Tag: Anne Lamott

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What I’m Remembering about Writing Fast

Posted on by beckylevine

Okay, yes, if you’re going to get picky, right now I’m just plotting fast. The three-day weekend is coming up, and my goal–barring any rising creeks –is to take those three days and finish all my scene cards for the MG novel. I’ve been putting in a little time on this for the past couple of evenings, after I get home from work, and I think this is doable. And when done, I’ll be set up to fast-write the first draft over the summer. I wrote here about why I’ve decided to try this process again.

So, anyway, right now I’m fast-plotting. And I’m remembering all the delights and joys that come with fast-plotting (and, if I remember correctly, also with fast-writing.) There are many of them, and I’ll mention some below, but the underlying awesome feeling of them all is this: It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter if

  • You plot your hero behaving in a way that may, once you write it all out, turn him into a whiny brat in Scene 4, Scene 19, and Scene 23.
  • You forget the best-friend-soon-to-be-former-best-friend’s irritating new girlfriend’s name and “must” refer to her scathingly as whatshername every time you stick her into a scene.
  • You’re building the other best friend toward an act of strength and kindness, possibly setting him up to out-hero your hero.
  • You’ve created multiple siblings but keep forgetting to put various ones into the story.
  • You don’t know what the magic will do in Scene 15.
  • Every action you apply to one character makes him darker and darker, so that he could be awesomely wonderful in a Gary-D.-Schmidt novel (as area all his characters), but you’re probably not writing a Gary-D.-Schmidt novel.

It just doesn’t matter.

You may be thinking, oh, but it kind of does. Maybe you’re focusing on the part where you know (and I know) that eventually, I”ll have to make all this work. Or possibly, you’re thinking about all the time and energy I’ll put (even fast-writing) into a draft that will, when that draft is done, need to be turned into something drastically and dramatically different. Perhaps you’re thinking, but how can you even WRITE a scene when you don’t understand the magic?

Guess what? I’m thinking all those things, too. Every time I come to a question, stare at the screen, make a choice, I hear one of these questions in my head. I push them away, but they do keep popping up. And I try really hard to answer them with “It doesn’t matter.”

There is a trust implicit to this process, a belief that Anne Lamott is right when she says to write that shitty first draft. That vomiting that draft onto paper or into a file is a necessary first step. I have believe that for years, logically, but as I’ve said before–somewhere along the way I had stopped believing it in my gut. Stepping back into actively fast-plotting has brought the trust back. Of course what I’ll have at the end–at the end of the plotting, at the end of the first-drafting–will be a complete and utter mess. But…O.M.G. IT WILL BE THERE.

The contrast between how clear and happy my head feels as I plot this book to how it felt when trying to plot the last book is unbelievable. That one, the plot which I thought about, where I tried to track threads from the start to the end, where I asked myself questions about how something would work and then tried to find the answer–that one made me tangled and confused, tired and irritable. This plot, the one I’m pushing myself to speed through, is making my feel sparkly and creative and in possession of brain cells on fire. Add that to the excitement and anticipation of the fact that, if I can keep to this process, I will have A DRAFT at the end of this summer–a draft to chew up and spit out, to cut apart and glue back together, to kill darling after darling after darling….well, that feels like dancing.

It’s nice to be remembering.

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I’ve Been Tagged: Picture Book Projects

Posted on by beckylevine

Okay, I was tagged almost two weeks ago, but I’m here! Thanks to Carol Baldwin for giving me the chance to talk about my project(s) and process. And, rather than tag anyone specific in turn, I’m just throwing out an invite. If the questions in this post look fun and you’ve got a project you want to talk about, drop the link into the comments so we can all see.

What are you working on right now?

Picture books! I actually have three picture books in the works. Partially because these stories called to me, partially because I have fallen in love with all the manuscripts, and partially because I’m learning that if I want to submit a picture book to an agent, I need to have more than that one ready to go. So the MG novel is set aside for now, even though it keeps sending out little peeps to try and get my attention. I’m promising it lots of time when these other manuscripts are ready and done.

I’m not going to share details about the picture books, because by the time I’ve told you anything about them, I might as well tell you everything. And I’ll hold onto that for marketing time, when/if that comes! But I will tell you that I feel like I have tapped into several different story modes, voices, and characters for the manuscripts. When I look at them, I’m not quite sure how they all came out of my brain and fingertips, but I think some of the credit has to go to Tara Lazar and PiBoIdMo. (Holy Cow! I have to start thinking up new ideas in TWO DAYS!). Something about the speed and craziness of coming up with one or more ideas, every day for a month, seems to let loose a randomocity of ideas, at least for me. It’s a challenge, because I have to shift neurons and synapses each time I turn from one to the other of the three manuscripts, but it’s also energizing and just really, really cool.

