Cats, Kids and Passion

Ladies and gentlemen, I feel accomplished! Today I successfully took both the cat AND the toddler to the vet and made it home again without my hair standing on end from stress. This is all the more worthy of note seeing as the cat, who needed to be there, most certainly did not want to be, and the boy, who did not need to be there for any reason beyond not being able to stay home alone, was very much interested in getting into everything. Plus, I think I should get bonus points for doing this while seven months pregnant.

I'm definitely getting to the point at which leaving the house requires having a very good reason. It's hot, and I'm carrying around a space heater in my belly. If the toddler breaks away and dashes off, I will look like a penguin scuttling across ice if I try to run after him. In order to get me out of the house, one of three things has to happen:

1. An appointment I really shouldn't miss. I admit it was rather tempting not to worry about getting the cat her shots, but then, this is the most high maintenance cat ever, and if I didn't then something catastrophic would be bound to happen. (Seriously, this cat does not seem to understand that part of being a cat is being easy to manage. She's allergic to poultry, and recently had enough issue with the non-poultry food we were giving her that we were on the verge of having to go home made!)

2. We've played with all the toys, read all the books, have nobody available for a play date, and I can't justify letting the boy watch yet another half hour of Jonathan Bird's Blue World. And even then, sometimes it's easier just to let him throw the dirt in the potted plants onto the floor than bother to leave the house.

3. There's something I'm actually passionate about doing. But let me tell you, the threshold is pretty high. I love going swimming, for example--it's so amazing to feel weightless at this particular stage of pregnancy. And yet the hassle of putting on the swim diaper and the bathing suits and the sunscreen and packing the bag and driving to the pool and making sure the boy doesn't swallow too much pool water and getting showered and dressed in a humid changing room with a boy who doesn't realize the floor is disgustingly dirty and then getting into the hot car and undoing all the feeling of refreshment granted by the pool is really a bit too much to handle sometimes.

It's crazy how many worthwhile things in life require actually having passion before we're willing to do them.

Back in college I joined a group of aspiring game developers. We called ourselves GeeQ, and each of us, over time, earned nicknames. One day I brought a bottle of Passion Fruit drink to the group, and when I finished it a friend of mine asked "So are you full of... passion now?" (Cue eyebrow wiggle.) And from then on I was Passion GeeQ.

A while later my then boyfriend (now husband) and I went on a trip to Haiti to help with some medical work there. We had a lot to do and needed to stay focused, so the team made it clear this was not a romantic getaway. One night toward the end of the trip we were asked to talk about our experience there. The first thing out of my mouth was, "The theme for us this trip has been passion." Of course, I meant it as passion for what we were doing and compassion for the people who came to the clinic, but everyone else chose a rather different interpretation of my words.

So "passion" has been following me around for a good while now.

Lately it's come back again. At the beginning of the year I gave myself two major writing goals to complete before the new baby comes: to write the first draft of a new book and to finish a polished draft of another. I've done both, and with some time to spare.

I didn't count on having yet another book idea spring up on me and beg to be written.

It doesn't make sense to start a whole new book right now. I'm two months from my due date. What with all the appointments and general weariness that come with pregnancy, chances are not good that I would be able to finish this book before baby.

And yet, I feel so passionate about the idea. I simply can't stop myself from writing it.

That's how it is with passion--even if the thing we're doing doesn't make sense, we feel compelled to do it.

So I am. I've started writing. I don't know what will happen or when the book will be done, but I'm going for it.

What are you passionate about?

Behind the Scenes: The First Draft

Some people have a favorite part of the writing process. If I do, I haven't figure out which it is yet. Is it...

Research? (Aka "Ooooh, they did what with their urine???")

Plotting? ("Now which of you lovelies wants to die in act two?")

Drafting? ("Ha ha ha, that was a great sentence. I crack myself up.")

Editing? ("Ha ha ha, that was a really terrible sentence. I crack myself up.")

Right now I'm in first draft mode.  There's a great debate* over whether it is better to plot extensively before drafting or dive right in and see where the story goes.

Used to be, I couldn't plot without getting a severe creativity block. I'd have all these wonderful ideas, and the moment I tried to put them down in a notebook they would dry up like the desiccated bones of a once-proud magnificent beastie.

Now I can't do anything without at least a basic plot. I have to know where all the key events of the story take place or I could end up walking my characters off the plank instead of sailing them to the far corners of the world.

But neither (as I used to think) does my plotting stage become more in depth with each book. True, the one I was working on before this was plotted out to the scene by scene level. But with the most recent I've given myself a bit more freedom.

In fact, my plot looks a whole lot more like this:

There is definitely a general shape to it overall. I know what happens in the beginning, middle and end. But in between there's a bit of room for improvisation.

Do I like this way better? I'm not sure yet. I have noticed something unusual though--this draft is turning out to be a bit longer than my first drafts tend to be. Generally my first round of editing involves a lot of added scenes. But this time? I might end up having to remove scenes altogether! And that will be a first.

I'll say this for my characters, though: they are being very obliging! The other day I realized my lack of plotting had led to a bit of a plot hole, but before I could worry too much, my character said something completely natural, right out of the blue, that took care of the whole issue. Now that's cooperation! So maybe my characters like having a bit of freedom to stretch.

