8.11.11

Lot's done today. With the inspiring view off the deck, coupled with a brief windy rainstorm, focus wasn't hard. I edited the first 177 pages of the book, added over 2300 words, and stopped for the day only because the power went out, and the battery died on my laptop. E così va.

Rachel asked:

When you set those writing goals and force yourself to get a set amount of pages/words done a day how do you keep yourself from feeling like you got a bunch of worthless words on the page with only a few that are actually good? That's the main issue I deal with when I force myself to sit at a computer and type, feeling like I wrote a lot but only a small portion of that is any good. Recently I went back and took a look at something I hated when I wrote it and now that some time had passed my inner critic actually thought it wasn't that bad. Is there any trick you know of to tamp that feeling down without letting too much time go by? I'm trying to get serious about my writing and cut down on the time it takes me to crank things out.

This is a fabulous question, and I'll tell you why. I think all writers have this very conversation with themselves. I know I did (do?) especially when I was just starting out. 9 years ago, halfway through my first manuscript, I was stuck. I had 50,000 words, and I didn't know what to do next. I was trying to make every word absolutely perfect, and spinning my wheels. I mentioned this to my dad, himself a big reader - and also an engineer. He gave me some of the best advice I ever received. He told me to get the story down, and worry about the rest later.

It was very powerful advice. You can polish that first 50,000 words so many times that you neglect to push forward and get the second 50,000. Whether you're laying pipe or building a novel, each piece builds on the piece before. It's more important to finish the book than worry about whether you're writing Pulitzer-quality prose. That's what revision is for. So I remind myself of that.

If you think in terms of getting to the end of the story, instead of how good the words are, you will be able to move forward and get the novel finished. Then you can make it all pretty.

In order to do that, I do set daily writing goals. I shoot for 1,000 a day. That's about 5 manuscript pages. It's not a lot in the grand scheme of a 100,000 word novel. But.... if you write 1,000 words a day for 90 days, you'll have a full-length novel in three months. THREE MONTHS. Don't think it's possible? Trust me, it is. But not if you belabor each word. You have to write the story. You can belabor the words when it's done. When it sit down to the computer, I spend the first part of the writing session re-reading what I wrote the day before, editing it as I go. Then I launch into my new 1,000 words. Some days, it feels like six steps backward for each step forward. But no matter what, there are steps forward. Each 1,000 words brings me closer to the end. Forward progress is essential.

Each writer has their own path up the mountain. You have to find the daily rhythm that works best for you. We have a saying, "Don't mess with your process." If it's working, and you're finishing books, stick with it.

And... and this is going to frustrate the hell out of you... you get better at it the more you do it. Writing is a mental exercise. If you exercise every day, you get stronger, tighter, and more focused. Simple as that.

Now, as it happens, I read something this morning so perfectly timed I had to wonder about how the universe really works. It's from Slate Magazine, by Michael Agger, called How To Write Faster. I kid you not. In it, he searches for the secrets of quickness in composition. It's a brilliant, fascinating article, and one of my favorite parts follows:

[Ronald] Kellogg, a psychologist at Saint Louis University, tours the research in the field, where many of the landmarks are his own. Some writers are "Beethovians" who disdain outlines and notes and instead "compose rough drafts immediately to discover what they have to say." Others are "Mozartians"—cough, cough—who have been known to "delay drafting for lengthy periods of time in order to allow for extensive reflection and planning." According to Kellogg, perfect-first-drafters and full-steam-aheaders report the same amount of productivity. Methinks someone is lying. And feel free to quote this line the next time an editor is nudging you for copy: "Although prewriting can be brief, experts approaching a serious writing assignment may spend hours, days, or weeks thinking about the task before initiating the draft."

"Although prewriting can be brief, experts approaching a serious writing assignment may spend hours, days, or weeks thinking about the task before initiating the draft."

That's the secret, really. If you do a bit of pre-thought before you sit down, you will find the end quicker and easier. My stories percolate for a very long time before they get onto the page. That helps me write faster and cleaner.

Heretofore, I am changing the oft-referred to terms "pantser" and "outliner" to the much more elegant and appropriate "Beethovian" or "Mozartian". I am a Beethovian writer. I like it.

More tomorrow. Playing golf with the men. Wish me luck. 

