The "Exporatory" Draft

As afore mentioned, I've been crushin' on this new story idea for two weeks now. I have a binder full of loose leaf papers filled with scribbles circled to separate ideas. Here are a few of them:

-an older Leonardo DiCaprio character. Hobbles. Pathological liar.
-soluble in water, in oil.
-Lady Elizabeth, chest shredded open, heart bleeding onto the cobblestones.

Characters, scenes, images, little scraps of character histories, details, random bits of potentially useful information. I love this part of writing. I love listening to different kinds of music and looking for inspiration to spark some sort of image or word to use in a story.

Well, it's been two weeks now and the time has come to stop day dreaming and get writing. This is the HARDEST part for me. The part where I feel most hopeless of ever becoming a writer. The task of taking all of these random bits and turning them into a full-fledged novel is daunting to say the least. What's the method? How does one bridge the gap between pure imagining and the finished work with all the elements? This is where the published writers out work the dreamers. Key word: WORK.

Laini Taylor (author of the Dreamdark series and Lips Touch: Three Times) describes the first draft as an exploratory one: (I hope it's okay Laini to post your words here instead of mine because they're so much better!):

                Imagine you’re standing at the edge of a jungle in, let’s say, Borneo (because I have a fascination with Borneo). You have a rough idea of how big this jungle is -- you’ve flown over it in a helicopter and seen dense green treecover, and you know what’s on the other side. You know where you want to get to, and you have a very vague idea of what’s IN the jungle, but you have no map, and as of yet there is no trail. What you do have is a machete, a blank roll of paper, and a grease pencil.

                There’s only one way to get to the other side of the jungle: take out your machete and start whacking. Carve your way forward and forward, sometimes sideways and sometimes back, until you get to the other side. That first time through, you’re going to come across ravines, swamps, viper nests, rivers, all sorts of things you didn’t expect and you’ll deal with them and get around them, over them, through them, in all manner of resourceful ways. And when you step out of the jungle on the far side, what you’ll have in your hand is a sprawling, wrinkled, sweat-stained mess of a map of the territory you’ve just discovered. It might not look very pretty, but it is a glorious thing, a document of discovery. You clutch it to you, and after you’ve rested and healed for a while, you go back to the far side of the jungle and. . . you start again. (Source here)

Isn't that awesome? I love all the bush wacking involved and really, isn't that how it feels a lot of the time? You day dream and mentally interact with your characters, you see things in real life that spawn a mini scene in your brain that makes your hands itch to write down.You have all this beauty and intrigue and pure potential rolling around in your brain so hard it makes you want to explode and then comes the painstaking process of adequately transcribing those feelings and mental images into WORDS. It's like trying to strain pudding.

It's not like this for everyone, you could be one of those people where words just fly out of your fingertips and you fill page after page without stopping. You're one of the lucky ones, my friend. Blessings.But if you're like me, it can be a hard process. But Laini's words bring a measure of comfort.These first few drafts are exploratory, getting to know the lay of the story land. Go easy on yourself. Give yourself permission to write horribly. Set an impossibly high word count as your goal and set a timer and write and write and write. It will come together. Slowly but surely.

You'll probably write a lot of what won't make it into the finished novel. But this helps two ways:

1. You have tons of great back story that helps you write a more dimensional, believable character
2. You're getting so much practice writing that subsequent drafts will be THAT. MUCH. BETTER.

And in the end, those who write, publish. It can be as simple as that. Keep writing my friends!

An Expensive Candle that might Bring you Success

                                            http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/21/newsprint-scented-ca.html

Hello, writers.

Now look at your Bath and Body Works candle. Now back to me. Now back at your candle. Sadly, it isn't me. But if it stopped smelling like warm vanilla sugar or midnight moon whatever- it could smell like it was me. Inky. Wordy. Very important.

Look down, look back up. Where are you? You are in Barnes and Noble with your new book that could smell like ink and words. 

What's that in your hand.

Back at me, I have it. 

It's an oyster with a $750,000 contract from that publisher you love.

Now look again, the contract is now an invitation your book's movie premiere. 

Everything is possible when your candle smells like ink and words and importance and not food or flowers.

I'm on a desk.

