I've heard a lot of writers, both published and un-, talk about all the ways they can become distracted from writing. Some distractions are unavoidable, such as children needing attention (if I was a kid who had a parent-writer at home, I'm sure I'd want attention, too, since the parent is right there), while others are sought out as a method of procrastination (reading blogs, perhaps?). I don't have children, but I have a husband who sometimes needs to know where something is (a fairly common occurance among husbands, I understand), and cats that waver between being completely independent (aloof? a cat??) and needing to be petted NOW, even if that means head-butting my hand while I'm trying to use the computer mouse or lying down on the desk between my hands and the keyboard. Shutting the office door doesn't do much, because then I get curious paws poking underneath (the cats', not the husband's), which serves as its own distraction. I read other writer's blogs, I check email, and now I have the greater distraction of Facebook (though I am trying to limit my daily dose of that).
Sometimes I have to look things up on the Internet for my story, but then I remember something else I want to look up, and the next thing I know I'm surfing way too much. However, I discovered something today: certain things can only distract you if you let them.
I was revising a chapter from the critique group comments I'd gotten, which was easier to deal with than I'd been afraid it would be (maybe the idea of revision in small pieces is generally better for me than being freaked out that I HAVE TO REVISE MY ENTIRE BOOK). While I was doing that, our 16-pound cat decided he needed some love, planting himself firmly on the desk and rolling a bit onto the keyboard (he can't help it--he's large). I swiftly transferred him to my lap, where he purred contentedly (and I ended up with a better-than-a-blanket lap warmer). I'd forgotten to close my email (I try not to keep it open while I'm working), so I heard the telltale "ding-dong" as I was typing, and somehow managed to resist the urge to click over and read it. I didn't feel like going on Facebook until I was done with the revision, because I didn't think that responding to a Mardi Gras "poke" would be as fulfilling as getting my chapter done. And I was right.
So, today's productivity--rounding out some things in my most recently-completed chapter that needed to be tweaked before I started the next chapter, for a total of one page. Extremely productive? No. But extremely unproductive? No. And that's the important thing. If I want to be working on my book, then I guess not much can distract me if I don't want it to, and I realized that I'd been pretty stuck lately, hence welcoming the distractions. I have a full day tomorrow with a tour at the Museum of Tolerance, but I'm already anxious to get back to my book as soon as I get home. Usually I'm too distracted after a tour (adrenaline after a good tour, frustration after a bad one) to even think about sitting down and writing, but I already want to tomorrow. And that's a nice change.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Feeling (Kinda) Groovy
I can be superstitious sometimes. Not with black cats, or walking under ladders (that just seems like a safety issue, anyway), but when it's Friday the 13th, I almost expect to have a bad day. Or maybe I'm just not surprised if I do. Today, however, was actually pretty good. I met my sister-in-law and her husband for lunch at a local hamburger institution that they'd never been to before, and it's always fun to introduce people to a place you love and have them enjoy it as well (and good food doesn't hurt, either). I knew it was supposed to rain today, so when I emerged from lunch and it had begun, I was prepared with my umbrella. When it really started to pour, I was already at home. There was lots of wildlife activity in the yard today (always seems to happen when it rains), and both the kitties and I were getting much enjoyment watching the scramble at the feeders through the window. I wrote a page before I left for lunch, and despaired that I wouldn't be able to finish the chapter by this afternoon, which wouldn't leave much for my critique group to read on Monday. Until now, I'd been giving them two chapters at a time, so having less than one full chapter was leaving me feeling under-accomplished. Until...
I got back from lunch, plopped myself down in front of the computer (having to move a very heavy and attention-needing cat off to the side of the desk), and started to type. Still without an outline, I was in slightly different territory from my previous draft (and not really able to use much at this point in the story from that previous draft), so in a way I was writing fresh. But not completely, and therein was the problem. Because I've been working on this novel on and off for a few years now, I'd write something that made me question whether it maintained proper continuity from something else, and then I'd try to remember if I was comparing it to something that happened earlier in the story, or simply in a previous draft. I was enjoying the actual writing! Then, the next thing I knew, I'd added in a section I hadn't planned on writing at all, and instead of dragging myself to the end of the chapter to get it done, I wrote two more pages than I'd been hoping for, and it didn't feel like I'd quickly wrapped up the chapter just to finish. Today's productivity--all new writing (which, I know, is part of the revision process), for a total of 5 pages.
And the best part is, it didn't suck! (Which for me, when I'm hurrying to try to meet a deadline--self-imposed or otherwise--is a big deal.) If I could get that total every day (or at least average that for the week), I'd be a happy camper right now, and hopefully put me at my goal of being done with this draft by mid-spring.
Not bad for a rainy Friday the 13th!
