Yesterday’s unfinished business
I guess, when things you normally would have to research just pop out of your memory, you’re writing about something that is very close to your heart. Today this happened to me and I was glad that somehow I could start making sense of some things that weren’t quite clear to me before. It’s as if there has been a secret motivation behind it, although it only just now became clear to me.
However, I got so tired in the end that I got stuck mid-scene, which is not really good, if your routine is to start your day by thinking up a new scene to write later while you’re still in bed. Yesterday’s unfinished business isn’t exactly fitting in that context.
In any case, I actually have a third of it written now. I need to just finish that one scene and write one more to actually be able to make a cut and start with writing the second part, which I hope will be at least a bit less context and a bit more action. Not entirely likely, since at this point it’s mostly still building the conflict for the third part, the calm before the storm, figuratively speaking. The third part is supposed to be all action and rip everything to shreds.
Vulgar badly written crap … or not?
Do you ever have one of these days when you read what you’ve written and think “My goodness, I wonder what it sounds like to other people!” Am I just writing pretentious dribble, or is this merely vulgar badly written crap that should never see the light of day? Or is it actually brilliant and people will see it for what you intended it to be? Well, in any case, I’m having one of these days, after I heard an interview with a writer who I admire and who I’d like to ask for an opinion at some point.
I also wrote quite a bit today. I have to say that while I was cooking dinner I had to sit back down and write down a sentence that just popped into my head while I was stirring some prawns in the pan. Another sentence came to me in the shower again and in general I really feel like I’m making good progress on the story. I ticked off several points I wanted to put into the story and I’m almost ready to start the second part now which also introduces the second main character.
At the moment I’m wondering whether my structure might not actually be a bit boring, but at the moment I can’t really decide, because I’m too much into the story already, to be able to judge objectively. As you might notice, I’m having a rather skeptical day here. Well, it’s fine though, I’ll just carry on and then deal with these issues later on, when the whole story stands.
the shower: a creative fountain (pun intended)
Having a long shower is probably the most productive action a creative person can take.
“Hey, why is our water bill so high?”
“I’ve been writing lately …”
I somehow managed to get 4000 words out today, all thanks to my shower this morning. Came up with two whole scenes and wrote them too! Now I’ve written too much today to write about writing now, so excuse the fact that I’m merely boasting about my word count.
The big question about editing
Today I asked my friend Tony how his writing and editing process works. He already has several books out and he is a sculptor in his main occupation. I myself wasn’t quite sure whether I should do some editing already while I’m still writing. He told me that he first finishes the draft and doesn’t go back to edit during the writing stage. At this point he only has a clear view of the end, while the rest comes together in the progress with certain milestones he sets for himself. This is also how I work, although I don’t even have milestones. If I know the story in all its details before I’m even writing it, it’s too boring for me. I want to develop it as it goes. Especially since there are many things that might work well in your head, but that actually don’t fit once they are written down. So, right now I’m not quite sure what exactly is going to happen in the middle part, but I know exactly how it ends. I have even written the scene already.
Once Tony has finished his draft, he starts editing from the beginning. During the first edit he still makes big changes, and after that he goes over it at least one or two times more, to make sure it all fits together and catch some formal bits like spelling and grammar. After that he gives it to be read by other people to catch more of the formal stuff. In the end he then collects all changes in a single version. This is basically the point where he is finished with the whole thing and the rest is just the publishing stuff.
To me this sounds like a very sensible and orderly process, but I think when it comes to the actual writing bit, he’s just as much a mess as I am. I don’t necessarily work chronologically and sometimes I know I’m writing something that rips a hole into other parts. Then I end up going back and try to make it coherent again, which is the part I’m unsure about. So far these changes were all minor and were not really a big job, which makes me think that going back during the writing progress is ok for those things, but probably dangerous if you have to make bigger changes. That I create gaps or problems in already finished parts happens especially when I think of a sentence or a little fact that I’d like to bring into the story. They might have not so little repercussions for the story.
Generally the whole writing process is going well for me though and I’m making my main character more and more a whole person at this stage. I’m still setting the scene a little before I start the real action and I’m wondering now whether a structure with three parts might actually be appropriate. The first part would be what I’m mainly writing now. At the moment I’m not quite sure whether the second part really holds up like that though. However, even what I’m writing now is not exactly what I originally had in mind and it still works very well. I guess I just have to see about the structure and how well it all fits together when I get to the editing stage.
