Yes, It Is All My Fault!

New people have been showing up to be included in this story for a full year now. I love them all, and a secret wish is that this doesn’t end up the stand-alone story I really think it might be, so I could keep writing their stories.  I’m fulfilling a bit of that urge with the short stories, so that’s all right.

But I’m looking over the ensemble list, and I really think I might be done with character generation. There don’t seem to be any more glaring gaps that need filled by a person in the story, and I’ve been looking for the past several days. There are certainly characters I haven’t tuned into sufficiently and need to flesh out more, but in terms of the initial arrival on scene…they actually may all be here.

It’s a strange feeling, but another sign to me that it is TIME to get this draft done. How very exciting.

I think I’m in love with my story all over again. Finishing Chapter 5 seems to have really unlocked the current novel rut. This is the craziest cast of characters I’ve yet invented, and I adore nearly all of them.

I want to be done with the draft RIGHT NOW so I can fix it and make it lovely. I hope that antsiness translates into, you know, finishing the draft. Now now now. Soon.

I have just finished chapter 5, after writing 15 pages in three days (it’s a short chapter, but a more action-packed one–I even managed to finally introduce two more of my antagonist factions, something I’ve been avoiding as long as I could). I have at least a few of chapter 6’s scenes plotted, enough to not get stuck not-writing while I think up the rest of the next chapter.

I’ve also, over the course of attempting to avoid direct work on the story the past few days, got most of the way through inventing yet another member of the ensemble cast of characters, and came up with two great marketing ideas for promoting the novel when the time comes. I’ll need to start finding my artist now, though, since I expect we’ll need as much time as possible to get it right. Plus I helped my housemate Kit critique his latest short story. I know, I’m a terrible catwaxer, I’m far too productive. I’m willing to accept this. And I found the intro to another story I’ve had the idea growing for, and figured out what flavor of story these other characters need and what I need to research to do it, and, and, and. . .yeah, let the brain do what it wants to and it just doesn’t shut up. Not even in sleep!

I hope to remember to post about my latest shift regarding feelings and attitudes toward the first draft I’m working on and its anticipated revision stages. But for now, speaking of sleep, I think I hear a bed calling. . .

Finding one’s Right Path to successful writing is such an individual and delicate balance. So many opportunities to fall, to break, to become disillusioned; sometimes it seems they overwhelm the parts that soar. You learn quickly that there aren’t a lot of easy-formula answers.

The latest lesson along those lines is my Chapter 5 of the latest project. I’ve been limping along on the novel in fits and starts (it’s been a very, very full year), but have managed over 100 pages so far. I got several pages into chapter 5, took a couple of weeks off to write “Flowers In the Desert” (which is set in the same world with some of the same characters as in the novel, so it wasn’t really taking things too far off), came back to the novel…

…and found I was a better writer than when I left it, and Chapter 5 had some of the worst writing of the entire project. What to do?

I spent a few days fiddling with it, but not making much forward progress. A conversation with my lovely housemates confirmed what I suspected: in first draft, there are still times where just barging ahead and worrying about fixing in revision doesn’t work. Sometimes it’s okay and even necessary to backtrack to where the worst of the problems started, save what you have as a different file name in case there’s anything worth salvaging, and start over fresh from there. This doesn’t equal “failure”. It’s part of the process!

So I deleted all but the first scene, wrote one line notes for the rest of the chapter scenes, then illness and interpersonal difficulties have sapped my creative energy for a week plus. The Angsty Artist who must Suffer to write, I’m not.

But I’m about on my last leg of tired of letting that other shite interfere with my work, so I’m writing this blog entry to nag myself into hopefully finishing the chapter tonight, given enough energy. Tomorrow if not tonight. Then tomorrow, plot out Chapter 6. You, my lovely readers, are welcome to harass ask about my progress, come tomorrow. I have some Sekrit Writing Goals to achieve, dammit.

I’m in the peculiar position, as a writer (aren’t they all?), of having the confidence that comes with knowing I can finish a novel draft (an edge over most beginning writers), but still basically being at a first novel skill level in knowing the how of building a novel from its essence outward.

The crappy finished draft was 13 years ago, after all. Then, I had no community for writerly support, no concept of how to take a bad first draft and turn it into a finished product, and a huge perfectionistic streak that had a hard time handling perceived failure. I spent 8 years after that not writing at all (well, I was also being drained creatively having all my energy tied up in crappy interpersonal relationships, too).

I fixed my head and started picking better lovers, started writing again, helped form a writing group, did scads of online research about writing, read awesome writer blogs (like Marissa Lingen, Elizabeth Bear, and many many others), wrote some more, started learning to revise, learned I was the sickest sort of writer (I like to revise!), and the ideas flowed like water.

Every part of this new novel process has been full of learning experiences. It’s been long enough, and my situation is different enough now, that so much of it is like doing it for the first time: learning all the technical fun parts, playing with structure and theme and mood and voice and syntax and sounds and layers and balancing all that with the need to tell an entertaining story, not take the easy ways out, do right by the story, fit all the good bits in…

And yet, that little voice of assured success, knowing that however badly, I’ve done this once and so of course can do it again, helps me less than you might think. Because the shrewd among you (or those who’ve met me) likely noticed I didn’t get rid of that inner perfectionist, though I might have learned a bit about modifying the extremes of her harshness over the last decade.

I know I can do this. I even know it will be good. But will it be good enough? That fear lingers, in the spaces between the words.

Happily, these days, the fear is smaller, though still there if I go looking. I do have a really awesome family, and writing group, and network of resources, and I think that will fill any gaps in my own amazingness until I can learn enough to jump ever higher hurdles. I’m stepping along this path carefully, this time, laying solid and healthy writer habit foundations wherever I can, building slowly when I feel like rushing, learning to let go my ego and let the story be written. I’m practicing along the way with short stories (I’ve even sold one!) , many of which are turning out to be rather nicely written.

It will be good. Good enough? Well, if not…there’s always the next novel.