Fellow writers: Are you a plotter? A pantser? Do you find some happy medium?

And everyone else: When you go into a new project, whatever it is, how much work do you put in ahead of time before you really get started?



*For real! In some circles admittance to membership requires extensive grilling regarding the methods of one's writing process.**

**No, not really. Writing process is very much a matter of individual preference.

This post got a little bit derailed.

Today has been a good day, guys. I'm getting into a rhythm with the WIP (work in progress) and remembering how much fun it is to write a first draft. Anything goes! Want to add a dragon to spice things up a bit? Insert that dragon! Want to experiment with dramatic irony?...

[And seriously it is so easy in a dual POV. Get character A needing one thing, and character B thinking character A needs the opposite, and BOOM! tension. Everybody wins. Except the characters. They really don't win.]

... Sprinkle liberal amounts of dramatic irony. LIBERAL AMOUNTS! And oh, you know what you haven't seen in a book in a while? A Shakespearean sonnet. Go ahead and add one of those too. That should do it.

It's great, because anything can be cut out later if it doesn't work. (Except the dragon. The world needs more dragons. Because then my son's first word could be dragon instead of cat, which it's looking like it might be.) Maybe that crazy idea will be absolutely ridiculous in retrospect. And guess what! Nobody has to know--that's what revision is for. But maybe it'll be totally brilliant instead.

Anyway...

You know, this post was actually supposed to be about something else entirely, but then it got to be all about first drafts. And dragons.

So hey, bonus! I get to save that other post for next week.

Dragon.

Three ways a first novel is like a first baby

If there's anyone out there who still doesn't know, I had a baby a couple months ago. So far he's pretty all-consuming, and since I like to keep family life private I haven't had much to blog about. But I thought maybe it was time to venture back into the blog, so here's a baby/writing compromise...

Three ways a first novel is like a first baby:

1. You can't sleep.

This is probably about the biggest cliché is the world: newborn = no sleep. But it's so true. I heard a statistic the other day that in the first year after having a baby, the average woman loses 41 days of sleep. I can believe it.

Writing a first book isn't nearly comparable, but there is still some sleep loss. Whether from lying awake because you're too excited about the plot twist that just jumped into your head, or from telling yourself "just one more scene" late into the night, sleeplessness happens.

2. You have no idea what you're doing.

People say all the time that "babies don't come with an instruction manual." Well actually, I have several sitting on a shelf, all by different well-meaning authors. But they all say completely different things. I guess each parent has to muddle through somehow.

Writing fiction is much the same. Advice doesn't grow on trees, but it does grow at an astounding rate online. And again, the advice is often conflicting. Fortunately, with a little experience and a lot of help from critique partners, your writing can improve. Maybe not in time for the first book, but you can always write more.

3. Everything is a mess.

To preserve my dignity I won't tell any specific stories, but I'm sure your imaginations (or your own experiences) will supply the relevant details. With a newborn, nothing stays clean for longer than two seconds.

A first novel is bound to be the same. Either the pacing is off, or you use too many adjectives (or not enough description), or your dialog sounds forced. The whole thing is a big, beautiful mess. But you're having too much fun to care.

And I guess babies are like that too. They may be messy. They might be awake when all you want to do is sleep. And you probably have no clue what you're doing. But that baby is yours and you love him no matter what.

One way books and babies are very different? You can go back and edit the novel. With parenting you only get one draft.

First Draft Anxiety

Lately I've been having high school nightmares. You're probably familiar with at least one of them: the one where you bring your math notebook to history class, maybe, or the one where you're late to class but you're stuck at your locker because you forgot the combination. The one where you're sitting in French and you realize there's a test and you haven't been attending class all year. Or perhaps the one where Mrs. North turns into your grandmother and they're both mad at you and you hate hate hate disappointing them, but you don't what you did this time or how to fix it and why are you burying your math book in the garden anyway? and now you're crying in your sleep, you silly dork... No wait, maybe that last one's just me.

Well anyway, I hadn't had dreams like that in a long time until recently, but I guess there's something in the air (it is exam season, after all) or, hmm, I suppose the fact that my characters go to a high school similar to mine might be to blame. (What's that? I'm writing a book set in high school and now I'm dreaming about it? Shocker!) Or maybe, just maybe, the dreams are coming out of the fact that I have first draft anxiety, which feels an awful lot like I've just gotten a D on my physics test and now I'm desperate to bring up the grade.

Raise your hand if you've ever wanted to flush a first draft down the toilet. That's where I am right now. Is there a twelve step program for perfectionists? Even if there is I wouldn't join—I'd be too afraid of botching one of the steps! For all the excitement of writing a new story, I keep seeing all the flaws in it. And now I'm fighting first draft nerves.

What do you do when...

-You have a totally flat beanbag character flopping around in your scenes?

-Your dialog is way out of proportion with the rest of the writing and it's throwing your pacing all off?

-Instead of an arc your plot line looks like a rocky financial chart?

-Your main character's voice is growing stale?

I guess there's only one thing to do: suck it up, keep writing, and if you're really desperate, quote some Anne Lamott: “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts.” Fixing the issues is what the second draft is for. And besides, that bad character just balances out the really great one, that dialog is pretty decent, the plot is going somewhere, and at least the main character has a voice to begin with. There's always a silver lining.

Anyone else going through first draft blues?