I got back from lunch, plopped myself down in front of the computer (having to move a very heavy and attention-needing cat off to the side of the desk), and started to type. Still without an outline, I was in slightly different territory from my previous draft (and not really able to use much at this point in the story from that previous draft), so in a way I was writing fresh. But not completely, and therein was the problem. Because I've been working on this novel on and off for a few years now, I'd write something that made me question whether it maintained proper continuity from something else, and then I'd try to remember if I was comparing it to something that happened earlier in the story, or simply in a previous draft. I was enjoying the actual writing! Then, the next thing I knew, I'd added in a section I hadn't planned on writing at all, and instead of dragging myself to the end of the chapter to get it done, I wrote two more pages than I'd been hoping for, and it didn't feel like I'd quickly wrapped up the chapter just to finish. Today's productivity--all new writing (which, I know, is part of the revision process), for a total of 5 pages.
And the best part is, it didn't suck! (Which for me, when I'm hurrying to try to meet a deadline--self-imposed or otherwise--is a big deal.) If I could get that total every day (or at least average that for the week), I'd be a happy camper right now, and hopefully put me at my goal of being done with this draft by mid-spring.
Not bad for a rainy Friday the 13th!
Monday, February 9, 2009
Feeling Overwhelmed...
To jump right into things, I wrote 2 1/2 pages today (so far). Am I feeling glad or even satisfied? Nope. I'm feeling, perhaps overexpectantly, that I should have 5, 10, even 15 pages a day. After all, this is what I'm supposed to be doing every day in lieu of a job at the moment. And it's not like I'm writing from scratch, I'm revising, right? Well, sort of.
The last 2 chapters I brought to my critique group were well-received, even though I felt like I rushed to finish the last few pages. I felt like I ended a chapter on a kind of cliffhanger, but more just to end it, rather than knowing where I was going with it. I had a month until my next critique meeting, so I figured I'd take care of it. One week went by, then two. Now, suddenly, I'm supposed to send my work via email sometime this week and meet next week. And I feel like I've got nothing real to read right now. I kept telling myself I needed a new outline, and then I'd know where I was going, and then I'd have fun on the ride, like the first time I wrote a draft of this story. Well, as of this morning, I still had no outline. I tried, surely, but staring at a blank screen that said "OUTLINE" at the top completely intimidated me, so I saved the document without actually entering anything else on the page. I decided I'd just write, NaNoWriMo style, and see what came out, figuring once I got going, my fingers would just fly across the keyboard and I'd have a great output, even if it wasn't great writing.
Not quite.
I guess a large part of the problem is that I feel like I should be beyond that stage, now, that I'm not supposed to be working on the "butt in chair" draft, where I just get something down on paper to get started. Right now I'm supposed to be working on the revision of that, where I hone and fine-tune and re-work what I already wrote. Well, there's a reason I haven't worked on this novel in a few years, and it's mainly that I knew it needed revision, but I didn't know what revision. And there are some things about my book that I've changed so drastically recently, I might as well be starting from scratch with some plotlines.
Some of this is impatience (I've heard that many authors-in-progress experience this); I'm tired of working on this and want to move on to the next step (for me, submission, either to an agency or publisher), and some of it is my feeling badly that it's taken me so long to put out what I feel is so little. Sure, there are authors that work on a book for 10 years, but those are sometimes 800-page historical novels, not under-200 page Young Adult books. I think I need to let go of the guilt and concentrate on the work, and enjoy the writing itself. After all, enjoying the writing is why I wanted to be doing this in the first place...
The last 2 chapters I brought to my critique group were well-received, even though I felt like I rushed to finish the last few pages. I felt like I ended a chapter on a kind of cliffhanger, but more just to end it, rather than knowing where I was going with it. I had a month until my next critique meeting, so I figured I'd take care of it. One week went by, then two. Now, suddenly, I'm supposed to send my work via email sometime this week and meet next week. And I feel like I've got nothing real to read right now. I kept telling myself I needed a new outline, and then I'd know where I was going, and then I'd have fun on the ride, like the first time I wrote a draft of this story. Well, as of this morning, I still had no outline. I tried, surely, but staring at a blank screen that said "OUTLINE" at the top completely intimidated me, so I saved the document without actually entering anything else on the page. I decided I'd just write, NaNoWriMo style, and see what came out, figuring once I got going, my fingers would just fly across the keyboard and I'd have a great output, even if it wasn't great writing.
Not quite.
I guess a large part of the problem is that I feel like I should be beyond that stage, now, that I'm not supposed to be working on the "butt in chair" draft, where I just get something down on paper to get started. Right now I'm supposed to be working on the revision of that, where I hone and fine-tune and re-work what I already wrote. Well, there's a reason I haven't worked on this novel in a few years, and it's mainly that I knew it needed revision, but I didn't know what revision. And there are some things about my book that I've changed so drastically recently, I might as well be starting from scratch with some plotlines.
Some of this is impatience (I've heard that many authors-in-progress experience this); I'm tired of working on this and want to move on to the next step (for me, submission, either to an agency or publisher), and some of it is my feeling badly that it's taken me so long to put out what I feel is so little. Sure, there are authors that work on a book for 10 years, but those are sometimes 800-page historical novels, not under-200 page Young Adult books. I think I need to let go of the guilt and concentrate on the work, and enjoy the writing itself. After all, enjoying the writing is why I wanted to be doing this in the first place...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
