On Writing Every Day

I know I've written about this subject before, but an experience last week has inspired me to write about it again. It's about that mantra I'm sure you've heard plenty of times: write every day. Write even when you don't want to write. Even when the words are awful.

I'll be the first to admit that I fail at this. Which is why I like to think of it more as: actively think about what you're writing every day, even if you don't write any words. My writing time is more productive when the plot and the characters have been on my mind when I'm not writing.

But I'm at the very beginning stages of a first draft, and I have a harder time working on a story at the beginning than at the middle. The vastness of pages I have to fill to have a completed manuscript looms for me, and, since I'm a pantser, so does the idea that I don't really know what is going to fill them. It takes 10,000 words or so for me to believe that what I'm working on is enough of an idea for a whole manuscript.

So at the beginning, writing every day is harder for me than when I'm really deep in the manuscript. And the other night I was trying to write and it just. wasn't. working.

I think I wrote about 200 words, and I had to force out each one. It wasn't as many as I was aiming for, but I told myself that at least I wrote something, and then I worked on something else. But when I was showering a couple of hours later, about to go to bed, a sentence and scene appeared in my mind. I got out of the shower, sat down at my computer, and wrote over 700 words in very little time.

I fully believe that I wouldn't have had the idea that sparked those words if I hadn't forced out the 200 awful ones earlier that night.

So yeah, sometimes we can't write every day. That doesn't mean you're any less of a writer, or that you'll never be successful, or that you don't love writing. But just trying to write every day has endless benefits. In my opinion, that's worth remembering.

Marathon Time

I may or may not have gone to Northwestern for college because of a charity event they hold annually called Dance Marathon. Gilmore Girls was still on then and, well, the dance marathon episode of Gilmore Girls was one of my all-time favorites (Bye Dean! Hello Jess!). Now, I have since learned that other colleges hold a dance marathon, but none are as long as Northwestern's. Thirty hours. Thirty straight hours of dancing.

Dance Marathon looks like this. In other words, madness.
Picture from Northwestern.edu

I participated my sophomore year, and today I realized some similarities between that experience and starting a new manuscript. (As you'd probably guess from the timing of this, I'm in the beginnings of a new manuscript right now.)

Our Dance Marathon is broken into ten blocks of three hours each. Between each block is a 15 minute break (though part of that break is spent climbing the stairs to your break room). The rest of the time is spent dancing.

Excitement and adrenaline is enough to get you through Block One. But three hours of dancing is still a lot of dancing. And I'll never forget the feeling of getting back in the break room after the first block and thinking, that wasn't TOO bad. Wait--I have to do that nine more times?

It's a lot like that first chunk of a new manuscript. I'll get this idea and enough of the plot figured out that I'm ready to start, and the words just sort of rush out. It all seems easy and invigorating. Then the realization sets in: there are thousands of words to go, and I have no idea what is going to happen for most of those, other than there might be a sailboat involved.

During Dance Marathon, when we hit the 15 hour mark the DJs put on "Livin' on a Prayer" and the thousand dancers sang with a newfound energy. "Ohh we're halfway there... oooohhhh, livin' on a prayer!" That part of a manuscript gives me the same feeling - I've completed more than I have left. Suddenly, it really seems like I can do it. Like I have enough ideas and I like the story enough that I WILL finish. There's no real doubt anymore.

Much like the first block of Dance Marathon, the final three hours were fueled almost entirely by adrenaline. The amount of money raised was revealed, people representing the charity the money was given to received a giant check on stage. In that moment, I remembered why I had just tortured my body through thirty hours of dancing. It was all worth it.

Each manuscript I've written was completed in a frenzy of words. I reached a point where I knew exactly how it was going to end, and I just wanted it written. Complete. And once I typed THE END, I knew exactly why I wrote all those words. I knew they weren't anywhere near the right words yet, but they were there.

In the first part of these long endeavors that sometimes feel impossible, it's not always easy to remember or envision the end. But as I start out on a new manuscript, that's what I'm going to try to do. Remember that I've done it before, and that everything that went into it was worth it.

Do you experience similar things at stages of your manuscript? What do you think about when you start a manuscript? And has anyone else ever done a Dance Marathon?

