Inspiration #2

29 Jan 2012 3 Comments

by PartlyPixie in Inspiration, January Tags: ,

I did this last Sunday, too, and I think I’ll make it a permanent feature.

Don’t worry about talent or capability: that will grow as you practice… So just practice writing, and when you learn to trust your voice, direct it. If you want to write a novel, write a novel. If it’s essays you want or short stories, write them. In the process of writing them, you will learn how. You can have the confidence that you will gradually acquire the technique and craft you need.

-Natalie Goldberg from Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Shambhala Library)

See? Stop worrying and just write.

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In Which the Writer has Wine

29 Jan 2012 7 Comments

by PartlyPixie in January Tags: , , ,

I’ve been trying to write a post today – all day, and with extremely limited success (try none), as is evidenced  by it being, well, tomorrow.

I woke up this morning with a mind like the tuffet-like pad left behind when all the dandelion fluff is blown away. Empty, vacant, bereft of my velvety cloud of purpose.

I finished the novel, and it emptied me. For now.

I’m thinking of this like a life bar in a video game. I have gone and fought a boss fight, and I just need to find the magical fruit or a life pack or to wait around and it’ll fill up again, preparing me to fight another day. Luckily, when the hero levels up on video games, they get larger life bars. Of course, so do the bosses left to fight…

But let’s not dwell on these things.

I have a full three days to let my brain become active again. Three days of rest and laundry and wanton television binges and cleaning the house (ok, let’s not get carried away), and writing more for the blog. Three days to reset the stage for the next adventure.

It’s very tempting to try and plan what comes next. I’ve heard of a mystical beast called an “outline” that can be found in the jungles of more organized writers’ computers. Maybe one day I’ll try it, but it gives me little hope since I have absolutely no control over the characters or the plot once I give in to what I’m writing. Outlines aside, I think maybe I ought to plan what genre to write in next, or what era to set it in. It’s probably a good thing my mind is so empty, or else I’d waste time on such things; I never know what I’m doing until I’m in the middle of writing it.

It’s also tempting to turn around and try to edit the last novel already.

Yeah, right. Great idea. Not.

What’s happening is that I’m not accustomed to this sudden space – I want to fill it with whatever comes next. Every day since the new year began, even the ones when I took the day away from writing, have been consumed with the novel, with the next scene or the needed word count. Each day I’d know there was work to be done, and most days I managed to do it. Today was Saturday, the first one since this project started that hasn’t been spent churning out over 5,000 words while consuming caffeine in quantities fit for elephants.

I want to keep going, but I don’t have it in me. For now. One boss fight at a time.

It’s been so strange. To think, only one month ago I didn’t think anything of letting a Saturday drift by, now I feel propelled forward even when I’m fatigued beyond the point of intelligible speech.

I want to keep going.

I also want to sleep. For maybe a year (I have tomorrow anyway), or at least until I can find a health potion conveniently dropped back along the trail where I killed a zombie-alien thing with a crowbar.

They drop health potions sometimes, right?

Until I find that, I’ll settle for wine.

One Down, Eleven to Go

28 Jan 2012 6 Comments

by PartlyPixie in January Tags: , ,

Day 27: 50,646 of 50,000

I’m going to go get some sleep now.

Date Night

25 Jan 2012 2 Comments

by PartlyPixie in Uncategorized

Day 25: 45,229 of 50,000 words

I know a lot of people idealize the practice of writing every day, but sometimes (often) that’s simply not optimal.

Like when you get to see your boyfriend for the first night in two weeks because you’ve been so busy writing a novel.

I’m going to go watch a movie and think nothing else of this blog or the novel for the rest of the night.

Now stop reading and go spend time with someone you love.

On Mud Pits and Fatigue

22 Jan 2012 1 Comment

by PartlyPixie in January Tags: , ,

Hey can I tell you guys something?

I’m tired. Really, really tired.

But in a good way.

Last year I ran the Dirty Dash with some people from work, and it was hard. Much harder than I’d trained for, and much harder than I expected. But it was also the kind of hard that didn’t leave any room for contemplating how hard it was; I just kept going. Mud pit with pipes to climb over? Cool. Rope swing? Sure. Hay bales? Awesome. Running a quarter of a mile through a freezing lake? Don’t mind if I do. After the initial shock of sliding into mud that splashed like a frozen mud slurpee over my head at the first obstacle, the rest of the 10k was very zen and very fun. It wasn’t until the end, right as I got to the double-pit of goopey mud you have to run through to get to the finish line that I turned to my family, supportively snapping photos (and throwing water balloons) a safe distance from splashing mud, and said “This is really hard.”

I’m feeling that same dialtone-head feeling now that I did then. I’m writing. There are obstacles and mud and work and things to do. I do them. I keep writing.

No one said this would be easy, least of all me.

In fact, I’m almost relieved that I’m feeling fatigue, that it isn’t all easy and practical. If that were the case, I’d worry that I was phoning it in – saving energy for the next eleven (oh god eleven) novels yet to come. I’m giving this one all I’ve got to give it – I’m working hard on the plot, on the characters, on creating scenes that will lead to a successful ending. It might actually suck despite the effort in the long run, but the effort is still there.