How do picture books differ from other genres?

Okay, the original question is how does your manuscript differ from other books in its genre, so feel free to answer that one in your post. But since I’m talking about three picture books, it doesn’t quite work. So I changed it! As I’ve talked about before, I’m fairly new to picture books, so they feel very different. I have always been a novel person, from the series books I read as a kid to the years I spent reading 700-page works of Victorian fiction in college. Dickens got paid by word-count; in picture books, you are seriously encouraged to reduce your word count. Which I love. Maybe I’m coming at it wrong (but don’t tell me if I am!), but I am finding that the tighter I can make the words in a picture book, the more clear the theme/vision/main problem becomes. It’s truly like trimming away the fat, or chiseling the marble away from the statue inside. As a reader, I have always loved spare writing, and while I’m not sure I’ve achieved this in any of my novels, I’m so there with my picture books. I have one manuscript that is down to 200+ words. Some of those still need to be replaced. Some will be cut. But I’m pretty sure I won’t be adding back a whole lot more.

The other difference for me, and the real challenge, is how tricky it is to create a truly active protagonist when they are, essentially, a very small child whose life is constantly impacted by bigger, older, theoretically wiser characters. You’ve heard that we’re supposed to read what we write. Well, I spend a huge chunk of my picture-book reading time tracing the actions and the behavior of the hero, seeing what techniques and steps the author has taken to bring their protagonist to the forefront of the story and give them some control over their lives. And then I go back to my protagonists and tell them to get their act together. Please. And again and again.

Why do you write what you do?

Well, obviously because I’m loving it. But I think there are two other reasons. One, frankly, is time. And impatience. I went back to work a couple of years ago, and started feeling like a completed novel was way, way, way down the line. (For those of you starting NaNoWriMo in two days, just ignore me! Seriously. Get out there and dump it all onto the page. And have fun!) I had some picture book ideas and while it was never easy, I could see progress in a way I wasn’t able–right then–to see on my novel. It felt good to be able to take time on a weekend and see some actual changes, get some new ideas and put them into effect…on the entire manuscript.

The other reason, I think, goes back to me and my lifetime of novel reading and writing. Picture books were new. I didn’t know the structure, I didn’t know the voice, and I really, really didn’t know how to tackle that super young protagonist. I felt my brain wake up, felt the areas that had been comfortable resting in the patterns of a 200-page manuscript, sit up and stare. What is this? We want to play! Something about having to learn a new genre, a very different genre, felt like magic–neurological magic, I guess. The last thing I want my brain to do is stagnate, and I have a feeling adding picture books to my repertoire is going to help it not do that.

How does your writing process work?

Process? It’s changed so much over the years, so much with every genre/project, and so much with whatever else is happening with my life. These days, unfortunately, it seems to be a lot of bringing myself back to a project. I haven’t been as good as I’d like at keeping the writing going every day, along with regular job-work things. So there’s pretty much always a gap between the last time I wrote and the next time, and not just a gap of 24 hours. So there’s fear. There’s that feeling of not remembering quite where I was and of not automatically knowing the next step I need to be taking. The only thing I’ve found for a cure is to get to the computer. Even if I am only looking at one sentence in a manuscript and thinking about it, I make myself do that. And if I can make myself sit and look, gently think, then I almost always hear the key turn in the lock. Ideas start coming. My fingers start typing. And something changes.

Other than that, I revise and revise. My first draft, especially on a picture book, is a wild dump. I am amazed at how powerful and complete I can think an idea is until I try to write it down. If I were going to give up on a manuscript, that would be the point at which it would happen. But I’m learning (again, thanks to PiBoIdMo), that junk doesn’t stay junk. And even when it does, for a long time, that core idea is still there, and something about it is valid. So, like I said, I revise and revise and revise. And I sent the manuscripts to my critique group. Again and again and again. They are saints. And I whittle, and I trim, and I substitute, and I go on wild rampages of totally new angles. And each revision gets me closer to something right. And something done.

Any departing words of wisdom for other authors?

Nothing brilliant. Read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. She will tell you about the pain and anguish and joy and delight of writing much better than I can. But basically, if you want to write, write. Somehow, make some time for it. And be incredibly patient with yourself. When something matters as much as writing does, then worry, fear, and struggle are going to come along for the ride. But so can stubbornness, determination, and moments of absolute light and inspiration.

And, something I learned for myself this past year, if you’re not happy with the project you’re working on, stop. I don’t mean worried or stressed or confused. But if every time you come to sit down with that manuscript, you’re grumpy and sad and unmotivated, take a look around. Is something else calling to you? Work on that for a few days. Do the grumpies go away? Even while the challenges hang around? Maybe that’s where you need to be. Writing is too important to be truly, steadily unhappy while we do it. Truly.