Today I again managed to meet my goal and wrote about 2100 words, mostly on a single scene that has one sentence I find just fantastic. It’s a bit vulgar, so I’m not going to quote it here, but it really paints quite a picture for that little a sentence. I’m quite proud of it, although it’s again one of those sentences that would make me wonder whether I’d want my mum to read it. Oops.
What just happened?
I had a particularly good day writing (2300 words) and managed to draft a dialogue that I particularly like. Of course I know that probably half of it won’t survive the editing, but it’s good to be getting it out of me. The story is by now haunting me and suddenly starts developing when I’m in the shower or eating breakfast. It’s almost as if it wants to be written. My second lead character is also taking shape now and I had some good ideas how to make my research even more interesting. It’s begging to be written.
I’m starting to remember now how the whole writing process can manage to fully engulf you, gobble you up and then spew you out half-digested, wondering what the hell just happened. I’m sure that happened to me once or twice this week and I love it. Soon I have my protagonist visiting my dreams trying to wake me up, so that I sit down and continue writing. What was it about the need to write they always talk about? Well, writers need that. And it’s trying to eat me now … somehow cool.
Aiming high
Although I didn’t have brilliant ideas today that made me chuckle about my own sarcasm I surely had a good day writing. I managed to get 2300 words down and finish an entire scene that I was writing. I’ve also been putting off writing a specific scene that I have in mind, because I just wasn’t in the right mood. Obviously I had enough to write about anyway.
And then I also found this great feature in Scrivener that shows you how you’re doing with your project target. You can set the amount of words you’re generally aiming at, set a deadline and it will calculate for you how much you need to write every day to keep your deadline. It also shows you your progress in a neat colour-coded progress meter, a bit like the ones I’m posting here, just more fancy. It even lets you set a Growl notification that pops up when you reach your session target. Today I moved from a red project target bar to an orange one, so it actually gives me nice positive feedback on all the progress I’ve been making today. Certainly motivating. If I would manage to keep my target of 2000 words a day I would be finished with my goal of 80000 words by the 1st of April, which is so soon that it’s laughable. I doubt that I’ll be able to manage that, really, but aiming high sometimes helps with the motivation. As you might have noticed, my procrastination project has somehow amounted to something proper that I’m really eager to follow through. After working on it properly for a few days I’m happy to say that there can’t be any doubt now: It’s a great and promising project.
Laughing about chainsaws
Today it seemed to me as if half the day was spent assembling my sofa that I had in storage for a long time. It probably took only an hour. Later I started looking through messages, trying to help a friend with some job stuff and then eventually I managed to sit down and actually write. By the time it was probably 4pm. Again I wrote less, only 800 words. However, I was laughing so much about one of my ideas (it features a chainsaw) that I think I can be happy with my achievements today. And also one of the places is coming together nicely now. I think I’m managing to give it a lot of life. I even spent half an hour searching online for a picture of a similar place and finally found a black and white photograph from the 1920s that had exactly the kind of feel I needed to imagine it properly. Then, later on up until now I spent another few hours just researching. I was listening to music, writing down titles and names, short excerpts of lyrics, that resonated with something I had in mind. Probably the part I like the most about this project: The writing it is fun, but the research is even more fun! Tomorrow I will attempt to start writing in the morning and then I hope I can get some more out, maybe I manage to finish the scene I started today as well.
One inch at a time
Something strange happened today. I turned my routine upside down. Instead of working dutifully in the morning and procrastinating mostly in the afternoon I did it the other way round today. I was writing messages to friends, checking the stats of my blog, reading facebook, tweeting, writing another message, listening to music and then finally I sat down and started to write. Actually I sat down with a coffee and then finally it started to flow a bit, maybe there is a connection there.
Today the writing went slowly though in general. I’m still working on the procrastination project, and since that’s the one I can’t leave alone at the moment, it’s probably a sign that it’s the project with the bigger potential. Right in the first paragraph there was this little detail that I needed to research, which quickly amounted to a major web search, but then finally I found what I needed. Even after that it didn’t quite want to come together until finally something popped, it all started making sense and the sarcasm was just flowing out of me (that’s a good thing in this case). In the end I even started chuckling about one of the sarcastic remarks, which almost never happens to me, and then I was quite happy with what I wrote today. It was such a struggle to really get into it though.
