Process Notes

Novella Diary, Claw, Day Three

PETERMBALL Works in Progress , , , ,

The big plan for today: finish Chapter One and nail the sucker down. This’ll mean a lot of focus on the final scene in the chapter, plus some whole-of-chapter revision once that’s done to knock off the worst of the rough edges, take out the narrative tics that creep in (my characters spend a lot of time shrugging), and plug in any missing sensory/setting information.

This is so not the way you’re meant to write, according to all the conventional wisdom, but my process is what it is. I’ve learned the hard way, over the years, that the words-at-any-cost, you-can-edit-later isn’t the best approach for me. I do not edit well. Once I stop working on a draft, I cease carrying the story around in my head.

I remember seeing an old interview with Douglas Adams where he talked about the creation of the random improbability drive, which came about based on the judo principle on using an attacker’s momentum against them. After writing himself into a corner where every solution seemed improbable, he came up with a solution that attacked that head-on.

I can respect the elegance of that, and I keep looking at it as the perfect metaphor for the way this novella wants to start. *Everything* that I found vaguely frightening has found its way in. Anything I found myself struggling with has become the central focus. It may work. It may not. I won’t know that ’til I finish at the end of the month and give the manuscript out to some beta-readers.

Session 3.1 (9:11 PM – 9:37 AM)
Word Count: 581

Not a typo. Despite my best intentions, today has been one lazy-ass day on the writing front. Our neighbours were being somewhat raucous last night, so I stayed up later than normal. Which meant I more-or-less ignored the alarm and didn’t end up writing before I did a couple of hours of work-from-home stuff for the day-job (my trade-off, in general, for starting a half-hour later on the days I go into office).

My writing routine is like a house of cards that’s waiting to fall down if the smallest thing goes wrong. If I don’t write early in the day, even if it’s just a handful of words, things just keep distracting me. Today I got distracted by sourdough donuts, thinking about last night’s Mutants and Masterminds game, and re-reading my flatmate’s run of Invincible comics (I meant to read three and stop; I failed).

In some ways, tracking the word counts for this project has made my not-writing tendency even worse. Knowing I can cram a lot of words into twenty or thirty minutes only makes it easier to delay getting to the keyboard.

On the other hand, the same knowledge also made it easier to drag myself over to Odin the Desktop. Even if I’m revising plans and acknowledging the first chapter won’t get done: scenes have started stretching on me, getting longer as the characters settle into the story.

Plus, when I get to the end of Chapter One, somebody is going to die. I’m kinda…savouring that knowledge a little.

Session 3.2 (10:20 PM – 10:40)
Word Count: 260

Two scenes down for the first chapter, which is getting  kinda long at this point. Once scene left to right, so I’m giving myself an early mark and coming at it fresh tomorrow. There’s also some minor editing/addition to things I’ve written earlier, which will probably mean that the total Manuscript Word Count below will cease being an exact match to things listed in the diary.

Session 3.3 (10:45 – 10:49)
Word Count: 158

Started typing this entry up. Realised I was only a couple of hundred words from achieving my 1k a day goal. Figured, what the hell, and wrote the opening of the next scene. Chapter is now, officially, running slightly longer than I’d intended.

Total Daily Writing Time: 50 minutes
Daily Word Count Total: 999

Total Manuscript Writing Time: 4 hours, 14 minutes
Total Manuscript Word Count: 3,615

 

Novella Diary, Claw, Day Two

PETERMBALL Works in Progress , , , ,

Here is my morning routine on days that I am heading to the day-job: the alarm goes off at 7:00 AM. I check my email and social media on my phone, go through my morning ablutions, shower, and breakfast. Ordinarily I’m front of a writing computer by 8:00 AM, which gives me an hour of writing time before I have to jump in the car and drive to the State Library of Queensland where the QWC offices are housed.

I like this routine. Kicking the day off with writing – particularly if that’s not what I’m going to be doing for the majority of my day – is good for my psyche.

Today is not a day-job day, so that routine goes out the window. Its 7:46 AM when I sat down to start writing this and I am not yet out of bed. The odds of me being at the non-internet computer by 8:00 AM are pretty slim. Partially this is ’cause today isn’t actually a full-fledged non-work day – it’s a TOIL day, picked up as a result of working a lot of weekends in the last few weeks. My body-clock is all confused. I feel like I should be heading for work, and it feels sinfully luxurious to hang out in bed.

There are not many things in my life that qualify as sinfully luxurious, so I indulge them when I can.

Session 2.1 (9:00 AM – 9:23 AM)
Word count: 474

Late start. Had I not been reporting here, it probably would have been even later, as the cleaner has just arrived and my first instinct is *get the hell out of the house*. Instead I’ve locked myself in the study with Shift Silas the Laptop and Odin the Internet Free Desktop and my phone.

The first thing I did when I sat down at Odin to start work? Tried to open a web-browser.

I’m telling you, that shit is Pavlovian for me.

More dialogue. More set-up. Wrote my way into a scene beat and hit pause, ’cause I need to figure out what happens next. This is traditionally the point where I’d go get a coffee and think things through, or check email. And so we see the pattern forming: Twenty minute writing bursts.

