A few weekends ago, we headed to the Camp up north for the last time of the season. Once there, we took long walks in the woods, savored fires, and ate soup. We had a Glow-Dance party and a marathon of Words with Friends. Then, we began the process of closing up.
We hung shutters, drained pipes, pulled the main. I deflated several inflatables, which is about as fun and frustrating as blowing them up. We closed the boathouse, locked up the doors, said our goodbyes, and turned back onto the main road home.
Leaving behind a canopy of sunshine and the trees’ last leaves can make one melancholy. But, the idea of walking away for a short time can be also a good thing. A chance for us to focus on things closer to home.
November 1st began a 30-day writing spree for a mass of writers focused on cranking out the first draft of a novel. If you’re participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and you’re reading this, STOP READING RIGHT NOW AND GET BACK TO YOUR WORD COUNT. If you’re not participating in NaNoWriMo but (like me) you’re deep in the thick of rewrites and struggling to find the time to finish, STOP READING THIS RIGHT NOW AND GET BACK TO YOUR DRAFT.
That’s what I plan to do.
While I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo in the traditional way, I am piggybacking on the idea and the energy behind it, so I might push through my current draft. I call it, NaNoFinishThatDraftMo.
All that is to say, I’m taking a break from blogging this month.
Here’s the thing, though. Stagnant blogs make me nervous. So, for the next few weeks, you’ll see a tiny post here or a re-press of a post there. Something to keep your mind on reading and writing just the same.
Well then, here we go. Clickety clack and tally ho, and we’ll catch up in December!
In the seventh grade, I signed up for athletics. I lasted for one season (skinny, asthmatic kids are better suited for things like Drama), but I stayed long enough to experience a powerful moment.
After one look, and a few practices into the school year, the coaches figured out that I was C-team material. I was too short to spike a volleyball and couldn’t complete an overhand serve if my popularity depended on it (which it did). I was easily run over in basketball and was given an alternate uniform that screamed “sub.” During games, I took my seat at the bench. But during each practice, I did the drills and ran the laps. When track season rolled around, Coach Lewis looked at me and said “long distance runner.” He signed me up for the 400 meter race.
We didn’t practice with Coach Lewis often during track season, which made him all the more intimidating when he did show up on the field. He barked orders, shouted praise, laughed once in a while. On a particularly chilly Saturday morning at a track meet, he said the one sentence that has stuck with me ever since.
“Quit your coughin’, Craig!”
Cold weather aggravates asthma, and during the middle of the 400 meter event, I started wheezing, sputtering, slowing down. I jogged in the outside lane. Coach Lewis didn’t like that. He walked up to the chain link fence that surrounded the track, stuck his head out like a snapping turtle, and hollered.
“Quit your coughin’, Craig!”
I was shocked. Had he forgotten I had asthma? Where was the sympathy? Too scared to stop and ask him, I picked up the pace. I took the deepest breaths I could manage and the longest strides my chicken legs would take. I merged into the inside lane, rounded the last turn, and passed that tall girl with the mean eyes. I focused on the white lines that marked my lane and tuned into the sound of my shoes hitting the asphalt of the track. I pushed myself, into fourth place, earning a ribbon and a big boost of confidence.
“Quit your coughin’, Craig!”
Coach Lewis’ words flashed through my mind last week as I experienced the same shortness of breath and sluggish feeling. This time, it wasn’t my asthma slowing me down, though, it was fear. I had reached a familiar point in my novel draft, the place in the story where ideas scatter and plot weakens, the moment where I stare at the blank screen and worry if what I write next will kill the energy in the work.
This is the [place] on the old maps, the murky, muddy spot where quicksand sucks at the feet and demons overtake the heart.
I’ve been here before, with this same story. In the past, I’ve faltered and quit – full stop – and gone back to the beginning to rework chapter one. But, this time is different. I’ve got Coach Lewis breathing down my neck. And, I have a few other incentives to keep me moving forward.