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Letting the Story Flow

Posted on by beckylevine

There are days, like I’ve had this week, when the words come. When you have an idea of what  needs to happen and who might be doing it, and you open a scene, and you write that scene.

It feels great.

If you’re not careful, though, that evil editor is going to be hanging around saying, “Are these the right words? Is this really what needs to happen here? Will this scene connect up with the rest of the story.”

My thought for the day: It’s okay to say, “I DON’T KNOW.” Loudly. And with pride.

It’s really just another way of accepting Anne Lamott’s shitty first draft. (Or, as in my case, a second draft with lots of new material!).

There’s a reason, I think, why the words that are coming out of you feel good, even if they’re not words you’ll ultimately keep. It’s because they’re something. They’re the mess you’re making that you’re going to be able to work with later, that you’ll pull pieces out of to keep and throw away big piles of.

So let yourself enjoy the feeling. Don’t question it more than you have to, and don’t let the little worrying voice in your head tell you to stop. Do. Not. Stop.

Write.

Posted in First Drafts

The End is (Possibly) in Sight

Posted on by beckylevine

Report: The 1st draft of my historical YA  is moving along. Quickly.

Okay, not that quickly. Individual scenes are not zooming along, not flying from my fingers in a state of loveliness. Hardly. Let’s say I’m seriously channeling Anne Lamott these days.

It does feel like I could, if I wanted, count out the number of scenes I have left till the end. I’m not going to, because it’ll be more than I think, and then I’ll just get discouraged.

Maybe it’s because I spent a couple of weeks working on a synopsis. Maybe it’s because I took a couple more weeks off to revise my picture book. Maybe it’s because I have too many what-ifs and buts churning in my head about the first 3/4 of this draft, and I just want to get to them and start working it all out.

Whatever the cause, I’m letting myself hurry. I’m spending less time plotting a scene than I normally would, even in this exploratory draft I’m doing. I’m letting myself leave BIG holes between scenes and inside them. If I looked closely, I’m pretty sure that I’d see I’m writing melodrama, rather than drama.

I’m pretty sure this is okay. I’m getting it down. I’m heading toward the ending that’s been in my brain for a good part of  a year now, and I’m trying to stay open to putting that ending down in a completely different way than I’ve visualized. Or maybe in the exact way I’ve visualized. I don’t know. I just know it all has to be written, and I’m getting impatient with the thinking. Maybe Caro’s getting impatient. Maybe the Get Going! I’m hearing is from her, and she–as much as me–wants to start working out the mess puzzle that we’ve created so far.

I’m listening. All you pantsers out there, hear me and be proud, I’m joining your crowd. At least temporarily. And I’m being thankful that nobody has to read this yet.

Except my critique group.

I should probably send piles of chocolate along with these last chapters.

And keep writing.

Posted in First Drafts

Loosening the Reins

Posted on by beckylevine

We all know what Anne Lamott says… “The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.”

Working on it, Anne!

But here’s the thing. She also says this:

The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, “Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants,” you let her. No one is going to see it. If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him. Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go-but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.

This month, I’m finding myself thinking more and more about what Anne talks about here, and I’m reminding myself to loosen the reins on my writing. I don’t usually have much of a battle with my inner editor over prose, but about heading into a story without knowing pretty well where I’m headed, well, that’s where I get into conflict. Not with my editor, but with my muse. We frequently have words. It usually goes something like this.

MUSE: Just write. Be creative. It’ll come. I promise.

ME: Just write? Are you crazy? I have no idea what is supposed to happen in this scene, who my hero’s supposed to be in conflict with, what she WANTS, where she’s heading next.

MUSE: Just write. Be creative. You can answer those questions in the second draft. (And the third. And the fourth.)

ME: What if I can’t, even then? What if it never comes together?

MUSE: Just write. Be…

You get the picture. She can be annoyingly repetitive.

Here’s the thing. What Anne is talking about above is trust–in the muse, or in the process, or in the skills you have been developing over the years. Logically, rationally, I believe in all these things. I believe it will come, and I will see the patterns, and I will get them on the page. But emotionally…yeah. Trust.

Mostly, I have that, too. It takes me a day or so of scrabbling around on the page, with each new scene, trying to force things into place before I’m ready, but then I whack myself upside the head and say… “Shitty, Becky. Anne said, ‘shitty.'” And the only way to even get shitty on the page is to actually write.

WARNING: HORSE METAPHOR

I’ve ridden a few times. I am not a horse person, although I did my share of galloping around the playground when I was a little girl. I had friends with REAL horses, and you know–they’re VERY tall and VERY fast. When I’m on a real horse, I’m all about pretending I do have control, about holding those reins still and not moving a leg until I’m totally ready to send that animal a signal. And then I’m all about hanging onto the pommel and doing my best to let that horse know I’m perfectly happy at a walk. No trot needed, and we seriously don’t need to gallop.