Session 2.2 (11:25 AM – 11:53 AM)
Word count: 444

So, the things that take place between writing? Trip to the shops to pick up some dry-cleaning (my jacket came back from Conflux smelling suspiciously like a burrito); breakfast kebab (I forgot to eat); groceries; some quality time on the internet, jawing with people via facebook and twitter; checking in on some wrestling forums, ’cause I’m a big ol’ wrestling nerd; Making note of a few things I really need to get done today and tomorrow, including between-workshop notes for Year of the Author Platform at QWC and some minor edits to the Six Lies, One Truth presentation about getting published that I’m delivering at a library on Saturday.

Found myself looping back this session, messing with the older scene. Adding in a character who needs to be there, ’cause I realised something important about the books plot, and it doesn’t work unless the character is there. A lot of the stuff I’ve written prior to this now becomes part of Chapter Two.

Session 2.3 (2:11 PM – 2:50 PM)
Word Count: 660

Two hours away from the computer, where I did three things: read bits of a Cliff Hardy novel by Peter Corris (after something like thirty-odd Hardy novels, Corris is the fucking king of dropping back-story seamlessly into the narrative and I’m looking at his work to figure out how he does it); watched Kiss of Death staring Victor Mature; paced around the house while I worked out the shape of the first chapter a little more.

I managed a comparatively big burst of wordage/focus this time round, which I attribute to two things. First, I really enjoy writing scenes full of people attempting to flirt in awkward ways, and we’ve hit the point of the chapter where that happens (for certain values of awkward and flirting). Secondly, I know the end-point of the chapter now, and the major beats that will lead to it, so it’s easier to get down the framework.

In theory, I have cleared my 1,000 words/day goal for May by a couple of hundred words. In practice, I’ll be rather surprised if this comes in at 30,000 words exactly, so it’s not like this is advantageous.

Signing off now to go watch a bunch of Ben 10 episodes and do some prep work ahead of running tonight’s Mutants and Masterminds game (first game in weeks; very excited). May or may not return for another writing stint once the game is done.

Total Daily Writing Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Daily Word Count Total: 1,578

Total Manuscript Writing Time: 3 hours, 24 minutes
Total Manuscript Word Count: 2,613

Process Notes

PETERMBALL Works in Progress

ONE

I am, slowly but surely, learning how to write again.

TWO

2012 was the year I set myself the task of learning to write while working a day-job. It took me the better part of the year to figure that out, but I got there. Get up early, write a handful of words, let all the big goals and word-counts I used to set myself when writing was a more significant part of my yearly income disappear into the background.

In 2012 I wasn’t a writer, I was just a guy who wrote. I reset all my expectations and rebuilt up my process from scratch. I didn’t push myself to build a career, I just focused on getting something done. It’s the first time I’d done that since I was…shit, twenty? Maybe twenty-one? I don’t regret it, not being a writer for a stretch. 2012 was a pretty fucking awesome year and the novelty of regular paycheque that was more than I needed to live off was actually kind of awesome.

But I don’t regret that I’m done with it, either. And that’s saying something.

THREE

2013 is a new beast, although it feels familiar enough. Four days a week away from the dayjob, which is when I get the lions share of my work done. Three days a week at the day-job, in which I get to do awesome stuff. It’s the best of both worlds, but I worry about the split. The way my process has to shift from Tuesday to Thursday, then shift back when the four-day weekend of writing starts.

I thought the days at work would be the problem. Turns out, I knew how to handle them. I’d taught myself in the close of 2012 and the process works just fine now. Get up early, do some words before work. Get the writing over with before the dayjob starts.

It’s the shift back, on Fridays, that caught me off-guard. The temptation to slip into slough when the dayjob isn’t there to write around. There is always tomorrow, I tell myself. Or, I don’t need a schedule, I can just stay up late if I don’t get it done now.

FOUR

In 2012 a good day’s writing was only 500 words. In 2010, the year that kicked the shit out of me, a good days writing involved getting my ass in front of computer and not punching myself in the nuts (I was, that year, pretty goddamn burnt out).

In 2013 a good days writing is closer to two or three thousand words. Dear god, I’ve missed those kinds of numbers. Hell, I’ve missed that kind of focus. Stories actually form and sprawl out, figuring out their natural length.

I’m writing long, these days. Stories aren’t really stories, but novellas and novellettes in the making. Once upon a time I’d aim to get most stories done in three thousand words of less. These days, my default length seems to be three times that.

FIVE

One thing that I’ve missed, for the last few years, is the freedom to throw something out. Earlier this week I turfed 16,000 words. It hurt, but it was the right choice. The project is better for it, and I’m getting more done after throwing stuff out.

There’s something pleasant about abandoning a story, knowing you don’t have to fight it. That’s there’s still enough words left over the course of the week to ensure you can get back on track.

SIX

I have plans for this year and, lo, they are ambitious. If I achieve even half of them, it’ll still be the most productive year I’ve had in my life. I’m doing a lot of process hacking, testing what I’m doing and figuring out what works. I’m looking at routines, figuring out how to shore up the process when things, inevitably, go wrong.

For now, I’m remembering how to write again, and it feels fucking great.