8.10.11

I love airplanes. There is something so exciting about getting on a plane and traveling to a different place. There's such optimism, such opportunity. Bitchy people too - I've noticed that people who are miserable traveling are often making the misery for themselves. Me, I love it. 

I'm late posting today because I was on a plane, then being treated to lunch at one of my most favorite restaurants in all the world. If you care, I had a shredded chicken burrito smothered in green chile. The best green chile you will ever eat.

I love airplanes not just because of the way travel hurtles you into the unknown, but because it is the one place that I can truly escape. No Internet access, (and if they do have it and it's offered, I decline politely) which means I can, for the duration of a flight, do anything I want without guilt. Listening to music is always high on the totem pole. And I usually read, though on longer flights, I work.

Today, I worked. I finished the edits on my friend's wonderful manuscript, then managed 700 on the sandwiched book. I don't know what else to call it right now - by default, publicly it has taken on the sandwich moniker. Privately, it does have a title. I can't write a book without one.

Tomorrow I start edits on the May '12 book, (yes, it too has a title, and I'll share it after we get the September book birthed into the world.) I'm excited to revisit this story. I've looked through my editor's notes; all points are quite salient. I intend to add a real ending - sometimes I like to turn in books that aren't entirely finished, just to make sure everyone shares my vision, and then I finish things off the way I see fit. Hopefully with a flourish, one that satisfies everyone. This one will end with an epilogue. I'm looking forward to writing it, actually, because it's been floating around my head for three or four weeks now, and I like it.

Yes, sometimes, we actually do like what we write.

 This is a good spot to answer Sarah's question from yesterday. She asked:

Do you write your books from beginning to end or do you skip around to certain parts? This is something that bothers me immensely for some reason.

It is an excellent question. I know you can ask ten authors this and get ten answers. For me - I do write in a linear fashion, though I don't follow an outline, instead preferring to make it up as I go. One of the biggest joys of my job is ending the day in a place I never expected. It makes it fun.

Outlining used to give me hives. But the more I write, the more I like having some sort of blueprint to follow. So my usual method goes as follows:

First 25,000 words (100 pages) - Balls to the wall writing. Like my hair is on fire. Not worrying about the story, just telling the tale. By page 100, the story is starting to take shape, and I do a little more thinking about where I go next. I am still working linearly at this point.

When I hit 50,000 words (200 pages) the end sometimes begins to show itself. If it does, and that's a big if, I will skip ahead and write the end. If it doesn't, I continue plowing ahead.

Between 50-75,000 words (200-300 pages) things start coming together. Scenes that need to be dealt with start popping up, so I write them, or at the very least, throw down a couple of paragraphs to remind myself. So I'll have 200-300 pages of real manuscript, and probably 20-30 pages of "what happens next."

75-100,000 usually pours out, not like honey, which I've been dealing with. More like hot maple syrup. These are the 3, 4, 5K days. And then I tie it all together in a tidy little bow. (ha!)

After 9 novels, this method has become pretty typical for me. I also find that almost always, I've started in the wrong place, but that's probably a topic all unto itself.

More tomorrow. As always, ask away. I'm going to go watch the sun set behind the mountains now.

8.9.11

A better day.

I don't know about you, but sometimes, I get so much work on my plate that I simply shut down. I find myself surfing the net instead of working - in other words - yesterday.

But today was much more focused. I edited the 10,000 from last Thursday, and was pleased to find that I didn't have to cut any of it. Just a few tweaks here and there, some thought continuations, tying one scene to the next, and the like. At the end of the writing day, I had 2,000 new words as well. I almost have 100 pages now, and though I haven't a clue where it's going, I'm having fun with it. This is my 90 day challenge book - the one I decided to write for fun. I know we're not supposed to do that, but I was waiting for edits on my May 2012 book, and hadn't decided what I wanted to write as the December 2012 book. But I didn't want to lose momentum. Losing momentum can kill you creatively.

So I set myself a 90 day challenge. 1,000 words a day for 90 days. I got really far behind, but I'm caught up now. According to the schedule, I should have 30K by next Monday, and I'm on track to beat that. Regardless, part of my agreement with myself is I have to all-stop on October 15 whether it's finished or not, and move on to my December '12 title.

Why in the world am I sandwiching in a book, you may ask?

Several reasons. Momentum being one of the biggest. We're writers, right? Which means we're supposed to be writing. I started looking at my creative output and decided I could do better.