I ran past one obstacle in the dirty dash – a tall rope wall to climb over. It was after the afore-mentioned lake run and I was fatigued.

That is the only thing that haunts me, that I didn’t try to get over it. The rest of the run I feel awesome about, because I did it.

I let that missed obstacle teach me something – I don’t skip the hard stuff if I see it coming. Even if I’m tired. Hell, I probably could have gone up and down that wall easily if I’d taken a moment to sit and rest first, but I wanted to plug on and finish because it was hard.

This blog is, funny enough, the hardest thing for me right now. It’s a totally new skill, and the learning curve is daunting. Often I get to it after a 10k of writing fiction. It’s tempting to skip it and move on, but I’m learning to rest and climb over it anyway.

Very tiring. Very fun.

Like running up a hill of mud wearing old worn converse sneakers that slide and slip and it makes me laugh.

Today, my brain is totally empty. To think of all those years of Buddhist meditation, what it’s taken for me to find an empty mind is to write so much my ego is all used up. My body is sore from working out as well, and I’m beginning to think of it as the same kind of fatigue, the tired stiffness of spent energy in pursuit of greater strength.

Because when you work yourself, you get tired. Then you get stronger.

Keep writing, my friends. Get stronger. Give it everything you have until you’re empty and tired beyond reason.

Because you’ll come back stronger and hungry to do it again.

I’ll be running the Dirty Dash again this spring.

Inspiration #1

22 Jan 2012 1 Comment

by PartlyPixie in Inspiration, January Tags: , , , ,

Day 21: 40,035 of 50,000

Instead of disturbing you with the fatigued working of my brain, a moment of inspiration for this winter night.

Let go of everything when you write, and try at a simple beginning with simple words to express what you have inside. It won’t begin smoothly. Allow yourself to be awkward. You are stripping yourself. You are exposing your life, not how your ego would like to see you represented, but as you are as a human being. And it is because of this that I believe writing is religious. It splits you open and softens your heart to the homely world.

-Natalie Goldberg from Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Shambhala Library)

In Which the Writer is Too Tired to Make Sense

18 Jan 2012 3 Comments

by PartlyPixie in January Tags: , , , ,

Day Eighteen: 33,024 of 50,000

I’ve fallen behind on my word count; I would prefer at least a solid 36,0o0, but life is life and it gets underfoot like a hungry cat.

Sometimes, a girl just needs her space. From the people who live in her head.

I needed to get away from the words for a minute and deal with some life pressure, get laundry done, pet my cat, return a few emails, and somehow fall incredibly behind on sleep.

I also needed to step far away from the story and let it mature, let it speak and whisper to me and to itself as I took a rest from creating it. It’s been a cranky teenager, and I’ve been the over-controlling parent.

Funny thing is, when my story finally sorted itself into a clear (well, clearish) line for me to follow, it looked a lot like the story I was getting ready to tell from the beginning. Only better. Much. Better.

Ok, confession time: I threatened my novel. I looked it in the eye and said “Look you little punk, there are eleven more stories coming after you, and I can just throw you in the fireplace if you don’t work out. Shape up or get ready for the incinerator.”

Maybe it was the sleep deprivation talking. I don’t know.

All I do know is that the novel has decided to play nice again, and there are some changes to make. This means I had some backtracking and re-writing of a few key scenes to do. I generally avoid scene re-writes in the first draft, but it had to be done for me to move forward.

Now, it’s grown so rich and detailed I’m worried that this story can’t be completed within 50,000 words this month. If there is a worry to have, this is the best of them.

I have also found a favorite line:

“I don’t know why I hit him. It made sense to my fist, and when I’m in certain moods I don’t argue with my fist.” 

Yeah, I like it.

That is all for now. We’ll be back to a more slept kind of blogging within a few days.

And until then, here is a beautifully lucid thought.

Goodnight.

Unoriginal ranting and mid-month blues

15 Jan 2012 2 Comments

by PartlyPixie in January, Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

Day Fifteen: 28,227 of 50,000

We’re at that middle bit.

If you’re the kind of person who only gets halfway through writing books before stopping, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

It’s the dreaded half-way point. The part where the beginning and all the groundwork is done, the real essence of the story is trying to reveal itself, and the story has what I can only describe as a midlife crises. My characters do a dutiful job of working within the confines of their archetype for the first while (sometimes they decide they’re vampire hunters, but we still learn to get along), the real story I’m writing starts to become more apparent and the old plot line gets left behind, the scaffolding staying in the rough draft like remnants of some old mining town where the mine never produced ore. For a few days I get this feeling that the story is really hitting it’s stride, that there is a story here after all and I haven’t been kidding myself that I can come up with material enough to get through the month.

Then, we get to that middle bit.

Suddenly, my characters become overly emotional. They question whether or not their lives have been what we’ve agreed they are, they want to run off and date hot young blondes and drive them around in red convertibles even though it’s winter and I live in Utah where convertibles are practical maybe two months out of the year anyhow.

