This Much is True

Remember how I decided I would let the characters in my novel in progress, tentatively titled A Few Kinds of Wrong, come visit for a literary booty call while I worked on Unnamed Fun Novel? Well yesterday I was having coffee with Trudy who unintentionally gave me permission to continue with something in Wrongs that I was unsure about and the characters started screaming for me to get back at it. They were relentless and I was not great to be around yesterday evening. My mind kept wanting to be there with them and not in the “real world”. Finally I sat down with pen and paper and whispered that they could stay for a few minutes only and that once I wrote a bit of a scene and knew where it was going, then that would be it and they would have to go away again. But they stayed for hours and now this morning they are still there.

I explained to them that I cannot have a committed relationship at this time. I need to see other stories right now and have some fun. I know that the main character in Unnamed Fun Novel is not happy. I can picture her tapping her fingers on a table and rolling her eyes, saying “You cannot be serious. I’m here with all these exciting people and really interesting things going on. I mean I got shot, for God’s sake. And you want to hang out with misery guts there and her crying and her ‘poor me, poor me’.” And I want to say “But BJ and Jennifer are having a really big fight now and I’m finding out a lot more about both of them so I just have to see it through and then I’ll go back to you.”

And I think I have figured out why the transitioning between novels has been so hard. Like I said before, I have never had this problem. I can, and have, worked on three different projects in one day, slipping in and out of each one with very little effort. But I think the problem here is one of tense. Wrongs is in the present tense and Unnamed Fun Novel is in the past tense. The characters, as this post proves, are alive and well and living inside my head. It’s getting them down on paper in their respective tenses that is the problem. Part of me is tempted to see if Wrongs would be better in the past tense just to make the process easier and because the present tense is harder for me in general. But I know the present is the right one and that is not the answer, at least not right now, at least not at this point in the process. I’ll just have to keep trying and let the work guide me.

I’ve said before that I keep a variety of writing projects on the go. It allows me to write when the mood strikes, no matter what the mood. Because I received a project grant to write A Few Kinds of Wrong, I spent a winter of working on restricting myself to working on that one novel (interrupted only by editing another novel and writing a short story). So, I was looking forward to getting back to my other work, in particular, a fun book to write with a character who is so rich and fun and unpredictable that it’s just a joy to spend time with her (and all the other characters in the book). This is quite a contrast from Wrongs which is darker and is about death and grieving, pain and healing. So after hanging out mired in the grief of one character for so long, it’s no wonder that I wanted to get back to some fun stuff. I printed out the 120 pages I have already written in Unnamed Fun Novel (so much for the paperless society), enjoyed rereading it, know right where I want to go next, don’t have a clue where to go after that but know, without a doubt, that I’ll figure it out. I should be face and eyes back into this book by now.

But every time I start to write, the other characters from Wrongs call me. I’ve finished the first draft of Wrongs but there is much to be filled in, things to research, things to move around, and they want me to work at it. They come to me in dreams and most of all songs. I’ve switched the songs on my MP3 player from the soundtrack of Wrongs to that of Unnamed Fun Novel. I had to. The kind of slow, sticky, sad, music from the Wrongs soundtrack makes the character in Unnamed Fun Novel roll her eyes and huff off somewhere far away. But songs keep coming on the radio and television and movies that make me think of Wrongs. Scenes and conversations continue from characters I wish to let go of for a while, just to let them sit in a drawer so I can get distance before starting on the next draft. They should sit there quietly and wait for me. They’re not and I don’t know why.

Part of me wonders if it is because I have been exclusive with this novel. We have had a committed relationship instead of me just bouncing back and forth between books. And while I have liked and loved characters from my other books, I think the subject matter and tone of Wrongs, along with this commitment, have made me feel connected to it more than any other.