I usually turn books in in September and February. This year, my schedule has changed a bit. That's the result of the move to trade paperback - those books release every 9 months instead of every 6. As such, I turned the May '12 book in June 15, but the schedule changed (the book moved from March to May), so I didn't get the edits until last week. I had some time to play. And my brain is still on that original schedule, so technically, I found three months.

That is a massive exaggeration. I usually get very little writing done in August and September. This is the time of year when I do a lot of personal travel. It is also the time of year that promotion gears up for the fall book. As we speak, next week, I'll be launching into the prep work that I need to do to get ready. Newsletters, blog entries, contests, website changes, bookplates - all that stuff. All time consuming, and creativity consuming. Then it's the launch, and tour. Though I've cut back drastically this year, I'll still be doing four signings and three festivals. That takes away from creative time. In my normal yearly schedule, I don't get started on the next book until the middle of October anyway. But all that time is generally lost. 

This year, I wanted to do something different. Instead of spinning my wheels, feeling like I should be writing, but instead fiddling with words, I decided to take advantage of this time and get a book done. Yes, it will be a draft, and most likely an unfinished one, to boot. But that's okay. It's a story that's been niggling at me, and I finally have a good sense of where it's going, so I might as well write it.

I'm also working on the edits for the May '12 book right now. Actually, that starts Thursday. For once, the changes are relatively minimal. The book was the tightest I've written, and my editor thankfully agreed, so outside of typical revising, it won't be a huge mess to reconstruct.

Top that off with outside work: I'm editing a great book for a friend, have two that need to be read for blurbs, and am dealing with the usual day to day work that must be done.

Yesterday, I got tired. Everything began to weigh on me, and I froze.  My brain wasn't going to work. It happens. But today, I feel better. Energized. And hopefully, tomorrow will be more of the same.

And yes, I did eat sunflower seeds. But I typed one-handed, just to ward off another lost day. I'm not sure where the sunflower seed addiction has come from, but at least it's a healthy one, right?

8.8.11

It has been one of those days. I set my alarm last night with the purest of intentions--get up, make tea, settle in for a beautifully clear two-hour block of writing before an appointment and some errands. Then return, settle in and write the afternoon away.

Here's what happened instead:

8:00 Alarm sounds - snooze button hit

8:10 Alarm sounds - snooze button hit

8:30 Drag ass out of bed

8:40 Cat meowing plaintively for a brushing

8:50 Cat brushed, email dealt with, Diet Coke cracked (yes, it seems I am back on the caffeine. THIS MUST END) Settled in with laptop for writing. Can still get a solid hour of writing in

9:00 Channel inner Goddess by fixing corrupted Mac Harddrive - without help! (Rah - Rah!)

9:30 Lion now running lightning fast. Spend 20 minutes gliding through various apps, swiping left right and up.

9:50 Um, not sure, though I can say unequivocally there were fewer than 100 words written.

10:00 Online errand for husband

10:05 Email rechecked, RSS Feeds read - three bookmarked for future blogs, which is really a horrid form of procrastination...

10:15 Leave for appt. Optimize wasted time by cleaning apps off iPhone. iPhone continues to hang, so plan to update software as soon as I arrive home

12:30 Finish appt, head to grocery store. Virtuously multitask by making phone calls while driving

1:15 Arrive home, write checks, pay bills - writer bills, not household

1:30 Back in chair at last. Laptop open to manuscript. iPhone and iPad syncing, making me unable to turn on Freedom. All shiny objects.

2:15 Start thinking about lost time. No better way to lose more time, truly.

2:30 100 words revised

2:45 Find self making soundtrack playlist for new book

2:50 Feel overwhelming need to be funny, post stupid comment on Facebook

2:55 Open bag of sunflower seeds. For the record, eating sunflower seeds takes one hand away from the keyboard. I'm just sayin'.

3:00 Software updated across all devices. New music downloaded. Time to go.

3:10 Another 100 words.

3:20 Find myself online again, on Amazon, reminding myself that yes, I have written a book before, and yes, I will do it again. Ooh, pretty colors...

