Tag Archives: novel

Slow Progress Is Still Progress…. It Just Feels Like It’s Not

Posted in Creativity, My Life in General, Writing, Writing Group by

After finishing the first draft of my novel in May 2012, I gave it a second dusting off then set it aside on Dec. 1, 2012.

My writing group friends, aware of my tendency toward being shy regarding my creativity, therefore gave me an assignment. My sister Angela said it kindly, but the essence of the assignment is this: Finish the freaking novel already and send. it. out.

I took the following picture to let her know that, yes, on January 1, 2013, I started my final edits on this project. See?

Editing one's book requires lots of time, coffee, and a sense of humor. #writing #writinggroup #doodles

The process is slow. I’m on page 49 out of 358 pages. It feels even slower when I think that this novel has taken me about three years to write. However, as Angela, Mark, and I remind ourselves: Don’t rush the process.

The three of us have day jobs, children, relationships, etc. that require ginormous amounts of our time. Angela writes at the crack of dawn, Mark works in bits and pieces of stolen time, I carve out a couple of hours in the late evening. Progress for all of us is slow… but the main focus is to make progress. That’s the unofficial motto for our writing group: Keep moving forward… even if you move at a snail’s pace.

As long as you’re not moving backwards, you’re doing well…

How to Endure the Waiting Game of Traditional Publishing

Posted in Writing by

“Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.” (Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton)

The most difficult part of the publishing process is the wait.

You have to wait for a reply to a query letter, to the first chapters sent, to the entire manuscript, etc. Worst of all, you may clear the major hurdles only to find that, at the end of the race, you will not be published for various reasons. And then, you must begin the querying process—again.

So, how is this writer handling the waiting game?

Stay creative. As I wait for news of my first novel, I’m not twiddling my thumbs or obsessively checking my email. (Well, not too much.) Instead, I am revising my second novel, writing poems sporadically, sketching a rough outline for a third novel, and meeting with my writing group to keep focused on all things literary.

Keep your writing career in perspective. Yes, I want to be a published novelist of several books, but it’s all the living—working full time, making meals, driving children to sports events, discussing finances, making plans with friends, playing games, walking by the beach, crying over difficult times, laughing at silly moments, praying together—that contribute to the inner life of this writer.

All those times are needed as fuel for the writer. Without the routine, without a life outside of writing, I’d have nothing to write about. Because stories are about the human experience first—even if you’re discussing aliens or snakes or wood carving or flute music. You need to spend time with real people to understand real people.

Remember the value of waiting. All my personal goals (at least the ones I care about most) require time: watching every Cary Grant movie, losing 50 pounds, and becoming a better artist. Even if I were to win the lottery or to discover liquid gold pouring out of my water faucet, I still would have to wait. You can’t quickly watch an actor’s entire oeuvre in one evening or drop weight that fast (not even with liposuction) or magically know how to draw a perfect circle. Good things take time.

Set milestones for your impatience. I’m serious about that. Recently, I sent part of my manuscript to a literary agent (at her request). Sure, now I want to check my email every minute, but I am keeping in mind that she has other inquiring writers badgering her, a roster of established authors to nurture, a family to enjoy, pets to pamper, etc. So, I’ve got to give the process time, give the agent time. I can be impatient in six weeks—not before that. To grow impatient before that is unreasonable.

Learn to discern the situation. I’m learning how to walk the line between patience and stagnation. When is the amount of time spent waiting just ridiculous? When do you need to pack up your stuff and settle somewhere else? Knowing when enough is enough is difficult—but don’t decide too early in the game.

***

If after all this waiting, I receive a rejection notice…. Then, it’s back to square one. The most important lesson is to just keep moving forward.

Why Do You Want to Be Published?

Posted in Writing, Writing Group by

Irene Dunne

At our most recent writing group meeting, Mark (our newest member) asked me, “Why do you want your novel to be published? Is it for fame? Validation? Money? Accomplishment?”

An interesting question.

Fame doesn’t interest me. I’d like my stories to be read, of course, but I don’t care about being in the spotlight for the sake of being in the spotlight. If I’d wanted to be famous, I could have chosen more spotlight-y behavior than becoming a person who scribbles all the time. Money is always nice to have—but I rely on my full-time job for a paycheck. My articles and blog posts are published at work, which validates my belief that I can write.

So, then, why does it rankle that my first publishable novel (not my first few amateurish works) has not been published yet? Why do I want the novel published? I have a few reasons.

Books are meant to be published. I see publication as being the normal outcome for a finished piece of writing. If you look at the life cycle of a written piece, the last stage is publication. A writer expects it to complete the cycle. Otherwise, it feels much like planting a seed, watering it, nurturing the soil, weeding its area… and never seeing it bloom.

Conversations should be two-way. If you write a book and do not publish it, you are talking to yourself. You’ve said something to the air. Your reader is the other half of the conversation, and she is needed. (Yes, books also are therapeutic and immensely help writers better understand the world… but at the end of the day, writers want their work read by others.)

You want people to get to know your make-believe friends. Just like I have real-life friends who I introduce to other friends, I’d like people to meet my make-believe friends. “Get to know Isabela. She’s icy at first, but you’ll grow to love her…” 

You want your voice to be heard by others. You know how in movies, a character will stand up amid the madding crowd and shout, “I have something to say! Can I say something?” And, if it’s a Capra movie, everyone will finally shut up, and the main character will break into a moving speech. That’s what getting a novel published would be like for me. It’s getting my voice heard, even if for just a moment, amid the noise.