I know the solution to my problem. As always I have to write through it. I have to put my pen on the paper and find my way back to the characters in Unnamed Fun Novel. But I think I have to tell myself that when that other crowd calls out to me, I’ll allow myself to visit them, to jot notes about them, hang out a little and say hello without getting too immersed. Like a literary booty call. At least until I find my way back to the other novel, at which time, I will be able to work on them both again.

Neil Gaiman had the best quote: “If writing fiction is dessert, then copy-editing is eating all your vegetables. Blogging is snacking between meals.”

I am trying to be a good girl and eat my vegetables, I really am. Commas=brussel sprouts; periods=potatoes (they’re pretty easy to get down); dialogue=”carrots”; em dashes=”turnips”; quotation marks=peppers of any colour; and italics/underlining=asparagus.

Just a little blog snack now and I’ll get right back to it. Honestly.

Oh, how I hate editing. As I always say, you have to get the clay on the table before you can make it into something recognizable but then there’s that part of it–the moulding of the clay, the finishing of the product. I like getting the clay on the table. I like not having to worry how to spell something or if that cursed comma should stay or go (I have lots of books on grammar and punctuation and have studied them all but the comma still escapes me). I like not having to know what year they stopped making the original VW Rabbit or in what year the first minivan rolled off the line. I like being able to write without dealing with the details, with the knowing this part can wait until later. But then later comes.

You work on creating something for months, maybe even years, then there it is. Complete. Now, you must take a few moments to admire it (actually, you should take at least a couple of weeks, preferably longer, to distance yourself from it before you begin editing), then you must look harshly at it. You must tear it to shreds and be ruthless. The timeline is not right and that character who shows up in the bar all the time, you know, the one you love? He has to go. Cut him out. He is gone. Yes, he has great lines and yes he is funny but you must excise him from the book. But maybe if I changed him so… a meek voice inside you says and the mean editor in you says no, he has to go. No maybes. He must go. And that whole storyline about the broken leg, that is not working so that has to go too. And the comma there, get rid of it. No, wait, I think it should go back. No, it has to go. It definitely has to go. And there are dangling things throughout your whole manuscript and the character’s name makes her sound prissy and unsympathetic. And you just used “has to go” five times in this one paragraph. See, how awful and painful it is?

I dislike editing so much that I would do almost anything to avoid it. If I know you and love you and you need an extra organ I could possibly provide, now is the time to ask. I have even been known to do *gasp* housework in order not to ponder the fate of a semicolon. Yes, it is true. I will vacuum, scrub the bathroom, dust, even take out the garbage if I could stay away from having to face up to the fact that no one can go from Toronto to Newfoundland to New York and back to Toronto and do all the things I gave the poor man to do in one day, unless he has the ability to slow down time or a private space shuttle. That has to be changed and it is a rather large change.

But the good news (or the bad news if you are my husband and like the occasional clean looking house) is that I now have something else to help keep me from editing. I have a blog. That means commas can stay in flux and the man with the impossible time crunch will have to repeat his traumatic day until I can finish this post. Oh, and I think I’ll make stew today too. It’s a good stew day. Oh, and I noticed some dust bunnies under the bed and I need to find the gift wrap I had left over from last year and the faucet in the bathroom needs a new washer and…

I was reading some writing prompts on another website and I realized I’ve never had to use writing prompts. I wonder if I am odd or if there are more people like me. My problem is too many ideas and too many ongoing projects. I usually jot down an idea if it comes to me and then try to beat it away. It can be hard since it keeps wanting to come back. I think I have said here before that I have creative procrastination and come up with other ideas to avoid writing what I should be writing (or avoid editing, which I am doing now by posting this). My husband is good at knowing this and reminds me. “This is creative procrastination,” he says when I start on something new. He calls me out every time.

