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Bad Draft or Bad Writing Day?

The last time I sat down to work on my novel, the words read pale and lifeless. I’m only on chapter two. This can’t be a good sign.

I wrote a lot last week,on other pieces. My brain was too tired to rework any more stories. I decided I needed a break from writing, a chance to refuel. I dove into a book about writing instead: Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones.

I’ve read bits and pieces of her book before, but this time one passage struck me.

“If every time you sat down, you expected something great, writing would always be a great disappointment.”

My writing experience lies in short pieces: blog posts, articles under 1000 words, or short stories no more than five pages. In such a compact writing space, I easily devote time and energy to edit and re-edit a whole piece to the point of satisfaction, sometimes even pride.

Now I look at a novel and its end goal of 80,000 words or 100+ pages. Subconsciously, I expect myself to sit down and write a great second draft. When I couldn’t rework even one good chapter the other day, I did feel disappointed. And, discouraged.

Time is of the essence, I thought, this story is going to get old, and fast.

If I want to rush through a re-write just to get the story out, before it becomes a bore (before I lose my confidence), maybe the story should be shelved for a while. Perhaps even for good.

How do you know when the masterpiece you poured onto paper isn’t such a masterpiece after all? Sure, elements of the story show promise, but the story as a whole reads average, not great. And, how do you know the diffference between a weak premise and a bad writing day?

***

Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones (Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, Inc, 1986), p. 11.

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Iron Bodies

Wordsmith.org’s theme this week is “terms from law.”

Today’s Wednesday, here’s the word:
barratry. noun: the practice of stirring up groundless lawsuits.

If you’re new to my Wednesday’s word of the day routine, know that the word is looked on as inspiration. You can use it in a story, or you can use it as a catalyst for a story. For me – today – barratry takes me back to another flash fiction post about welding and bodies and missed perceptions.

Here’s where we left off last time:

He wore his welder’s helmet. Sparks flew up and out around him. He must not have heard her walk in, but he surely felt her pointed tap on his shoulder. He jumped, dropped his torch, and swung his elbow around. In an instant, her eyebrow burned and she fell back, heard a loud clang, and blacked out.

When she opened her eyes, she looked up into flourescent lights. She blinked once, twice, and then saw him again. Only this time he wasn’t peering out from behind a green welding glass.

“You’re awake. Thank god. You scared me woman. You fell back into a pile of scrap and sliced open your head. I thought I’d killed you.” With that, he put his hand on her arm and squeezed.

Her heart popped and beat fast, and her head swirled. The heat of his hand confused her.

“Those people,” she whispered, “on the front lawn….”

He smiled. She squinted. Then, the nurse pushed open the door.

***

He left the room to give her some privacy. When he tried to go back in, the nurse side-stepped in front of him. Her words were irrelevant; it was her expression that warned him not to return. He left a note at the nurse’s desk and went back home to his welding. She stayed overnight to recover.

A few days later, she sat in her recliner watching TV. During a commercial break, she got up to pour herself another cup of tea. She walked past the TV screen and stopped short.

[Are you the victim of a personal injury? Insurance company not returning your call?]

When victim and personal hit her ears, her mind returned to the scene of the crime. She marched to the window and snapped back the curtains. He had moved the figures, sure, but she still saw evidence of their former positions in the depressed grass. She grabbed her spring jacket off the coat rack. In her frenzy to wrench it closed – tight – with the waist belt, she ignored the in-turned collar. She flung open the front door and made her way across her manicured lawn, through his overgrown yard, and straight to the garage. She heard clicking and then the sound of his torch.

This time when she pushed the door open, she held it back against the wall. She kept one hand on the door knob and one on the door itself for balance. Then, she weaved her foot around a chunk of metal and careened it her way to use as a door stop. He turned from his work and peered through his welding glass.

She waited.

He waited.

She sighed, rolled her eyes, and moved towards him. She stopped twice to make sure he put his torch down before she got too close. He raised his welding glass.

“What can I do for you?”

She couldn’t decipher the tone of his voice. “I got home from the hospital three days ago.”

“Yes.”

“You haven’t bothered to call to see if I’m okay. You haven’t said a thing about paying my bill.”

“I left a note with a nurse. Have you gotten a bill?”

“Well, no, not yet. But when I do….”

“Fine.”

Again, the tone puzzled her. “You left a note? I never got a note.”

He waited.

She waited.

He turned back to his work and pulled down his glass.

She leaned over and tapped him on the shoulder. His response was muffled by the glass, which he didn’t raise this time. He held his hands frozen in position, and she saw his shoulders rise and fall as he took a deep breath.

“I’m calling a lawyer,” she quipped.

He set down his tools. He raised his welding glass. He was smiling.

“Did you hear me?” She moved one foot back. “I said I”m calling a lawyer.”

“Yes.” His smile didn’t budge.

Her feet shuffled back and forth, and her shirt felt wet under her arms. She looked around at the other iron bodies, but their menacing looks had changed, probably from the extra light through the doorway she thought.

“You might want to cut that grass in front. It’s a hazard if we hit dry conditions.” She wanted to add insult. “Not to mention it looks like a jungle.”

“Thanks for the tip. And, you might want to fix your coat collar.” That was all he said. Not one word more.

She watched him as he turned back to his metal and lit his torch. She turned to storm out, but stopped at the door to fix her collar. Then, she reached down pushed the chunk of metal out of the way. The door closed slowly behind her.

She stood there for several minutes and listened to him work. When her eyes came back into focus, she saw speckles of color all over the back yard: purple and yellow and a soft orange. More weeds, she thought. Then, upon closer inspection, she noticed a stone path winding through the flowers.

Disgusted, she did an about face and marched back towards her house. But this time, she took the sidewalk.

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To Draw or Not to Draw

A week ago, I sat down with the first draft of my novel and started an official re-write. I didn’t just talk about it or think about it. I actually moved things around and added content where content was due. Since then, I turned to other pieces of writing with more critical deadlines and managed to get a hefty cold. So, the rewrite sits. And, waits.

In that week’s time, however, I received my November issue of The Writer, in which several authors focus on the art of developing a sense of place in a story. Phillip Martin (in “Power Your Story with a Sense of Place”) emphasizes that “[p]lace influences stories far more than many writers realize.” It can make or break a story. Linda Lappin (in her article, “See with Fresh Eyes”) suggests creating a “deep map” of a neighborhood to draw material for a story.

Jennifer Neri recently posted about people in landscape, where several writers commented on the art of describing a place. But, Phillip Martin and Linda Lappin seem to imply more than just good, vivid descriptions of a setting for a scene. I’ve heard of authors who map out a whole city where a story takes place. Some draw or paint pictures of a character’s dwelling. For my story, so far, I have a vision of the apartment where my main character lives, but I’ve yet to put the image down on paper. And, I don’t have a city map that mirrors how the story unfolds.

What’s your tactic? Does every story need an intricate and detailed layout of floor plans and elevations and street maps? Do you sketch your images in a notebook separate from the one with character development and story time lines?

I love to draw -my friends say I’ve developed quite a style in the stick figure arena. I’m curious, though, as to how much time an author should spend on creating a visual sense of place versus time spent on developing the story itself?