"Write Every Day" and all that jazz

A few years ago I read a book about becoming a writer that basically said if you cannot sit down and write something - anything - once a day, you frankly don't have what it takes to be a writer. I think I set down the book after that and mumbled something resembling pshaw. It's not that I thought writing regularly wasn't important, I just didn't buy that if there was a day where you managed to get zero words on the page, you'd never succeed.

We hear all the time of the importance of writing every day. After all, if you write even ten words every day, eventually you will have a finished draft. It might take a while, but it will happen. But if you write 2,000 words, then go out of town for the weekend and write none, well... that's still considerable progress.

Over the past few months I've been doing a lot of revisions, so the new WIP I began in December was very neglected. I was still active in my writing, just not in that project. And as the weeks of revisions for the other project passed, I started wondering if my new WIP was really striking my fancy after all. I opened it up when I had the chance and tried to make some progress on it, but I just kept filling in little scenes I already knew would happen. I struggled to really get going on it, or brainstorm any new scenes or components.

When I finally finished the revisions, I reread everything I'd already written in the WIP to reacquaint myself. Then I wrote some. And the next day I wrote some more. Finally, I was able to focus on it, and as a result I'd get random ideas and inspiration while I walked to work or when I was taking my shower - times when I wasn't even thinking about it intentionally.

I just had finals and all the craziness that finals create, and there were days when I didn't have the chance to write. But because I was writing that book more days than not, it was on my mind even on the days I couldn't put any words on the page. Essentially, I made progress just by having the work engaged in my mind.

That, I think, is the true benefit of writing every day. It's not the number of words on the page, it's the motivation and inspiration that comes from having the story in the front of your mind rather than the back. It is so much easier to sit down and write now than when I only had a chance to look at it once a week, because I'm not sitting down trying to remember where I left off and what happened last in a certain sub-plot. I'm accidentally solving sub-plot issues when I'm doing other things, like watching TV, merely because writing nearly every day leaves me engaged with the story every day.

Do you write every day? What are your feelings on the "Write Every Day" mantra?

The Grand Return

Okay, so it's not so grand. But I haven't blogged in a very long time (you may or may not have noticed) and after much deliberation, I'm resolving to return.

While I wasn't blogging, I had many thoughts about blogging. Such as, "That would make a good post," or, "I have thoughts about this, where could I share them?" But I also had thoughts such as, "Surely plenty of other writers have blogged about the same topic in a much more profound way," and, "I don't have time to write/revise and blog, so I'll skip the blogging."

But here's the truth - if I worried less about whether what I have to say is groundbreaking, and instead just share my writing related thoughts, inspirations, and endeavors, blogging would be a much less stressful and time consuming activity.

And I devour others blogs on a daily basis (like yours!) that motivate me, inspire me, and make me laugh. So mine might just be another one of a hundred in your google readers, but that's okay. I'm going to give it my best shot.

For my writing major, I have to take a class called "The Situation of Writing," which I guarantee will leave me wanting to rip my hair out when I am encouraged to believe that a career as a "literary" writer is the only respectable way to be a writer, but I digress...

I had to read a piece for class by Clarence Major, "Afterthoughts on Becoming a Writer," and I really identified with this part:

"If there were disadvantages in being out of step, there were just as many advantages. I was beginning to engage myself passionately in painting and writing, and this passion would carry me through a lot of difficulties and disappointments--simply because I had it. I saw many people with no passionate interest in anything. Too many of them perished for lack of a passionate dream long before I thought possible."

So here's to passion, dreams, and following them! (Oh, and Happy New Year!)

Misbehaving Characters

The other day I was writing when my roommate asked me to help her move something. I did, and my mind drifted to the scene I was working on. As we finished, I let out a GAH and said, "My characters are trying to skip school and they're not supposed to! I don't know what they're doing!"

To which, understandably, my roommate responded, "Well, can't you just make them not skip?"

"But... but they want to! They're about to leave and they weren't supposed to. They're just supposed to eat lunch. I don't know if I can get them to stay. I probably sound crazy."

To which, understandably, my roommate responded, "Yeah, you really do." Note: she also smiled and laughed and is thankfully supportive of the crazy writer mind.