Still, those ideas, those interesting characters in precarious or sad or funny situations, beckon me. They call out to me while I am making supper and whisper “maybe I could say ‘no’ to him instead of ‘yes’, how would that make things interesting?” They give me lines I have to run and write down because I know from experience that if I don’t write them down, no matter how certain I am that they will stick in my mind, no matter how many times I repeat them, they will be lost if they are not recorded somewhere other than my scattered brain. And once the line is written down, the writer kicks in, the one that follows one line with another then another, and I know I have to write down a couple of other lines and then some notes on possible things that could happen later on. (Possible because I don’t know–I don’t outline, could never outline, it would take away all the fun of finding out where the stories go, of the twist I never saw coming that takes me somewhere I hadn’t ever thought of.) Soon, this new story seems fresh and new and full of potential. The one I am editing or the one with a couple of hundred pages already written seems stale. I just know that if I could start this one story, I could finish it quickly, do one of those complete novels in ten days where your pen cannot stop writing, I hear about from time to time.

But I know the truth. I know that in a month or ten, another idea will come, promising a perfect and magical story, taunting me with all the possibility the unknown and new can bring. So I beat away the muse then try to gently ask it back to help me with the task at hand. When writers say writing is hard work, I think this is what they mean. It is not getting the ideas. It is wrestling the muse to go where you want it to go while asking it to take you somewhere new within the confines of that story. It is sticking with it and rewriting and seeing it through, no matter how many prospects whisper in your ear.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I just have to jot down an idea for a great story that just popped in my head. Just one line, mind you, then I’ll get back to my editing. No, honest, I will.

The signings at Costco and Chapters went well, except there was a mixup at Chapters. Once that was straightened out, it was okay. The great thing about Costco was that I was signing my book at the opposite end of the aisle from where my books were. So some people walked by, then stopped and said “are you signing these books” and I would answer “yes” and they would reach into their carts and find my book, which they had already picked up, with no help or encouragement from me, and ask me to sign it. That was wonderful.

While at Chapters, Trudy stopped by to chat and we started talking about her laptop which I had first seen her use two or three years before when my friend and I sat at the table next to hers at Starbucks and I mouthed to my friend that it was Trudy Morgan-Cole sitting next to us. I had been intrigued by her little laptop and searched everywhere on the Internet trying to find a similar device. It would be a long time before I would find exactly what I wanted. It is not like Trudy’s laptop, it is even more wonderfully simple than that. It is an Alphasmart Neo.

I got my Neo on ebay where you can find one, or an earlier version of an Alphasmart keyboard. You can also buy them new from Alphasmart ( A Renaissance Learning™, Inc. Brand) or at least one store here locally that carries them. These devices are so great, there is a Flickr group of people who use it, mostly made up of writers, even though the Alphasmart was built for school kids. It is a keyboard with a small display. On my Alphasmart there is a spellchecker, a thesaurus and a word counter. Other than that, there is not much to an Alphasmart. There is no formatting–no bold or italics–you can put that in later when you upload it to your computer. It starts within a couple of seconds of pressing the on/off button (no boot up time here); never heats up on your lap; weighs about two pounds; keeps separate files for various work; the three AA batteries last about a year (or 700 hours, whichever comes first); it saves all files continuously so you will never lose data; and it never crashes. I read on a message board that someone said it does not crash because, well, have you ever seen a calculator crash? Nope. The Alphasmart keyboard is the calculator of wordprocessors. All this with a device that does not have Internet access.

With no emails to distract, no web pages to surf, no Snood game to tempt you with endless hours of time-wasting fun. Just work. Just get the clay on the table (or type up the clay you’ve scribbled in a notepad). I also write most of my blog posts on it, as I am writing this one. Then I simply plug my USB cable into it and the other end of the cable to the computer. From there, I can either use the Alphasmart Manager software to upload or download between the Neo and the computer or I can simply open any wordprocessing program or blog software or email software–anything you can type text into–and press the Send button, then watch as the Neo transfers my words onto the screen, letter by letter like some super-typer. I don’t use the Neo for editing because of the small screen but it is possible because it has the capacity to copy and paste text as well, I just don’t bother. I use it to get my words out and to type anywhere and everywhere, even on the floor while playing with my son without fear of hurting the machine (don’t forget, it was made for school kids). I love my little green machine and highly recommend it to you.