1. The Radio. I recently read my story, “Red Velvet Sunday,” on WUWM’s Lake Effect program(click here to listen). Nothing makes you feel more like a writer than answering questions about the craft and having the honor of reading your work to a new audience. The experience was like a shot of adrenaline, and it was a reminder that good things do happen, usually at just the right time — like during a writing lull when you wonder if you’ve got it in you to succeed.
2. Jody Hedlund. In her post,“How to Beat the Fear of Being a One Book Wonder,”she talks about old self-doubts that resurfaced while writing her second novel. Her thoughts on how to move through those fears apply to writers at any phase.
3. Ira Glass. In his video on storytelling (part 1) (the link found via a post from Jane Friedman on Writer Unboxed), he talks about “the anecdote” as a sequence of actions that move a story forward one moment at a time. That’s how I can get through this next section so that, as Barbara O’Neal says, I’ll “eventually…have a finished draft. To rewrite. So goes the game.”
How about you? What memorable moments keep you from coughing and sputtering your way to “I quit?”
I’ve been hanging out with a great group of people lately.
Once every two weeks, I pull my car into a small parking lot behind an old convent, run up two long flights of stairs, and sit down at a table with other like-minded individuals.
We are all writers.
I paid for my seat at the table and, in doing so, committed to a block of time that throws a wrench into my weeknight schedule of dinner, books and bedtime for two small kids. But, when I received an email asking if I wanted to return for the next session of Roundtables, I looked past my Mother Writer guilt to four reasons why these sessions are vital to my writing career:
Reading out loud, Lloyd says, helps you discover your voice.
You not only hear the repetition and the over-writing. You can also hear whether or not you sound too stifled, too casual, too funny or too sharp.
Besides finding my voice, reading my work to others forces me out of my comfort zone. Margaret Atwood says, “You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.” I agree. And, each time I read, I put myself out there as a professional writer and, in the process, gain more courage to be that writer.
2. I get instant feedback. In the January issue of The Writer magazine, Robin Garland interviews a story consultant and agent, Lisa Cron, and asks what makes a good story.
“A [good] story,” Cron says, “must have the ability to engender a sense of urgency from page 1.”
Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl.com
Sharing my latest chapter with a live group of writers gives me a pretty good idea – right away – whether or not my story will keep a reader engaged.
This in-the-moment critique was new to me, but I’m beginning to appreciate the quality of it. Though, I know I don’t need instant feedback to continue with my rewrite, I don’t want to move on to the next chapter until I know I’m in a good place with the current chapter, not this time around anyway.
3. My draft reads more consistent. Writing a novel is daunting, and I procrastinate when projects seem overwhelming. For the last two years, I’ve worked in spurts on this novel and then put it down. When I did get back to it – after too long a break – the tension was lost. The draft felt fractured, unstructured, and too loose.
In just a short time, I knew that the feedback I received from the other writers at the Roundtable was invaluable. Finishing another chapter rewrite by the next session became a concrete deadline I didn’t want to ignore. And, with shorter breaks between revisions, I had less problems remembering where I left off and where I was headed.
4. I benefit from more camaraderie and support. I could tackle this novel alone, huddled over my laptop in the cold basement of my house. But, I focus better and am more driven to finish when I’m surrounded by the warm bodies of other writers.
Yes, I’ve met so many great writers on Twitter, She Writes, and (now) Facebook, and I wouldn’t trade those connections for anything — many of them have become fast friends and staunch supporters. But, we all live miles and states apart. While I treasure the ethereal influence they have on my writing, I need the presence of writers in close proximity just the same.
Sitting at that table has a tangible affect on my writing. I am tethered to my work in a new way that fuels my determination to finish this novel. And, my place in that group completes another piece of my puzzle in becoming a writer.
~
What has a writing group done for you lately?
*****
Garland, Robin. “The Love of a Good Story.” The Writer. January 2011: 34-35, 55. Print.
A few weekends ago, we headed to the Camp up north for the last time of the season. Once there, we took long walks in the woods, savored fires, and ate soup. We had a Glow-Dance party and a marathon of Words with Friends. Then, we began the process of closing up.
