So far, this is sometimes all I feel like I have. Except most of the pieces aren't even put together yet.

So I'm sticking to the daily grind. Climb the scaffold of words, place appropriate beams and thoughts, place foundational pieces ... build .... build ... build.

Eventually, I'll get there. Eventually people will be able to traverse this edifice I've spent so long putting together. And hopefully, they'll enjoy their time spent and the views I've provided them with that weren't there before me and my book.

That's the goal anyway. After last night, I'm a few pages closer. Praying for even more progress tonight!

Picking up again ...

It's a precarious process, this building of a book. And sometimes you just have to get back to the basics.

Right now I've just gone through an extended phase of refocusing on what I want the final product to look like and taking an honest look at the content I've already written to determine which scenes are solid and can be used as building blocks and which ones need to be recycled.

This phase is a frustrating one because I feel like I find myself facing it again and again--too often! But this time most of my content survived the discard inspection and I was able to restructure it in a way that has me encouraged and eager to move on. Finally!

Time to add lots more levels to what I'm confident is a strong enough foundation to support the MANY stories I'm planning to build!

So that's my problem ...

"I found my first novel difficult. I don't want to make it sound like it's any more difficult than driving a cab or going to any other job, but there are so many opportunities for self-doubt, that you just kind of need to soldier on." ~ Anthony Doerr 


Nathan Bransford, he of the indispensable writer's blog, tossed an incredibly helpful post in the blogosphere today. I'm busy trying to finish grades for this marking period, so it's not likely I'll have more than a few minutes to further my writing tonight. But his post was a really encouraging nod toward the psychological difficulties inherent in producing good writing. He references the Dunning-Kruger Effect: 


"The basic theory is that when people are incompetent at something they tend to lack the ability to realize it and they overrate their abilities relative to others. Meanwhile, people who actually are good at something tend to underrate their abilities and may as a result suffer from lack of confidence."


So, yep. I think I'm going to buy into this version of possibilities. That I really do have what it takes to create something that people will enjoy. That it will definitely not be perfect the first (however many) drafts, but that it will be solid enough writing to catch the eye and convince the heart of the right agent and editors and publishers. 


I need to keep reminding myself not to agonize (too much) over writing that will be subjected to others' opinions at a later date anyway. A little agonizing is definitely called for. After all, Francine Prose reminds us writers to "put every word on trial for its life." But I need to remember that I have an endless number of court cases to hold and it's going to be often necessary to call the jury back and demand a verdict so I can move on.

Frog in a Well ...

"Two steps forward, one step back."

I'd never heard where this well-known saying came from, but it's definitely how I've been feeling lately. Apparently, it's origin is in an anecdote about a frog trying to climb out of a well with such slippery sides that for every two steps the frog manages to scramble ahead, it slips back one. Its progress, therefore, is quite arduous. And slow. And frustrating.

This saying came to mind almost immediately when I was contemplating what to blog about today. A few of the various paths of my life are currently becoming rather tortuous, and it feels quite as though I'm engaged in Sisyphean tasks, rolling the weighty boulders of duty and responsibility and achievement up and up and up the Hill of Accomplishment just to have them come hurtling back down, leaving me feeling weary and unfulfilled and frustrated in the process.

This applies to working on my book specifically:
(1) Write.
(2) Get "inspired."
(3) Write some more, happy to have clubbed my muse with authority.
(4) Crawl into bed feeling satisfied and not a little euphoric.
(5) Wake up and remember sense of accomplishment and progress. Float for a while.
(6) Eventually get back to writing sometime later in the day.
(7) Before excitedly adding something else to the previous pages of perfection, read what I actually wrote "under inspiration" and get blindsided by doubts about the quality and value of almost every word and idea looking back at me.
(8) Feel the Sisyphean boulder crush me as it rolls back down, bearing down on the delete key all the way.