Comfort Books

I hate surprises. Last minute changes of plan, unwanted people suddenly showing up on my doorstep for the weekend, a much wanted birthday present held in the vacillating "Oh it's still in my Amazon cart"/ "it's mine! I can't believe it!" dance. I like to plan and prepare and dream and think through all the possibilities before taking action.  I admit to being a worrier which is probably the prognosis for why I am not the world's greatest living example of living by the seat of my pants. Today something that I was hopelessly wishing would never happen was announced to me and the dread, the panic and the turbulent chaos has crash landed into what was looking to be a good weekend.

 So the necessary steps had to take place.

1. Need ice cream. Whatever kind. Just give me a spoon and the carton. Thank you.


2. Shopping. No not shoe shopping. Echk. Barnes and Noble. Borders. This used book store I JUST discovered and love. It's all good. Give me an hour inside any one of them and you can probably almost convince me to do anything. Tonight I bought these three books which have been on my list for a while:

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak - I love, LOVE this book. It makes me cry and laugh and go through the entire gamete of emotions and I just want to kiss Ed Kennedy through-out it. I love the girl who runs barefoot. It's a beautiful, beautiful book and one long missing from my bookshelves.

 

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins-having blog stalked both her and Kiersten White it was finally time to by the darned book and read it after all hype they gave it. I'm a few chapters in and love it. Worth the $16 I paid (with my heart throbbing because I know I could get it cheaper on Amazon but I was in need of consoling, remember!? Retail therapy is not for those thinking clearly). Worth every penny though and I'm anticipating it to keep getting better and better as I go. Stephanie Perkins seems to be the kind of girl you'd want at your slumber party so her book was a given.

 

 

And Corsets and Clockwork by a plethera of authors including my afore mentioned fav Kiersten White. I read her story when she posted the link on her blog and LOVED it. (READ IT. Seriously). So when I saw this book and skimmed the other author stories I had to get it. It just felt like I was buying a bookful of friends to take home with me.

I set out tonight to write a blog post about how books are friends and when you're in a crap mood we gravitate towards our comfort books. It was Mary Higgins Clark all through high school and college. Now it's Kiersten and Laini and Stephanie and (boy I would love to be on first names with these amazing women!) and Markus and so many other wonderful writers who make my heart feel good and give me the strength to go out and fight dragons. Even when they spring up on me at the last minute. Thank you wonderful writers for creating worlds we can escape into and emerge back into our own better for it.

What are your comfort books? Facing any dragons of your own lately?

So Crushin'

A new story idea is like a crush. It suddenly springs into your mind looking handsome and winning and suddenly all of your time is spent thinking and dreaming about it. It's charms are many and for a long time it looks perfect, the Bestseller, the Book That Will Bring Me Success! It's perfect! A revolution of an idea! Then slowly the doubts filter in; in crushing so hard on its perfections you start to look at yourself with all your imperfections as a writer. Will its characters reveal themselves to me? Can I do this idea justice? Am I an adequate writer? 

This idolation and drudging self examination continues on through the duration of the relationship and while you no longer find it perfect, and in fact, there are many, many flaws that have to be worked through, over time something magical and wonderful begins to happen. A book is being formed, it's full of well-rounded characters, deep themes and a solid storyline.

Sometimes you're already in the middle of writing when this crush suddenly enters your life. Some authors ignore such promiscuous impulses and swat away the distracting temptress. Many others can't ignore the siren's call, that of a new project promising to be nothing but faithful and never disappointing and sooo much better than the current what's-her/his-name you're with now.  Be wary my friends! Sometimes it's worth setting aside a project that just isn't working and beginning anew but many times it's not the project that needs to work harder (hint: it's you). Every fling starts out this way and you've seen the news lately to know what happens next. (Let's just hope you weren't sending pictures of your Johnson to this new idea because frankly this metaphor only goes so far people).

But if you happen to be "single" and on the hunt for something so promising and exciting as a new idea, when the moment happens it's breathtaking. The stars align for that short time, the world sits right on its axis and even though life will still come at you hard there is something redeeming about a new idea full of hope of a brighter future despite all the let-downs of previous drafts.

 I've been in the singles pool for a while now (I'm not embarrassed to admit it) but this idea is looking pretty good. I expect we'll have a DTR soon and then announce that we're officially together. But don't tell him that. You know how men get around the word commitment.