Playing Catchup

So, I've neglected my poor little writing blog. *pats the writing blog*

I've been updating on LJ, FB, and Twitter, but man, I just realised I had been ignoring here. (Not that anyone reads HERE anyway, 'cept Laurie sometimes.)

I'd desperately wanted to build a consistent writing habit, and nothing was working. I couldn't even get a fresh start using NaNoWriMo, because I was mid-project, and secondly, the word count pressure wasn't working for me. I viewed the whole thing as a chore. I wasn't liking writing...and let me tell you, when you don't like the writing or the art, you are not just trying to push the Sisyphean boulder up the hill, you've lost your grip and the thing is going to flatten you. I was coming home from work, completely drained, and hating sitting at the computer. It sucked.

So NaNoWriMo (or FiNoWriMo - Finish Novel Writing Month) was a failure. FAIL!

I tried something new. I had a week off--mandatory--from work. So I called up my buddy, Lise, who lives in Tillamook, and we agreed to meet halfwayish between Tillamook and Seattle in the oceanside town of Long Beach and spend four days and three nights, post Xmas, writing. We got a "storm watchers" discount at The Breakers, and thus christened our mini-retreat StormWrite 09.

I was internet-deprived by choice, although once I did make Lise look up stuff online while we were taking a break from writing.

Results for me: Another chapter and a half in Snakes and Ladders, plus various notes and plot points worked out.

Results for Lise: Got many of her world notebooks typed up and some of the roughness excised from her early drafts.

Results for our characters: suffering, suffering, and more suffering.

Things I've noted: I need to write rougher drafts. More info in the drafts, less polish. As it is, I squat over my manuscript being mental constipated until I finally give birth to draft zero. It tends to be somewhat polished for a zero draft, which is not the point, because this is supposed to be the shit I use to fertilize the plot and make everything blossom later.

Writing funny is hard. It's FUN but frickin' hard. And I've got this masochistic turn, wherein I'm enjoying undermining expectations so much that I tend to do things like take ordinary situations and....skew them about ninety degrees sideways. As Megs notes, when she wants to save the world, she recycles....and I'm trying to extract an urban fantasy out of that. And make it funny. Oi.

I'm having fun writing San Francisco. My San Francisco will be recognisably San Francisco, although perhaps not the Hollywood version of San Francisco. So far there has been a notable lack of fog, trolley cars, sourdough, and Fisherman's Wharf. There are, however, the dogs in Duboce Park, the Muni, corner pubs, studio apartments, Chinatown, tourists, protesters, buskers, micro-climates, Bay to Breakers, self-righteous cyclists, grassroots politics, and the Underside version of PFLAG. There will be street kids and homeless people, cranky cops and activists, snoopy landladies, and the coworker from hell. There will be awesome restaurants.

Since leaving StormWrite, I have managed to write EVERY DAY since. I figured it was better to get a ramp up on the non-resolution, and start before the New Year. As of tonight, I have a two week solid streak of writing in Snakes and Ladders. I'm trying to make my minimum about 15 minutes, because some nights I just feel so tired, but there has to be Butt in Chair time. And unsurprisingly, some nights I've sat down, drained and desperate, only to have words magically tumble onto the page. Other nights I've only gotten about three largish paragraphs down. But the habit is being slowly cemented into place. I staked out my place at the dining room table. I have a CD I play that is the writing CD--no words because I can't write to lyrics. The CD is Ulrich Schnauss's Far Away Trains Passing By.I've got my notebooks, and John knows if I shut the office door and sit at the table, he isn't to bother me. When I am done writing, he lets me read to him. (Not ALWAYS right away, but usually within the hour.) Being able to read to somebody almost instantly is helping more than almost anything I have ever done, as far as getting that Butt in Chair.

(We are somewhere in Chapter 8. Yeah. Chapter 8. That means there's SEVEN CHAPTERS BEFORE THAT ONE.) 

Comments

[Laurie]

[this is good] That is awesome to hear your progress on Snakes and Ladders!  And your discipline to get something done every day.  I just took a writing break over December through New Years once I handed in a polish of WishFull Thinking to my agent, and I need to start doing my Butt in Chair time again. 

[PixelFish]

Laurie: Yes! The discipline is slowly building. I don't think I've been this good for two years. (And I've only been this good once before.) John's been very good about supporting me in the habit though and listens to me read the new stuff aloud nearly every day.