line there? It's ridiculous. My unsolicited advice for other writers about the correct form for dialogue: pick a book off your shelf and look at how the published writers do it. Then copy it. That's how I did it, and it's working pretty well so far. I suppose, if I ever get published, someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Deciding how to format dialogue and sticking to that format has freed me up to pay attention to what the characters are actually saying, which is the important stuff, after all.

So. I've learned some stuff during my "dry years" that is helping me now. But all that just led me to the boundary of what I don't know. I don't have to worry too much about grammar, self-editing, format, detail, etc. So what do I worry about? Plot.

I find myself in this place where my tools are good, maybe too good. I can write my characters into any situation I can dream up. Lovely. But what situation do I create? Now I have to look at the bigger picture and decide what best serves the plot. They can go there, but should they go there? Is that melodrama? What is melodrama?

It's tough because I'm also writing the fantastic, so I can't just ask "Would that really happen?" Yes, characters react like humans even in fantastical circumstances, so that question has helped me. But it doesn't always work.

I also have the "house of cards" problem. It's like this: Once I start fucking with one scene or plot point or story arc or whatever, the whole thing falls apart. I start questioning, and it's very hard to stop. I can work myself into a frenzy of "what if"s, and pretty soon I've convinced myself to stop writing altogether. I'm not joking. That's really happened. More than once.

I realize that this is just another stage in the process of becoming a better writer. I have to allow myself to write crap and veer into melodrama, etc, so that I know what it looks like. In a year I'll look back and say something like what said at the beginning of this entry: I've learned some stuff, but it's just led me to the boundary of what I don't know. Which is, I suppose, the point of writing.