I’m also not quite hitting my preferred 2000 words a day mark lately, but that’s hard anyway if you’re still working on the story, the characters and the places at the same time. It’s more like 1000 at the moment, which is decent enough I guess and I believe that it will pick up as soon as I’m more sure about the details of the scenes. I already have a couple of new ones in mind, but they are mostly the challenging ones. Oh well, I’ll get there eventually.
It’s all about the voice
Do you know these days, when nothing is really wrong, but every little disappointment builds up to ruining your day? Well, that’s what happened to me today. If I would make a list of the things that annoyed me today, it would all sound very silly, and still I’m feeling sort of betrayed by a day that started out quite well actually. Already early in the day I managed to write quite a bit and then had a great conversation with a friend. Then I wrote some more and managed to find some music that was just the thing I needed to get on with my writing. Things still went wrong from there and I can’t even really pinpoint what it all was about. And with that, enough is said and probably tomorrow it all seems lighter and less depressing.
And on a happier note I wrote a scene for my procrastination project today that just flowed out naturally. It’s building the character of the protagonist and has some nice details, which show that I’m full of really weird sarcasm. I’m enjoying the writing process of this, because it feels like I don’t have to struggle to maintain a coherent voice. Due to the nature of the topic, which I can’t really say anything about yet, this whole project would lend itself perfectly to copying the style of someone who I personally admire. I would really have an obvious reason for doing this, but instead all that comes out is a different voice, maybe my own with a few more edges to it. It is really the first time that the voice comes naturally to me, because the voice that comes out is exactly what this story needs. Later on, about halfway through maybe, I will probably have to adapt the voice a little more towards the style of the mentioned person, but this I will have to do carefully after much more research and it will be much harder than what I’m writing right now. Difficult to say whether I’m on the right track or not, but the more I think about the idea, the more I’m convinced that it will be great once it’s finished. And the best thing is that the research for it is right up my ally, I don’t have to struggle at all or go very far from what I know anyway. I can just continue spending my time doing what I want. This is also why in the afternoon I stopped writing and started listening to music, since that is very much connected to the project.
If I hadn’t been writing and making progress today, it would have been a rather annoying day, but this way I have at least something positive to say.
The right environment for writing
Not even a single word did I write for any of my projects today, but honestly that’s totally alright. Instead I’ve done some research on one of the topics, thought about what really matters for writing great literature and I now actually have a desk and even more important: a very comfortable desk chair too. This is really a step in the right direction, because the right place and position to write can change your entire mind set. For me having a desk isn’t enough. I need a really good chair or I won’t even go near the desk.
I personally also don’t like offices. I rather work from home where I can put the music on, make good coffee and eat whenever I feel like it. I can also take breaks as often as I want in the way I want, which really helps productivity. If you force me to go and sit in an office I will work 1 out of 8 hours effectively, while at home it will be more like 5 or 6. Strange that employers are not more flexible about this.
Still, there has to be a bit of separation between the place where you work and where you sleep or else you will end up insomniac, like I’ve been for so many years. For the first time in my life I now have a desk that is not in the same room as my bed. A huge step forward on the sleeping front, I think, but also on the working front, if the chair turns out to be as comfortable in the long run as it is when sitting in it for a few minutes. I will see tomorrow how it holds up.
oh god, my mum will think I’m a pervert
Last night I just couldn’t sleep. I was wide awake until 7 in the morning and even then I only slept a few hours. During my first years at uni I always ended up writing emails to my boss at 3 am, because I couldn’t sleep. So, in the spirit of the old days I got up and decided to work a little bit in the kitchen. In the end I wrote a whole long scene that kept me occupied for hours. I was quite surprised about the outcome and like it quite a lot now. I’m not exactly sure whether I would want my mum to read it though. In any case, that’s a whole other story altogether. I wonder how many writers thought “oh god, my mum will think I’m a pervert” over the years.
Oh, and did I mention that I’m still not back on my original project? The procrastination project is keeping me all tied up. In the morning I wrote the end of the entire story. Although I’m not sure whether it is generally such a good idea to write the end so early on, I have such a clear idea about this particular story that I can risk it without hesitation. And I have to say that I envy the protagonist for his last sentence. I think that’s always a good way to finish a story. Now I just have to fill in the gaps in between the beginning and the end. In general it’s coming along nicely. I will post the current state of the progress meter in my posts from now so that I have a record later on of how the writing process progressed. Oh, I have big plans for this one.