HOWEVER, I am not Sisyphus. I am not condemned to an eternity of non-progress. My paths are tortuous, not dead-ends. So I'm adding #9 to my writing (and living) process:

(9) Get some perspective and remember the definition of one of the vocabulary words I teach my students:
tor·tu·ous
  [tawr-choo-uhs]
-adjective
1.full of twists, turns, or bends; twisting, winding, or crooked: 



In other words, my paths, though often containing twists and turns that feel like backtrackings and u-turns, are actually still moving me onward. And moving onward means progress. And progress? Well, progress is that frog one day pulling its slimy green body onto the lip of the well and smelling (do frogs smell?) the sweet aroma of accomplishment. In my case, the sense of achievement is often so heady that I jump right back down into the well and start the whole bloomin' process all over again to see what new accomplishment I can chase. But that's material for a different post.


For now, I'm remembering to find my perspective. And I'm going to keep pushing my boulder, or climbing my well wall, or whatever metaphor you'd like to apply. Two steps forward and one step back still means one step ahead!

Random ~ reminiscences

On research ...

A writer’s brain is like a magician’s hat. If you’re going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first. ~ Louis L’Amour

+

Research, research, research.

My students will probably laugh when they see this post. And they'll more than likely think I'm even crazier than they already thought I was. Nonetheless, I must confess:

I love to research.

I do. And I'm not ashamed of it. I'll even say it again: I. Love. To. Research. 

In fact, I relish reading and learning and discovering and being endlessly surprised and amazed at how the most divergent threads of our world's history have such common strands. 

Try it. (It works for Wikipedia, which is a veritable labyrinth of research bliss.) Pick up any stray thought, person, or event (familiar or brand new to you), and follow it. Before long, you'll come across connections that are both familiar and brand new to you. Any thread you pick up connects in some way to the rest of history like some epic game of Six Degrees of Separation. 

The catch--because everything has one--is knowing when to stop. Wikipedia may be a labyrinth of bliss, but it's still a labyrinth. The corridors of research can be a maze that's all too easy to get lost in. 

For me, the catch is knowing when to say "Enough!" (temporarily, at least). To exercise the discipline of NOT clicking the next bit of blue text in an endless chain of tantalizing wikilinks. I need to step away from the information buffet in order to digest the tetrabytes of information I just gorged on and turn it into something nutritional to my writing instead of just gratuitous brain candy. 

So this is me saying now's the time. With self-imposed deadlines hurtling at me over what used to be the far-away horizon, I'm realizing the reality of two sides of the same coin:

1. It's time to put down the (virtual) encyclopedia and pick up the pen. Research alone isn't going to write a book. It just provides the raw materials.

2. I've put enough of those raw materials into my writer's brain that I can now "trust" myself to produce the magic. I have all the threads I need, now's the time to make my own connections, to build my own wikiworld of interwoven histories. 

It's time to put that research to some seriously good use.

  

On preparation and the pay-off

"Never bring a cannon on stage in Act I unless you intend to fire it by the last act." ~ Anton Chekhov

A little foreshadowing, anyone?

What I wouldn't give to be able to have a tete-a-tete with Hawthorne about foreshadowing. I mean, c'mon. The Scarlet Letter's first scaffold scene? He quite literally wrote the book on this particular literary technique. And he did it with such subtlety, such finesse. Reverend Wilson's and the Governor's exhortation to Dimmesdale? His subsequent appeal to Hester? Her dark prison meeting with Chillingworth? Hawthorne needs no other eulogy.

And therein lies the gauntlet. It looks too weighty by far to pick up, much less wield. Yet I'm irresistibly compelled to make the attempt, to paint the picture you see above: a lush setting--vibrant with a forecast of mystery--and intriguingly captivating characters--ones who stand out clearly, intriguingly drawn with flair and a flourish that lures the reader with the promise of more ... just around the corner of the next page.

Look again at the shadowed figures above. They're poised precisely at the threshold of revelation. The light is such that you can almost see them. The cut of the suit and gown speak to personality, the hair styles and postures reveal age and deportment, and the umbrella says volumes--we're just not sure what. And it's exactly that "almost" that catches the mind, that makes you keep looking back, trying harder to see what else is there. Are you sure of what you saw the first time? There are definite lines to the profile, but could other interpretations be just as valid? The point is not that you don't know, but that you want to.