At the heart of it, writers write because they need to tell a story... and getting published is knowing that someone will hear it.

Why do you want to be published? What are your expectations or dreams or hopes?

I Finally Finished It

Posted in Writing by

“Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, cajole. Resistance is protean. It will assume any form, if that’s what it takes to deceive you. It will reason with you like a lawyer or jam a nine-millimeter in your face like a stickup man.” (Steven Pressfield, “The War of Art,” page 9)

For the past three weeks, I put off writing the last chapter on my novel. Instead, I:

  • rearranged my entire office
  • cleaned out all the closets
  • organized the children’s clothing
  • put together donation boxes of gently used items
  • tried three new recipes
  • changed my fingernail polish three times
  • saw four movies
  • read two books
  • cleared out a photo album
  • downloaded new ebooks to my Kindle Fire
  • redid my kanban board for work
  • deep-cleaned my bedroom
  • played around with new technology
  • programmed my DVR player for a week

All that instead of writing that one final chapter, even though I already had planned it out. But why was I putting it off? I don’t procrastinate at work. I write fiction almost every day at the crack of dawn. So, what was going on?

Treat Resistance Like Bertha Rochester

After three weeks of dawdling, I felt ridiculous. How many times can you tell your writing-group sister, “I’m almost done!” before you sound like a procrastinating idiot?

“Finish this flipping scene,” I told myself aloud and turned on my laptop. “I don’t care about making excuses anymore. I don’t care about what’s happening in the future. You warm up those fingers, put them on the keyboard, and finish off this damn book already.”

And so, I shoved Resistance into the attic, locked up the door, sat down and wrote, even though Resistance howled from the attic that no one would ever read it, no one would ever want my novel, that writing is a waste of time, that this or that. And the more Resistance wailed, the more I wrote.

“Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” (Steven Pressfield, “The War of Art,” page 40)

Face Your Fears (Even if They Are Ridiculous)

On Monday, January 30, 2012, I finished my second novel. Finally. After five years on a writing roller coaster, complete with upheaval, drama, sorrow, joy, and even a very difficult pregnancy, I put the final word on page 323.

At the best little wine bar in the world, my writing sister and I celebrated the end of the first draft and toasted the subsequent revisions. But then, I started mulling over why I had resisted finishing the novel. 

I realized a few things:

  • It’s hard to say goodbye to beloved characters. You’ve loved and hated these people for the duration of the first draft. Now, suddenly, it’s like you’ve moved to a new town and can only think of them from afar. Sure, I’ll still see them around, we’ll bump into one another, but the close day-to-day living with them is gone.
  • A written novel demands action. You can mess around thinking, “Oh, I’m going to write a book someday” but when you have a completed novel, you need to take it seriously, get your ass in gear, rewrite it, rewrite it, rewrite it, etc., and then send it out into the cold cruel world.
  • The hard part is coming up. Revising is my favorite part of the writing process, but it’s also the hardest. In writing, you can daydream a little more, let the fingers fly, and play. Revising a novel is Serious Work. You need to pay extra attention to everything: sentence structure, word choice, continuity, plot, etc.
  • Failing is rougher when you have two novels finished. My first novel is still languishing in an editor’s inbox somewhere. Now, suddenly, I have another novel that will be completely edited by year’s end. Somehow, having two unpublished novels strikes me as more cringe-worthy than one. With one unpublished novel, you can shrug it off as “something fun” you do off your “bucket list.” With two unpublished novels, you are admitting that you are taking this published novelist dream seriously. And it’s sadder if you fail.
  • I think stupid things sometimes. I admit that the bullet point above this one is ridiculous. Who the hell cares? It doesn’t matter. Writers write. Writers work hard. And you just keeping moving forward.
  • The reality of finishing a novel isn’t romantic. People who don’t write have strange ideas about the process. That’s why there are so many odd movies about writers (such as Limitless or 2012). People who say, “I should write a book some day!” think that, once they sit down and actually write that book, the book will sell itself, make itself a best-seller, market itself, and bring untold riches, fame, popularity, love, and eternal happiness to their life. Or, at the very least, give them a lot of money. But it won’t. You’ll finish your book, be proud as punch, drink glasses of cabernet with your writing buddy, and then toil away once more in the quiet solitude that is the novel-writing dream. And that’s all right.
The reasons why I was afraid of finishing the novel are only important in that they are now recognizable. Next time, I will be less likely to give into the Resistance and postpone the writing of the final chapter. By then, Resistance will assume a new form, but I’ll have been stronger for already having beaten it once. My house might be deep-cleaned first, though.

Rediscovering Argentine Cuisine, Thanks to a Book Character

Posted in Argentina, Cooking, Writing by

I posted recently about how writing a novel can help us stretch beyond our comfort zones. In writing about characters who are passionate about cooking, I unearthed my own desire to learn Argentine cuisine.

Growing up as the first-generation American of Argentine parents, I only learned how to cook a few basic dishes. Still, from a handful of visits to the homes of Argentine relatives and numerous visits to local restaurants for Argentine expatriates, I’ve grown a fondness for certain foods.

So, I’m taking the lead from a character in my work in progress. In 2012, I’ll be making a new dish every couple of weeks. “Prepare yourself,” I told my husband and children. “We’ll be eating Argentine meals regularly.” And the cheering resounded throughout the house. Continue reading →