Why I can't write a book in a month (or three)

[olmue]

I've been having ideas rushing into my head so fast I can hardly write them down. I like this. I like it very much! I like that they aren't all in order, that one scene comes to me, and I realize to get the full effect I want out of it, something significant needs to happen earlier. Then I go back to that earlier scene and realize I want it to have certain reverberations later. And so on. Right now I have a big file with all these scenes dumped into it. Like last time around, I'm going to have a lot of work putting it all together (but not as MUCH as last time, oh please!). Today I read over a couple scenes I produced recently, and I like them very much.

But, despite the fact that 1000 words a day is a perfect and realistic goal for me, writing words isn't the only part of writing a book. The other part is thinking. Pondering what the outcomes of each character's choices will be. Figuring out what in their past would make them act the way they do. Thinking about them the way you would about a friend with a problem. I do a LOT of prewriting (the random scenes) to figure out just what the characters want to say, and what their own personal stories are. Every few scenes, I stop and have to do the pondering thing. And it's only after a lot of that that I can then start to outline. (Although I really hate the rigidness that word implies! I hate being locked in! I used to write my school outlines after I'd done the entire paper, because I knew I had things in my subconscious that were more important than the nonsense at the front of my mind. The quickest way to kill a novel is to outline it before my first 10-15K.)

Anyhow, all this longwindedness is to say that I spent today "outlining"--no, let's say "ordering the existing materials." There are two halves of the book, the first ending with both a mini-resolution and the awareness of an even greater problem than the characters thought at the start. The second half, of course, deals with this greater problem (which has been quietly building all along). I'm detailed for the first half, and I'm eager to see what appears for the second. So although I can't count those 1377 words from today in my word count, they are a very important 1377 words!

Okay, kids are asleep, pondering done. Finished The Pinhoe Egg (fun book). Maybe I'll start Neal Shusterman's Everlost.

Comments

[robinellen.livejournal.com]

LOL -- I always wrote my outlines after too...I never could figure out how they expected me to outline first when I didn't yet know what the paper would hold ;)

[olmue.livejournal.com]

LOL--no kidding! I find out what I'm writing about mostly in the moment I'm actually writing, not days beforehand. Much more rewarding than sitting there with the notecards and blank outline!

[ette-writer.livejournal.com]

You've made a lot of progress. I write in a more linear way, but your process sounds intriguing. It must be exciting to weave all the pieces together and to see what you have when you do.

[olmue.livejournal.com]

Agreed, it is exciting! But rather time-consuming, too...

[fabulousfrock.livejournal.com]

I am trying to ponder my new book more...I think my last one suffered from a lack of pondering.

[olmue.livejournal.com]

I ponder best when I'm doing something physical--walking somewhere, or cleaning, or outside running errands. Or people-watching!

Ooh, I think I'll take the bus in town today and check out who's on it...

[lorrainemt.livejournal.com]

Hey, sounds like great progress! And I love seeing the way all this is coming together for you. I'm way too linear with writing my scenes--even though I don't necessarily think in that way. Maybe I'll try it differently and see if it doesn't get me going any faster. :)

[olmue.livejournal.com]

I tried making myself write linearly until I got to the "good" scenes, thinking it would keep me in it, but I had a couple experiences where by the time I got there, it was stale. Now I know to get those scenes down when they're speaking. And those are the ones that seem to need less pruning during the editing process. In *general* I write front to back (I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to get to the solution I want yet), but I have to take those key emotional scenes when they come.