3:30 Read interesting blog post about rejection by friend Robert Gregory Browne. Order his new book, THE PARADISE PROPHESY

3:45 Start to get rather pissed at self for wasting an entirely perfect afternoon

4:00 Decide I need more accountability. Decide (tomorrow) Tuesday will be minimum 5K day. Decide to start posting short blogs around 5 pm daily, 5 days a week.

4:20 Another 100 words

4:30 Give up and write blog

4:50 Cat decides lap seems like a good idea. Screech...

5:00 Post Blog

Still haven't had the tea.

Sigh.

Mama said there'd be days like this. I am not prone to procrastination. But sometimes, I get into the cycle of doing everything AROUND what I need to be doing instead of just buckling down and getting the words down.

I know that sometimes, the writer's brain will not be forced into creativity. That there are certain absolutes in life - you will have days that even though your butt is in the chair, it doesn't matter, because your mind has absconded. It's frustrating. It's demoralizing. It's something that happens to the very best of writers.

It's what you do the next day that matters.

So repeat after me.

I will endeavor to do better tomorrow.

Because really, what else can you do?

Marked Flesh & Media Whores

From Murderati 8.5.11

I’ve finally started reading THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

How I’ve managed to go this long without knowing the actual storyline of the book is remarkable – especially since it was the very first ebook I ever bought. I haven’t read a single review. I don't know any details at all. I know it swept the world away, but today, 100 pages in, realizing it’s a story about  a missing woman… the set up seems utterly prosaic. Though I am invested in the story, I am afraid to be disappointed by going forward and finding that this is simply a regular tale, one not mythic, not life-changing, not genre-transcending.

All of that is in direct conflict with the books’ backstory, and current about to be a blockbuster movie status. The dead author, one who’s been in turns accused of gross misogyny and tender enlightenment, who witnessed a girl’s rape in his teens and by all accounts spent the next 15 years trying to rid himself of that mental horror. The battle for his estate. The films, heralded, revered, and soon to be released in the US. In all honestly, I didn’t feel there was any way the book could possibly live up to the standards of which the media shrieks set forth.

But how could that be? The idea that this book (these books) aren’t supremely special in some way is anathema to me. There must be more. There has to be something unique and brilliant about them, or else they’re just another mystery and we’ve all bought into the hype and that ultimately lessens the craft.

What, at its most base, is this whole spectacle about?

A story that explores the mystery behind a missing girl.

When I realized that, I went - That’s it?

No way. There is so much more to this story – I can already see that. And as I read, all the bits and pieces from the past few years, the details I’ve purposefully obfuscated, are coming into focus.

I didn’t want to read this book. I’m not sure why. I adore a good thriller. Maybe it’s because I’d just tried and failed with Jo Nesbo’s REDBREAST (just wasn’t in the proper intellectual space at the time) and the whole Scandinavian thing scared me. Or maybe it was the warnings about the financial stuff at the beginning. Being told the first 50 pages of a book are boring, but to stick with it isn’t exactly the way to get me on board.

I’ll be honest, I bought it, and I’ve glanced longingly at the cover several times, but it wasn’t until the US movie casting that I decided I was going to give this a chance. The whole Daniel Craig as Blomkvist is a beautiful thing, but that wasn’t it. It was sweet-faced Rooney Mara, who was asked to transform into hard-edged Lisbeth Salander.

 Before

After

It was that transformative process that got me interested in the story, in actually finding out what all the fuss was about. For at one time, Lisbeth Salander was, on the surface at least, a fresh faced ingénue as well.

The choice to mar flesh is one made for a variety of reasons. I have several piercings and a couple of tattoos. Unlike many babies I see nowadays, I wasn’t allowed to pierce my ears until I was ten – and that event stays firmly lodged in my mind. My hands shaking on the long drive to the store. The smelly black marker, perfectly aligning the spot where the needle would go. The cold alcohol wipe. The sharp snap of the gun shooting the hard metal through my tender lobes. The euphoria when they held up the mirror and the two twin glints peeked from either side of my head. I felt like such a woman walking out of the mall with my small gold studs. I couldn’t stop looking in the mirror. At my birthday present. The marking of my flesh for the first time.

There’s something quite… addictive about it. Ask anyone who’s pierced themselves and they’ll tell you. Tattoos too. It’s strange, really. Incomprehensible to some, yet—dare I say?—a turn on for others.

I didn’t feel the lure to mark myself again until I was in my teens and decided to double pierce my left ear. Not both ears. Just the left one. The asymmetry appealed to me. Unbalanced. Off-kilter. It fit my personality.