* Note, I corrected my post, as per the friendly people at Flickr, to say that the Neo uses three AA batteries, not two as I previously wrote.

When do you call yourself a writer? This is a well-discussed topic in writing about writing, but I received a lovely email from a reader of this blog who had questions about writing and who called herself a “wanna be writer” rather than a writer. I told her to stand up and say out loud: “my name is _________ and I am a writer”. See, I’m very good at giving advice to others. Not so good at taking it. I never called myself a writer before I got offered a publishing contract. Even now, I am more likely to say “I write” than “I am a writer”. And the A word? Forget it. I can’t quite get the word ‘author’ out when talking about myself. I don’t know what I think my criteria for calling myself an author would be. Maybe winning some prestigious literary award or something.

The truth is, they are merely labels. In my opinion, you’re either a writer or you’re not. I think part of the reason I love reading about writers and writing so much is because it makes me feel like I fit. When I read about them, how they think, what they feel, where they get their ideas, and the like, I feel like I am a writer because I think like them, feel like them, and get my ideas like them. Not all writers are the same but I think you kind of know when you are one. You want to write, feel the need for it. You want to get things out of your mind and onto paper. You don’t look at things quite the same as other people. You say “what if” a lot and have conversations going on in your head all the time (you may be a writer or maybe you’re insane — there are quite good treatments for one right now but I’m afraid the other is incurable).

I think there are two reasons so many people are afraid to say they are writers: First, they know the next question will be “oh, do you have anything published?” and unless you can say “yes”, you feel scared to claim you are a writer. This is in part because of the second reason people are afraid to say they are writers: everyone says they are going to write a book. How many people have you heard say that? “I’m going to write a book one day”, like all they have to do is to decide to pick up a pen and words will flow. They’re sure their writing would be interesting, funny, poignant, and generally loved by all if they would only take the time to write. It is the bane of the writer. People think it is easy. You don’t hear people saying “I’m going to star in a movie one day, maybe when I retire” or “I’m going to program a new web browser one of these days now when I get around to it”. So many people say they are “going to” do it, that the general public gets leery and when you say you are a writer, you have to defend it.

In my experience, if someone is a writer, they are more likely to say “I’m going to be a writer someday” than “I’m going to write a book”. They probably have stories/books well underway but know what it takes and won’t just casually drop the information that they are going to pen a novel when they find the spare time. If you want to write, really want to write, not just like the idea of having written something, then you are a writer. You know it already, deep inside you, you’re just not sure about admitting it. If you are already writing, you are a writer. Stand up and say it. If you’re from around here, join the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador and meet other writers, get the clay on the table and admit it today: you are a writer!

Sometimes when you are stuck in your writing and don’t know where to go next, maybe music can push you out of that rut. Music is my muse. Always has been. I envision whole scenes in my head according to a song and certain songs represent a scene, a chapter or a whole book when I’m writing. I don’t listen to them when I write, only when I’m thinking about my story and doing my internal writing. Then by the time I write a scene, I can already picture what is going to happen; I just have to write the words. It is the soundtrack of my stories. I have a different playlist for every book (it used to be a different CD for each one and before that a different cassette). The soundtrack for this much is true includes (but is not limited to) the following songs (those of you who have read the book may be able to figure out which ones were used to write certain parts but not all are obvious. Some are just for a certain piece of music or a certain beat.):

Ennis Sisters — No Change in Me
Cowboy Junkies — This Street, That Man, This Life
Jann Arden — To Sir With Love
Jann Arden — Insensitive
Stevie Nicks — Sometimes It’s a Bitch
Queen — Too Much Love Will Kill You
Luba –Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry
The Knack — Good Girls Don’t
Eurythmics — Last Time
Lifehouse — Sick cycle Carousel
Timber — The Whole Way Home
Barstool Prophets — Friend of Mine
Holly Cole — I’ve Just Seen a Face
Toby Keith — We Were in Love
Garth Brooks — Friends in Low Places

I’m getting a pretty good soundtrack for the book I am working on the most right now. I’ll share that on another day.

