Kinds of Writing

I keep saying I'm not writing... but I'm continuously working on my craft.

It's just not in the way one traditionally deems to be writing. I'm not, for instance, outlining a new novel. I'm not sketching out characters before I go back through a draft, not revising a current WIP so that I can fix verbs, add detail, or tighten the language.

But I'm still working on writing. Here's what I've been doing:

1. Putting together my syllabi for two classes, both of which begin next week. Why is that writing? Because I'm getting other stuff out of the way so that I can make time to write. And that's something lots of writers have to do. Very few of us (i.e., NONE) have the luxury of doing nothing else in the world except write.

2. Reading. Yup, that's definitely preparation. I've been abandoning books a lot lately, too--more than ever before. If I hate something in chapter three, then I drop it. What's the cliche? Beating a dead horse, or something? But I've managed to mix the terrible books in with really good ones, and all of them add to my understanding of what literature should and should not be.

3. Thinking. My books have been drifting through my conscious and subconscious minds. They've popped up in dreams, unbidden, and crept into my early morning thoughts. And that's a good sign. It means I'm truly gearing up to write.

4. Painting/Drawing. Nothing helps my imagination more than drawing out characters (in full costume, for I love costumes, even if I rarely describe what characters are wearing) or painting out scenes. In most of my novels, the setting is crucial to what happens.

5. Researching. I'm actually going on a cruise in February with the hubby, and we planned out where we were going AND what excursions we were taking based on the needs of my Mermaid novel. Really. Isn't it sweet that the hubby's willing to go along with that? I did have to choose a historical tour over a ride on a pirate ship, though, and that stunk, mainly because I could have used both. But books in the library and internet searches are also leading towards answers and plot twists and details I would not have otherwise.

I hope to get to the tactile act of writing very soon. But in the meantime, I can't say I'm not writing. I'm moving in the write direction, even if I can't yet return to my manuscript.

All in good time. When I'm ready, I'll know it. What a beautiful day that will be, too.

December 1: Reindeer

My coat has been brushed over 

And over

For days

Harnesses checked

Bells re-stitched

Onto newly shined leather

My hairy master

Has shown us our path

Again and again

No time to get lost 

That night

Preparation is everything.

Writing=Tiling

At long last, more than a month after I finished the &*%$(@ project, my tortured fingers have recovered from grouting long enough to write about my summer tiling experience. As with my gardening entries, I managed to find quite a few similarities between tiling and writing, and the time it took gave me a chance to mull over these nuances and, perhaps, improve my writing in the process. At least these offer me a way of perceiving the process of writing differently.

So that you can see I know what I'm doing, here's a picture of my finished tiling project:

Looks pretty fantastic, doesn't it? And I'm an amateur, too. First time tiling ever. I'd make a long, arduous blog about this (and brag a whole lot more), but that would be too much to remember (and endure), so I'll start with the first part of the tiling process, preparation:

1. Prep the space for tiling. That means tearing down the previous tile, which in this case was a glossy white bathroom tile intermixed with bright, ugly wildflowers. The eighties-inspired bathroom look was pretty awful, but I have to admit that the bare wall devoid of eighties tile looked worse. Once it was chucked off, though, I knew there was no going back.

In the same way, revising my novels (i.e., "ripping them to shreds") often takes a similar path. I create a new document, name it novel revision #2 (or #7, or #25, depending on the novel), and then paste chapters of the old document in one at a time, revising them fully before pasting in a new chapter. At some point, I realize the rest of the novel is complete crap, and I stop pasting. It is then that the old draft disappears back into my novel folder and I begin composing for real. Tearing down is really hard, and turning my back on entire chapters (or the whole second half of a book) is even harder, but sometimes it's necessary.

2. Plan out where you are putting tile. I made a template of my backsplash, especially the part above my stove (shown in the picture above), in paper so that I could fit the tile into it on the floor of my dining room before I set the stuff in thinset mortar on the real wall. I even used the little spacers to set them apart from each other properly, so that my measurements would be exact. Why? Well, it gave me a chance to see the finished product. In fact, my plan changed, for I realized the accent tiles would be set too high on my template, making them almost invisible, and I arranged them differently. I even changed the angle during the planning stage, opting for a far more graceful diamond pattern instead of block squares. Had I waited to plan until I started mortaring all the tiles, I would have two choices: Live with the inferior setting, or tear the whole thing down and start over. Neither one would have been any fun.

Sure, when one is in the throes of NaNoWriMo, one can just applaud oneself for getting the requisite 1,667 words written each day--or even throw a party when one writes twice that many. But writing off the cuff, at least for me, means shredding most of it somewhere down the line, and I will have far less work to do in revisions if I write a plot outline and plan out the characters before I really get the novel going.

3. Tiling happens in a particular order, which cannot be changed. I had to prep the space, plan out where the tile was going, cut the tile, mortar the tiles up, let them dry completely, then grout. Had I tried doing any of these things in a different order, I would have messed the whole thing up. Had I mortared the tile over the existing tile, it wouldn't have stuck. Uncut tiles would never fit together. Had I grouted before mortaring, the grout itself would have no hope of keeping those tiles up. They needed to be glued first. The order of the process matters.

That seems self-explanatory, but writing's steps also follow the same logic. If one hasn't written anything--or if the writing has fundamental problems with character or plot or content that have yet to be addressed--editing for grammar is silly. I need to prepare for the writing, write it out, revise for content, then revise for grammar, then send it out to beta readers, then revise again, and only then (at the earliest) can I call the novel finished. The steps aren't arbitrary rules created by your much-hated English teacher. They are necessary to help you create the best quality work you can. Only a supreme writing genius can avoid some of these, and I don't know one of those.