The method was exactly the same as six years earlier. I felt that same rush.

My father, on the other hand, had kittens. Several litters, in fact.

Eventually he forgave me, in the form of a gorgeous little diamond. Just one. Only for that spot. I wore that stud in my left ear for years, a secret acceptance from him, the first true acknowledgement of my autonomy, the powerful knowledge that I could be myself and yet still be loved, and was heartbroken when it was stolen, along with the small diamond earrings my grandmother gave me for graduation, on my honeymoon.

I haven’t worn a diamond in its place since.

The next marking came in the form of a triple piercing in that same left ear, which I let close soon after, because it just looked strange to me. But in ’95 I went for something different – a helix, through the cartilage atop my left ear. I still have that piercing, a small silver tension hoop. I’ll never take it out.

The belly button was next – it took separate piercings to get it right, too. Then the tragus – that’s the bit of cartilage in your ear closest to your face. I wanted to do my nose too, but Darling Husband drew the line.

So I started on the tattoos.

Trust me, as good little pearl-ed, bow-ed, preppy college republican was replaced by the hippy Goth artist within—replaced, ha. Eradicated is more like it—the folks around me started to wonder.

Why, exactly, was I doing this?

That is a very hard question to answer.

A, I think it looks cool. B, while having needles poked into your flesh hurts, it’s a different kind of pain. C, there are times you want to make sure you remember. Good times, and bad.

The first tattoo, the Chinese symbol for strength, was designed to give me just that, a tangible, physical, always apparent symbolic reminder to stop, breathe, and remember that my strength comes from within. It was a very serious tattoo. The second, the symbol for rebirth, was inked when I felt I’d achieved that exact moment of true inner strength: the stasis of my life was suddenly over and I was hurtling forward into the world I live in now. It is a joyous mark, and I had no idea until later that the combination of the two meant Phoenix Rising. From the ashes. I couldn’t have picked something more apropos if I tried, and as such it means so much more.

The little purple butterfly I just thought was pretty, but as our Alex pointed out to me years after the fact, apparently my subconscious needed the evidence of that shattered chrysalis in a more permanent form. It is a delicate little fancy.

I was five tattoos in when I realized I may have gone to far. I had wanted an Ichthys on the inside of my foot below my left ankle, but was talked out of it. (Tattoo artist: “I can’t guarantee this won’t rub off eventually.” Me: “Well, then I need to do something different – I want something permanent.”) Idiots, the both of us. He wanted to get paid more and I was too naïve to realize it. I ended up with what was supposed to be a rising sun but instead we referred to as the Death Star – and he did the colors backwards so I had to have it redone. Two layers of ink – one orange, topped with red and yellow.

I chose to remove that one, a process which more than made up for my idiocy by putting me through some of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. I do hear removal is better now, but at the time, I was a laser stricken guinea pig.

The phantom of that tat lingers on my left ankle. One day I’ll go to a cosmetic tattoo artist and have them ink the areas that hyper pigmented back to a more natural skin tone. But for now, it’s a reminder to me to think things through a little more. To look before I leap, which isn’t the easiest thing for me.

So I’m settled at five and one-half piercings (the tragus I stupidly removed trying to endear myself to some Nashville Junior Leaguers and it closed up, but I’m going to have it redone) and three tattoos – the small butterfly in profile on my left shoulder blade, and the two Chinese symbols on the inside of my right ankle. I adore all three and would never, ever mess with them. The ankle especially.

That doesn’t mean I’m not considering a fourth, one in a slightly less obvious place so I wouldn’t have to show it off if I didn’t want to.

A dragon is always foremost in the considerations.

Which brings me back to Rooney, about to be immortalized as the girl with the dragon tattoo. For the movie, the piercings she did were all real – lip, brow, nose, nipples, four holes in each ear. The tattoos are drawn on, but the piercings – that took some guts. If you don’t have this particular predilection… well, suffice it to say, I’ll be a fan of the movies because of what Rooney did for her art.

Click Photo for full poster (NSFW)

I haven’t finished the book yet. But I already like Lisbeth. I'm rooting for her. And now I’m dying to find out exactly what each of her markings are about.

Have you marked yourself in some way? Do you regret it, or are you glad for it?