It doesn’t really matter if you outline your stories, write every day or only when the muse calls to you. What really matters is that you get the clay on the table. A sculptor doesn’t try to place his clay on the table in such a way that it looks great as soon as he has all the clay there. No, he plonks it down without caring much how it looks at that time. Only when the clay is on the table does he start to mold it and shape it, making that ugly lump into something beautiful. A writer should feel the same way.

You can’t edit a blank page so you have to get your words out and then you can fix them up. As Anne Lamott says in Bird by Bird, you have to give yourself permission to write shitty first drafts (if you only buy one book about writing, I recommend Bird by Bird be the one). Don’t worry about anything at this stage in the process. Just get it out. Punctuation, spelling, word choice, phrasing, even plot can be changed later. That’s the shaping part. First you have to get the words down on the paper.

When you’re getting that clay out, don’t listen to the editor in your head, don’t wonder what your aunt or your ex-boyfriend will think of this if it gets published. Don’t even think of publication. That stifles you and makes you nervous. Don’t let anything stop the flow of words and ideas onto your page.

My first drafts are usually full of this: [?]. A question mark in brackets follows anything I’m not sure of. Inside the bracket marks I will also put whatever I need to change/research/double-check later. I don’t stop the flow to find out what the name of the character I introduced in the first chapter was, I just put [?that character who hit his mom?] there instead. If I use the same word four times in a paragraph or use a word or phrase I think sounds lame I’ll write or type [?better word?] after it. If you wait to find the perfect word, those other words after it might not come out the same.

Lots of people say they want to write a book. I think many of them probably can. The thing that stops them from doing it is the idea that the writing has to be perfect. It doesn’t. But it does have to be written or typed or recorded or whatever your method of writing is. So turn off the editor in your head, let yourself write a shitty first draft and get the clay on the table. It will work. Of course, that means that you will eventually have to get to the part of writing I hate, the editing part. But don’t worry about that now. Just write and enjoy the freedom of not having to get everything perfect as you create.

I had an interesting question posed to me the other night (at my fun birthday party). My friend asked me how I get time to write with a two-year old in my life. I answered that I can write anything, anytime and what I meant was that I don’t always write but when I do get the time and the urge, I can spew out a lot at a sitting without much trouble. A lot of it may be crap but it does come. I think it is because I have a variety of projects on the go at any one time and the fact that I do a lot of internal writing.

Huh? I can hear you say. Internal writing? Let me explain. I don’t write daily in that I don’t sit down with pen and paper or Alphasmart Neo and produce actual writing that anyone else can read. I do, however, write in my head. On any one day in my head there can be numerous worlds, a bunch of conversations, and various “scenes” that I can see. People live in there so by the time I get a chance to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, they come out and all the conversations they’ve had and situations they’ve been in, just pour onto the page without my having much control over them at all. I become a stenographer for them and I record what they do or say, laughing with them if they are funny and crying with them if they are sad. It is as if I am reading someone else’s writing and reacting to it that way.

The truth is that if I do get the chance to write a lot, I end up creating more and more of those “scenes” in my head to the point that it is hard to live in the real world. I snap at my husband and lose patience with my child because they are interrupting these other worlds of mine. Sounds like a mental illness, I know but it’s true. On the flip side, if I don’t get to write them out of my head from time to time, they pile up and the same thing can happen. Everyone has a different way to write. There are some like me while others need a schedule and a time of day to write every day. Some often have large chunks of time every day like eight hours a day. My husband says that if I wrote eight hours a day, we couldn’t afford the mass of paper I would create. The truth is that I would probably go insane. So, I’ll stick to it this way for now. Maybe those other people have to have their work perfect as they write it and I don’t write that way. My motto is that you have to get the clay on the table. More about that on another day.