Now that the preparation is done, other elements happen. I'll cover them in another blog as soon as I can.

The Trials of Waiting

The pictures of the backsplash have been taken, but I am now across the country, with two kids in tow, and without the USB attachment I need to download the pics onto my laptop.

So you'll have to wait. Get used to it. Some things take time.

My novels have taken time, and they are still not finished. Not one of them. I have my Ark novel up on my desktop, and my fingers are itching to get at it, especially after reading a book on making my novel work better. But they'll just have to itch a little longer. I have some characters to develop a whole lot more first, and I'm doing so methodically, by writing all sorts of details about each one--choices, ethics, changes--in a notebook.

I'm not allowing myself to write yet, not until the characters are all fleshed out and I've added extensively to the second half of my novel's outline. You see, the first draft of this book was written without a plan, and now that I'm pretty much abandoning the latter 2/3 of the novel, I want a better idea of where I'm going before I get there. So I'm shaping, and characterizing, and plotting the boat's journey on a map. I'm prepping.

By the time I'm finished prepping, my little child of a writer's psyche is going to be throwing a tantrum to be allowed to write. It's already starting to snivel a bit, whine, and pull at my pajama pants.

But it doesn't get what it wants. Not right now. It'll have to be patient, even if waiting is a trial. Since I'm on vacation, finding the time to work on all of this is harder, but I'm making slow progress. And before long, my happy little writer's psyche will be allowed out of its cage.

I'm looking forward to that.

Tiling Sort of Equals Writing

The tiles are up (though not grouted), and I am likely going to have to pick up the project in a few weeks, after my father-in-law flies back out of the state, but despite its woes, tiling has offered me some insight into my writing. (If you've never seen me metaphorize before, see previous blog entries on gardening.)

So here is a partial list, since my tiling work is partial:

1. Talking about tiling is far less work than doing the tiling, but talking about it accomplishes nothing. I've been telling friends and family my plans to tile for over a month, but actually doing the task involves cutting hundreds of tiles, measuring, splatting mortar on every tile, pressing hard, putting in spacers, etc. It takes hours. No, DAYS. And it hurts one's back and fills one's fingernails with mortar and often makes every inch of one ACHE. And one doesn't feel like talking about it anymore. One is too tired to talk, too tired from actually doing it. Same thing with writing. I can talk about it easily, but I need to do more than talk about it. I need to write. And write. And that is called work. It's not easy. It takes a lot of thought and daily dedication. I have to actually do the writing, not just talk about it.

2. Though more fun, talking accomplishes nothing. I spent a month talking, and not a tile was laid. I spend a week working hard on it, every day, and I have a backsplash up in the kitchen. Can I tell you how rewarding it feels to see the whole thing up? Same thing with writing. Talking about writing isn't nearly so wonderful as holding a completed manuscript in my hands, or watching a play (that I wrote) performed, or getting feedback from a reader about how "hilarious" something I finished is. Having a finished product beats out talking any day for me.

3. The more complex the design, the harder it's going to be to finish. Sure, I could have just selected the little bitty tile, cut absolutely nothing, and finished in 1/10th the time. But I didn't make that choice. Instead, I created a design that required I cut EVERY SINGLE TILE EXCEPT FOR 4 TILES!!!! ACK!!! Do I regret my decision? Nope. It's what I wanted, and now that it's up, it looks great. But it was a TON of work. Same thing with writing. Some projects are just harder than others, and the more complex your character and plot systems are, the harder you'll have to work on them to get them all right. The more complex the machinery, the more likely glitches will show up. But that doesn't mean you should stick to the simple ones, just because they are simple. Write what you want--but be prepared to put the work into it.

4. Tiling takes LOTS of prep. I had to measure everything, figure out how much I'd need of each kind of tile (overestimating, of course), teach myself how to use a wet saw (messy, messy, messy), make a template of my over-the-stove backsplash, where I would center the design, and plan everything out, before I ever cut a tile. And then I had to cut and cut and cut tiles. I had to lay things out dry before I started mortaring them in place. I had to buy the right supplies, and run back to get more when I ran out. None of these elements got the tiles up, but they were imperative if I was going to get the job done. Same with writing. NaNoWriMo is a fun exercise, but without planning, revision, and a ton more work, the novel that comes out of a writing frenzy like that one won't be worth publishing. Plan out the novel. Work out who the characters are. Build the world they live in. Write a plot outline--with an ending. Sure, none of this prep is actually writing on the novel, but it's necessary. It will make the novel writing easier. Even more importantly, it will make the novel itself better.

So there it is. I'm sure I'll come up with more kernels of tiling/writing wisdom when I grout everything, but I am grateful that I don't have to return to the project for a few weeks. Now I can get back to my writing! (This is why I'm a writer, and not a tiler.)

Not So Fast

Not a quick step

Confident

Resounding on the hardwood floor

To let them

To let myself

Hear the movement forward

Not a rocket

Shooting off

Inspired

On fire

Turning out the pages

Faster than I can count

Not the NASCAR racer

Tearing up the track

Passing all

As if they were

Standing still

Watching in awe

As I pass

No

Much as I would like it

My toes are only inching forward

Wheels turning slowly

A snail

Leaving a perfect trail

Of neatly ordered

Slowly formed

Through intense pressure

Stones

Perhaps someday

It'll be a diamond