That’s it folks, I’m eloping
Nah, of course not! I said I’d stick with the project, and I will. However, it might actually take a little more time than anticipated. As I have already mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I had a great new idea while I was pondering my writing process. In fact, the idea didn’t want to get out of my head ever since. I’ve been in the process of developing the protagonist further. He now has a physical appearance, a character, life choices, and a serious attitude problem, which makes him not only interesting, but also the dangerous type I tend to stay away from in real life. I even wrote the first couple of scenes. It was a lot of fun because I could reminisce about my golden days, which is strongly connected to the story, the music, the films, all of that. I ended up with one really good scene that I probably don’t even have to polish much, since I completely like it already.
I just can’t help developing the idea further and I think I will actually keep it as my procrastination project. I even added a writing progress meter for that one too. By the way, procrastination is how I got through university: I procrastinated with the next project that I had to hand in. Why is it, that even when we do exactly what we want to do, we still procrastinate? Well, at least now I’m channeling that procrastination energy into something with great potential.
character development in the subway
Did you ever notice that there much more crazy people in big cities? Well, yesterday I was on the subway here in Berlin and was suddenly surrounded by all sorts of strange characters. It was about 8pm on a Friday night and I was on my way home from buying a new desk. So we had:
- the junkie
- the dog
- the dog hater
- the dog owners
- the dog lover
- the homeless man
- the bottle collector
- the asshole
- the friend of the asshole
Now, let me just paint the picture for you:
1. the junkie
He looked almost young, but he had extremely weird bags under his eyes that were as pale as the rest of his skin. He had unwashed thin brown hair that almost reached his shoulders. He was wearing mascara combined with army boots, black jeans, a brown leather jacket of indefinite age, mismatching ski gloves – one brown one black – , a weird black women’s hat with a grey hatband behind which he had stuffed a tea spoon. He had also over-sized yellow children’s sunglasses lying on the rim of the hat that suggest his origin in the punk scene. Apart from that he sported the most bored look imaginable that would still dart from one person to the next.
2. the dog
An old female German shepherd’s dog with brown fur, slightly hanging ears and rather melancholic eyes. Several times she tried to escape out of the grip of the male dog owner.
3. the dog hater
Arab with a white beard who was sitting down. As soon as he saw the dog standing next to him he reacted as if he was offended, stood up and left.
4. the dog owners
A man and a woman. He sported indefinite male looks with indefinite clothes, rather indiscriminate. He was standing and kept the dog locked between his legs. The woman was blond with chin long hair, a Scandinavian face, boots and a good coat. Both youngish, probably early 30s. She sometimes started talking to the dog and made noises to get her attention.
5. the dog lover
Indefinite male character, starts asking questions about the dog, for example whether he is afraid. The owner now starts making sure that the stranger knows that the dog is female. A quick superficial comment of the dog lover says that it looks as if the dog was afraid, since the male dog owner has to keep her between his legs.
6. the homeless man
He is far to the left, so I neither see his face nor his clothes. He sports a slurring voice that suggests how unhealthy it must be to live out there in the street while it’s as cold as it is now. He desperately tries to sell his homeless magazine for the price of “only 1.50€” and “maybe you can also spare a few cents so that I can wash my clothes”. When the homeless man gets onto the subway the other passengers scurry away as if they were dealing with a leper. I can hear their thoughts “Oh god, I hope he doesn’t touch me.”
7. the bottle collector
The reaction of the passengers to him is similar to that towards the homeless man. They scurry in all directions when he sits down, the female dog owner gets up and the bottle collector takes her place. He has a little shopping cart, like the ones old ladies use, and a plastic bag from a cheap supermarket is tied to its handle. It gets dislodged several times and falls to the side, which he is trying to prevent while mumbling to himself. When he got the bag under control he puts his hand deep into the shopping cart as if he was artificially inseminating a cow and produces a bottle of beer. It is obvious by now that he’s staggeringly drunk. He gets the bottle opener out of a front pocket of the shopping cart fiddling a long time to find the pocket, finding the bottle opener in the pocket and struggling not to let it slip out of his hand. After he has opened the bottle the opener disappears more quickly back to its original place. The unshaven face of the bottle collector scrounges up as if he’s eating a lemon when he is drinking from the bottle. Apparently he doesn’t like beer. A shame really, since that’s all he can afford.