They still want to drive a convertible. With a new friend – anyone but the people I’ve stuck them in this story with. They all hate each other, or they get along too well and I as the dutiful author must chase them up trees and throw rocks at them. The calm cool, writer in me who has Perspective and thinks that this is a sign there is a good amount of conflict and realistic characters, so I’m doing a good job and to keep the pressure on. Who, when life is difficult, hasn’t wanted to throw it all away and be someone else?

The me who knows I still have half a book (at least) to write throws a bit of a mid-novel crisis herself. I get pissy with anyone near me, I throw little tantrums in my head, and I tell myself I have no good ideas. I want to just make the conflict happen. I want to know where this story is going. I want my characters to BEHAVE, dammit.

Oh good. Another angst-riddled writer raging against the machine. How original – just what this world needs.

It reminds me of this brilliant bit of inspiration – something I read often to keep me going. I mean, if Neil Gaiman feels like this sometimes, I must be doing it right. In fact, you might as well go read what he has to say, because it’s exactly what I’ve just been complaining about, and he’s a much more accomplished writer than I.

You know when you have a perfect idea and sit down and write it perfectly? Yeah, me either.

10 Jan 2012 2 Comments

by PartlyPixie in January Tags: , , , ,

Day Ten: 19,041 of 50,000 words

When I catch myself researching how to write something,  I know I’m in trouble.

I just caught myself researching how to blog.

Damn.

The last few nights, between catching up on the blog and writing fiction, it’s the fiction that’s won. And for the last few nights, I’ve been able to justify that. I mean, writing is the point of the blog too, right?

No, I’m just stalling. Because I still really suck at this blog thing.

You should see the stack of writing books I have at home; it’s maybe half of how many I’ve borrowed or read in the bookstore or lent out and never got back, but it’s still too many. I spent the last decade plus researching how to write, what to write, what it’s like to write. I “know” so much about the writing process, and I know next nothing, because with the exception of NaNoWriMo each year, I’ve been just a practiced writer. (Part of why I’m doing these 12 novels.)

What drives me the craziest is how brilliant I am when I’m not near anything to write with. I compose the most informative blog posts, the wittiest dialogue, the most active battles when I’m washing dishes at my work at the end of the day or making coffee to sip while I write. Then I get to the keyboard and try to type it out just how I heard it in my head…

And it comes out all wrong. The idea has gone away or the words don’t come out right. I sit in a stupor and wonder why this always happens to me – I may be the world’s greatest writer as long as no one has a chance to read it.

I know you know the feeling.

It’s so much nicer to sit on the edge of the writing pool and dangle my feet in the wordy water. I can research how to write a blog, and just assume I can do it, and never have to face the reality of actually writing one. It’s so much more fun to live a life in theory – the theoretical writer never gets rejected, or when they do they rejoice and just keep writing. The theoretical writer knows what to do with that shitty first draft, which project to prioritize, how to juggle life obligations (laundry, anyone?) with the words on the page, and still have the energy to work out and have a fantastic sex life.

And of course, the theoretical writer is always as brilliant away from the writing apparatus as they are near it.

The real writer stumbles through all of it, because we’re human. We make mistakes, wear dirty socks (very rarely!), get rejected and totally lose it, we get lost in the midst of the first draft and have to write things over and over to get it right, we piss off our loved ones and have to make it up to them, we skip workouts and eat too much chocolate. The real writer is gorgeous, messy, slightly late, and learning-it-as-we-go. A real person.

And of course, the real-world writer never, ever, ever is as brilliant typing as we are when we’re washing the dishes. It’s just against the rules of the universe.

The longer we live as theoretical writers in our heads, the harder the transition is when we turn into real writers. There’s a mourning process there, to realize that it’s better to have a crappy manuscript than a dream of a good one. It’s hard to watch the waves of bad prose come out and to get snagged on plot points and which viewpoint to use. It’s hard, but also really really important and healing.

I will not, repeat not learn how to blog by reading yet another how to. I will learn to blog by blogging poorly.

Eventually, I can hope to be half as good as I am when I’m doing the dishes.

Small post for a Saturday night

07 Jan 2012 2 Comments

by PartlyPixie in Uncategorized Tags: ,

Day Seven: 15,422 of 50,000

Trust your intuition.

Part of what I love about writing fast is that the story has to take on a life of it’s own. I get a good character, one who has a tale to tell, and all my job becomes at that point is to sit down and let her (or him) guide me through it, tell me what comes next, where to go and who to talk to. And the story happens, almost by magic.

When I write this way, I learn to let go of the story I thought I was telling, and that’s a good thing. I think I control the writing, the story. I think I know what to do, where to go, who to talk to. And again I get to learn I’m wrong because the story stops talking until I trust it again.

My intuition always takes me better places than I can. And if I keep following it’s strange and twisted path it will give me a better ending than I could have ever imagined.

Today, my main character, the quiet bartender who is obsessed with words and has to conquer the mystery of why she can’t find anyone to love her?

She turned into a vampire hunter. An immortal vampire hunter.

Yeah.

I never saw that one coming.

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