I have no desire to frustrate my audience with Chekhov's latent cannons.  Unfortunately, I don't think I'm much in danger of doing so. My flawed bent is in the other direction. I have the tendency to pull onto the stage only those cannons which I mean to fire immediately and obviously. And the task of figuring out which cannons to set in the corner, and which to fire no sooner than they're rolled on stage, and which to make the pink elephants in the room makes this whole beginning stage feel like the pink elephant is sitting on my shoulders and it invited friends to share the view.

Despite the weight of personal expectations and Hawthorne's ridiculously high standards by example, I know that I must set down these elephants and roll out these cannons and fire some and save some. And maybe some I'll eventually have to go back and pull off the stage entirely. This is the process.

And now that I've picked up Chekhov's words of wisdom, I'm going to go build some cannons. ... Most of which I hope to use someday!

On beginnings ...

“Beginnings are always messy.” ~ John Galsworthy


Thank you, Mr. Galsworthy. That's really good to know.


Because I started with this:

And I'm trying to end up with this:

And right now it's looking something like this:

No rest for the weary ...

One may go a long way after one is tired.  ~French Proverb

I'm glad to have found this bit of advice from the proverbial French tacked to a tree in this particularly brambly dale. My goal lies on the other side of this thorny thicket, and I'm being pulled upon from every direction but ahead of me. I'm slowing down and feeling weary already. 

But hanging from a branch in the middle of this frustratingly tangled and exhausting impasse, is this French sign. It's not particularly eloquent, lacking that quintessentially French elan, but it's just what I need today.

Because ... tired or not ... I still have a long way to go.

Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming ...

Books aren't written, they're rewritten. ~ Michael Crichton

There is no great writing, only great rewriting. ~ Justice Brandeis

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending. 

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


So, what do a fish named Dori and these three famous fellows have in common? They're all telling me to stop getting bogged down in the muck of my writing; they're sick of me drowning in my own less-than-perfect writing and not finishing anything.


I've been writing, writing, writing for several years now, but I have yet to accomplish the greater art Longfellow refers to. So I'm taking Chrichton and Brandeis's advice in one hand and Dori's words of encouragement in the other, and--armed with them both--I'm going to become that "greater artist" Longfellow mentions ... the one who actually finishes.

Victor Hugo dropped something

Next to Jack London's note about hunting down inspiration with a club, I found another piece of advice scrawled on a map of the Parisian catacombs. It says, "He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign." ~V. Hugo


And though I know I heard one of those other authors shouting out from around the bend something about the best laid plans of mice and men, I'm pretty sure this bit of map is too valuable to ignore. In fact, I think I'll have Bradbury's illustrated man tattoo it onto my forehead. Backwards, of course, so I can actually read it when I get up in the morning.


Dogged disciplined diligence.


Day Two:
check
check
check

First Post

It's March the first and I'm on my way.


New goals; new resolve; new blog.


This'll be the record of my journey, the e-pebbles dropped along the unfamiliar but exciting path to the gingerbread house of my dreams.


But this ain't no yellow brick road, Toto.


In fact, it looks a whole lot more like the one that diverged in the yellow wood. And Frost and Dickens and Tolkien and Lewis and Shakespeare and the rest are all calling to me from somewhere around the bend.


Feel free to come along with me as I chase after them. I'll be following a bit of advice from one of those who traveled his own yellowed road a long time back. He's up there right now playing with the rest of them, but he kindly left some directions for those of us coming after. They're written on a piece of paper that looks like it's been chewed by very large dogs, but you can still just make out the writing ...

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." ~ Jack London

(yep, that's him there on the right, looking like he's about to club someone in addition to inspiration if they don't get the camera out of his face)


So here I go. Join me if you'd like. It's bound to be an adventure. And why wouldn't it be? 

After all, I'm off to club my muse!