When I write, I remind myself to loosen up on those reins and give the horse its head.  I might fall off (but, honestly, THAT’S not going to hurt as much as the real thing, thank you very much!), and I’m sure to give the horse a few misleading cues, but mostly that horse is going to amble along, letting me lurch back and forth on its sun-warmed back, and it’s going to take me along a few different, maybe confusing trails. If I’m lucky, it’s going to toss its head and run a little crazy.

Horse football

At some point, though, that horse is going to smell the barn. Or the stable. Or the paddock. (WhatEVER!). And it’s going to head home and take me with it. And I’ll know more about the places that we’ve been together than I could have ever imagined when I put my foot into the stirrup and pulled myself up into the saddle.

And that’s when I’ll start over, pulling all the shit together into something better. That’s what I trust in. That it will happen, even if I can’t see it today.

Right? Of course right!

Posted in Book in a Week, First Drafts, NaNoWriMo, Revising

Let’s Talk about 1st Drafts: A (Hopefully) Gentle Post-Nano Pep Talk

Posted on by beckylevine

A week or so ago, I blogged about progress–thinking about what people would be feeling as they came to the end of NaNo. Now that NaNo is over & authors everywhere are actually looking over what they did produce in November, I’m feeling the need to talk about things a little bit more. Actually, this post is prompted in part by the disappointment an online friend was (hopefully, not is, anymore) feeling about her 1st draft. So this may turn into a bit of a rant.

Qualifier: I very much like the idea of NaNo. I did a variant in Book in a Week a few years ago, and I was thrilled with the results–with where that week got me, in terms of understanding my story and in terms of having actual material to move forward with.

Note that I did not say I was thrilled with the draft.

That first draft was–well, let’s just call it an Anne Lamott-approved 1st draft. I sat down to read it after the week, and started scribbling notes and thoughts, and then I stopped reading. Because it was just that bad.

I did not stop revising. By maybe 1/3 of the way through, I’d seen that my hero was being a totally passive observer, letting his sidekick drive the choices and actions of the story. I didn’t have to read the whole manuscript to find out whether he continued that way; I knew he did. And I knew that, before I could do any other revising, I had to tackle this major problem.

So I wrote a second draft, in which I pushed that hero to the front. I made the story goals his goals, and I threw the obstacles in his path. Did I work on other, smaller issues as I went through all the chapters? Of course, I did–I’m human! But that was the revision focus. And when I finished that draft, I had something I thought I could work with. Something I thought I could pass through my critique group without too much humiliation and embarrassment.

What’s my point? That first draft–whether you wrote it in a week or a month–is supposed to be bad. REALLY bad. How could it be otherwise? Unless you have the brain of, I don’t know…Stephen Hawking? Albert Einstein? William Shakespeare? ______________ ? (Fill in the blank with the name of any famous author you’ve heard say they DO write a beautiful first draft!), you cannot write a manuscript that fast and THINK about it at the same time. Yes, I know, you did think. So did I during the Book in a Week process. But I thought for seconds and minutes. I did not think for hours, because I had none of those to spare. And neither did you.

What do you have, from your NaNo work? Do you have crap? If you answer anywhere near “Yes,” I want you to step away from the computer, give yourself a hug and some chocolate, and do the happy dance. Because you’re supposed to have crap. And you got it in a month–many of us take a YEAR (or more) to reach that point! You get to start turning that horrible stuff into something better 11 months ahead of schedule. Are you on Twitter? Did you see all the tweets from agents and editors, in varying degrees of tact, asking you NOT to query them about this manuscript on December 1st? The fact that you recognize how bad your first draft is proves you have the skill level and the knowledge of the craft to see that.

Okay, rant finished. But seriously, if you’re feeling disappointed or discouraged or–please, no–like you’ve failed in any way, well, just don’t!  Is there something you particularly hate about the story so far? Wonderful! Take that element and fix it. Figure out what you hate about it, why it makes you want to take the whole manuscript and use it to heat the wood-burning stove this winter, and revise around that problem. Save the AL-approved 1st draft, if you want to reassure yourself that you’re not losing any treasures (but really so you can show yourself how much BETTER that next draft is–and the next, and the next…).

I love NaNo and BIAW. I love the idea of tackling this big a project in such a short time, of riding an adrenalin wave, of producing more words and ideas than you ever thought possible. I browsed through NaNo’s website before writing this blog, and that’s really what the month is supposed to be about. I do not like all the bad feelings that come to some NaNo writers when the adrenalin leaves, and the crash comes. No matter how bad those words look on the page, you have achieved something wonderful.

Let yourself believe that.