But when I sat back down at my computer, just as I was about to go along with my characters' little scheme to cut class on me, I realized they couldn't. Really couldn't.

A. It wasn't in line with their characters, though the circumstances would have still made the blip in their character understandable and allowable.

So, most importantly, B. Cutting class was an act in complete contrast to one of the character's main motivations. He'd never do it, even if he wanted to. Even if he could.

I was then able to scold my characters for trying such a sneaky thing and they behaved by eating their lunches and going back to class.

I share this story for two reasons. First, it's hard to explain to the non-writerly types in my life how there are so many decisions in my writing I don't actively make (in the first draft, anyway), and I think that's one of the coolest parts about it. I have this map for my characters in my mind, and there are specific stops I know they are going to make, but I don't necessarily know which routes they are going to choose along the way.

I've discovered that when I get most excited about my work in progress and really start cranking out pages is when I have enough of the plot figured out that I can't wait to figure out how the characters are going to reach each turn and how it will affect them in ways I haven't considered yet. When I start seeing how all the pieces will fall together, that's when I go on a writing frenzy because I want to see the finished product.

Second, as easy as it sometimes is to let our characters start doing crazy things without our permission and take control of their own story, as the master of their lives, it's our job to second guess them. We have to always be aware of their overriding motivation and drive so that we can keep them in line.

Do you ever have wayward characters? Do you also find that you aren't actively making all of your first draft decisions?

Books and Baseball - and why they matter

There are three things I love in the hobby/passion category. Writing, reading, and baseball. And I mean LOVE.

Now, the first two you could probably guess, seeing as they are the focus of this blog. The third I assume you don't care much about, so I try not to talk about it. But I'm going to today, so bear with me, please, because I will bring it back to the first two.

I am obsessed with baseball, and more specifically the Texas Rangers. For those not in the baseball know, the Rangers are traditionally awful. As in, in their entire existence, they have won one single playoff game. That's bad.

But I still love them, and I love the game. I won't bore you with why I love it, and why I think it is better than any other sport. What you need to know is that there are 162 games in the season, and I watch most or all of about 90% of them, if not more. I even regularly watch games that the Rangers aren't playing in (such as right now...).

I get into the games. Even when I'm watching one alone, I talk to the TV and the players and I pump my fist in the air. I have gotten goosebumps when reading articles about the Rangers, found myself unable to breathe over the excitement of an important win, and screamed in frustration.

Yea, I kinda love Texas...

But every now and then, when I'm watching a game, I think, what's the point? Why are thousands of people watching a group of guys getting paid millions of dollars to play a game.

Plain and simple, it might just be a game in the literal sense, but it is so much more than that. Major League Baseball has a series of ads with the slogan, "This is Beyond Baseball." And so much of it is. It's about a team working together, persevering, defying the odds. It's about thousands of people coming together to cheer for the same outcome. It's about a pitcher going out every day with a chance at a perfect game - no matter what happened in the past - in a game where perfection isn't the goal. No team will ever win 162 games. Even the best teams lose at least 60 games each season.

Baseball (and any pro sport, I'm just using the one closest to my heart), at its basic level, is an escape. Whatever is going on in your life or in the world, you have three hours where your team winning is, for the moment, all that matters. You can find joy in their success and sadness in another losing season.

And really, at the end of the day, how is this so different from books? I once had a roommate who believed that books were pointless and their existence did nothing to better the world. I was furious, not to mention hurt. This thing that I loved, devoured in my spare time, and endeavored to create myself could not be useless - that much I knew.

So why aren't they? I can see how, to someone who finds no pleasure in reading, all the books in the world can seem like wasted space. Except you and I know that books are quite the opposite. So why?

From www.freedomlab.org

Books are magical worlds that take us somewhere outside of our own. They introduce to us people we may never have the chance to meet, and sometimes people who remind us of someone in our life - or even ourselves.

Books make us think about life and the world we exist in. They make us ache and cry and laugh. They keep us company when we're lonely and become our friends, which we then want to share with our real life friends. Books can unite us and inspire us.

And, like baseball, they are an escape. They give us an opportunity to stop thinking about our own lives and immerse ourselves in someone else's. They enrich our lives, yet still give us an opportunity to get away from our life.