8. the asshole
He is wrapped in stylish attire, or what he thinks that entails. Padded running shoes that honestly look silly, but which are probably incredibly expensive, jeans of a tight, but not too tight fit, with the tag of one of the expensive brands, a jacket that is hardly enough for the weather but looks expensive. His face is red, as if he’s too warm or on weird drugs. He’s young, but older than his friend, maybe 25. Short spiky hair cut with about a ton of hair gel in it, eyebrow piercing. He probably has a distasteful tattoo somewhere under his clothes too. Every couple of minutes he speaks on his smartphone which is for some reason pink. First I think that he might be gay since he’s paying too much attention to his clothes, but then he doesn’t quite have the right style and shouts too loudly while he’s speaking on the phone. After his first phone conversation he says to his friend. “That was my half girlfriend. You met my proper one, but you gotta meet her too, she’s gorgeous. A little stupid though.” Yeah, you gotta be talking, idiot! Later on the way out he shouts at random strangers that he finally has arrived. Definitely drugs, but no idea what kind.
9. the friend of the asshole
He sports the gangster style, baggie clothes, instead of a coat he wears one of those sports jumpers into which two guys of his stature would fit. He has a baseball cap sideways on his head. About 18, seems almost shy, but he might be played down by his cocky friend. His comments are short and I can’t hear them from where I am sitting. When they leave the train he trots behind the other guy like a silent shadow.
Obviously the junkie, the bottle collector and the asshole left more traces in my memory, but this doesn’t mean that they are good characters for main protagonists. They are too far removed and it’s hard to feel empathy for them without further characterization. I feel compelled by the male dog owner who remained somewhat indefinite, since he didn’t speak and had nothing special about him. Also the friend of the asshole seems worth exploring. How and why does he cope with that cocky bastard? However, these passing characterizations might actually be enough to make a subway ride more vivid, maybe that’s enough already.
So, now I know it: Next time I need some character meat I just get on the subway for a while and watch people.
the problem of having a limited attention span
I thought I had at least a few more days of free flow before me. I hoped to get lots of words out every day and already now, about 6 days into the writing process, there is my usual problem again: my limited attention span! Seriously, I think I have the attention span of a 5 year old. As soon as something new and shiny comes along, I forget everything around me.
There I was this morning thinking hard about my writing process. Do I start from the characters and build a story around them or do I start from the story and build a character that fits? And as I was thinking, I thought of certain characters I like, what I like about them and how they would get to an exciting story even if they had an utterly boring life normally. One character popped right into my head, the typical loner without any friends, with an unfulfilling job and a mortgage for a shabby little place. It’s hard to find a good story for him, since he’s not interesting as such. He’s the guy you meet in Scandinavian crime novels, the guy you don’t want to date, and the only thing that makes him get any action at all in those kind of novels is of course that he is the bored inspector and has a huge … uhm … gun. Now, if he didn’t have that job, what would make him interesting?
And bam, there I had a great idea that had it all, the event that sets it all in motion, the right girl, a cool story with bite and swearing, a nice first sentence, hell, even a nice last sentence. All in all the basic outline was already in my head as soon as I had the tip off event. I could even already picture the actor who would play my hero in the film and in my imagination he would be so smitten with my story that he’d go ahead and produce it right away. Yes, we writing folk need imagination, but when we manage to kick it into action, it normally runs right off with us into the wild stuff with the cowboys and the horses, maybe even into outer space. We never picture the moderate success or a former professor who writes us a card saying “A good first attempt, I’m looking forward to the next one”.
Now, what do I do? In the past I probably would have plunged right into the new idea. I would have written a few thousand words until I would have encountered the first problem and then I probably would have abandoned it as quickly as the idea hit me in the first place. However, if I’d just start writing like this, it would also mean abandoning this project here. Only the second post on the blog dedicated to this project and I run off with the next idea? Well, that would be kinda quick, right? No, of course not! Now that I’ve gone through the trouble to set up this blog it can’t just be abandoned like that. My question is rather: Do I put the new idea on ice and wait until the rose coloured clouds around my head lift a bit? Or do I just start writing on the new idea as well as a form of “healthy procrastination”?
And of course with all this excitement about The New Idea [TM] and a more than serious attempt to buy a desk in IKEA – it’s white with drawers and will be delivered on Monday – I have not even written a single word today. Impending doom? Sure, what else is new …! Well, at least I can say that I bought writing equipment …
bearable is barely enough 