Which brings me to writing, and why writers (and baseball players) aren't wasting their time, even if the world as a whole may not always agree on that.

Someone has to write the book. Someone has to write the words that uplift and challenge and entertain. All it takes is
one
word
at
a
time.

It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

My roommate is training for a marathon, and one night when she was talking about how many miles she was trying to run that week I realized how similar our goals for the summer were. Only, mine involves sitting in a chair and absolutely no physical activity.

See, she's never run a marathon before, and I've I'd never written a book before. The unknown of our separate treks is frightening - neither of us knows  knew what to expect. All we know are the proper steps to take. So she slowly builds up her endurance each week, and I sit sat down every night and wrote down words. Any words - not necessarily the right words, yet.

I change my present tense to past because somewhere along the way, I actually finished the novel. I kept pressing forward and when I encountered that unknown, I discovered that it wasn't really all that frightening. It was invigorating. I was happier than I had been in a very long time, and I accomplished a life-long goal.

Sometimes, when a writer is sitting at 20,000 words and has never written more than 30,000, finishing an actual novel seems impossible. Just like when you've only ever run five miles, or even 13 in a half marathon (as my roommate has), running 26 just seems like a frightening, unreachable amount. I can't tell you how many times I wrote just a few pages of a story and then stopped, thinking I didn't have it in me to write a couple of hundred pages.

So for anyone out there who is at the beginning - who has never reached the end - remember that writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint. You can't write a book in one sitting, just like you can't jump up one day and say "I'm going to go run a marathon right now." If you can't see yourself ever reaching the end, stop thinking about the end. Write a page at a time, every day. Build up your endurance. If you run one mile at a time, eventually you'll have run a marathon.

Slow and Steady...Or Just Make a Run For It

I've considered myself a slow and steady writer for a long time. I wrote my novella for class by writing about a page a day. The longest work I had written prior to a week ago, at 28,000 words, I wrote over about four years. It kept slowly growing as I thought of a new plot idea and went back to it.

In this post I made a goal of writing 750 words a day, with the ultimate goal being finishing the first draft of my WIP by the time I went back to school in September.

I finished the first draft yesterday.

Me, the slow and steady writer who thought 750 words a day was accessible but probably around my max, started coming home from work and writing 1,000 words, then 2,000 words a day, then 3,000. Between Thursday and yesterday I wrote 20,000 words. And then, to my shock, I was done.

And not only was it my first draft, it was my first draft ever of a novel length work. Even if it is absolutely no good, that was a huge step for me.

It has a lot of revising that needs to be done, because I decided to just get it all out on the page and then figure it out from there - but I'm very eager to start it. And throughout this process I've thought of several topics I want to blog about, but I was too caught up with all the writing! So be on the lookout for them.

I think that writing this so quickly is definitely the thing that has shocked me most in my writing journey (which began when I was five!), so what's the most shocking part of yours? Seriously, I want to know!

Rome - erm, Books - Wasn't Built in a Day

So there's that old adage, Rome wasn't build in a day. Well, neither are books.

Unless you're superhuman, or can somehow keep your fingers typing for 24 straight hours (and even then I'm not so sure it's possible), you can't write a novel in a day. In the midst of my WIP, there are days I wish that it was just done - that today I could just sit down and finish it (even though it's only halfway done). Not because I'm not loving writing it, but because I want to see it all put together, then tear it apart and make it better.

But here is what I realized - it's a really REALLY good thing I can't write it all in a day.

How many times already have I come up with a scene idea while walking to the bus stop, or reading something at work, or hearing a song? A LOT, in case you were wondering.

While the fundamental idea for my novel has stayed the same, the little bits and pieces that (hopefully) will make it come alive and seem real aren't things I could have come up with writing the whole thing in one sitting.

I have a list of all the major things that are happening between where I am now and the end, and some of those scenes are even somewhat written because they wouldn't leave me alone. I also have sticky notes of various ideas pulled from those life moments that I was just mentioning, followed by lots of question marks. Because there's still so much to be written, and I'm glad there are a lot of days to live between now and when it's done.

Rome wasn't build in a day. My opinion? Embrace it.

So, I'm curious - what are some of the ideas you've come up with when you weren't actually writing? Are there times you wish you could speed up the initial process, or do you enjoy it?