When I first began submitting my writing for publication, I had no concept of how good I was (or wasn't). I figured I might as well send that short story to The New Yorker because, hey, maybe I'm brilliant and will be discovered at age twenty-three. Then on to a bestselling novel!
I'm sure you can imagine what happened. I did not publish those early stories in The New Yorker or The Paris Review or anywhere else. I did work to learn what could make me better, however. I went to grad school and wrote three novels and a handful of short stories over the next few years.
Most of the stories never got very good (I'm pretty sure at this point I'm just not much of a short story writer). The first novel was a great learning experience, but by the time I finished it as my MA thesis, I knew it was simply that: a learning experience rather than something worth publishing. The second novel I thought was better than the first, and I've gone back and forth on it over the past seven years. Sometimes I think it's worth publishing, sometimes not. I spend months revising it again and then abandon it for years. That's the novel I revisited this summer and have decided to finally submit to small press contests.
I know that novel is not going to take the publishing world by storm. I know it's not going to attract an agent and a six-figure book deal at a major New York press. But I still think it's pretty good. I think other people would enjoy reading it. I can imagine a small press putting it out into the world. So I've submitted it to one contest and intend to try a few others over the next year or so.
My third novel is a departure from what I did before. My first two were written in grad school and were "literary" in the sense that they are not high-stakes, plot-driven stories. They are small, focused on characters, and hopefully sensitive to language and artfully written (especially with my latest revision). The other one is a fantasy story for kids. It's the book I had in the back of my mind ever since I was a kid reading that kind of book. My goal with it is to create something that I would have loved when I was ten.
Like my second novel, I've gone back and forth with the third. After the first draft, I abandoned it for years, figuring I don't know enough about the market or whatever to break into the world of children's books. I continued to focus on literary journals (and shifted my focus to nonfiction), which felt safer and more familiar to me. During that time, I managed to get published. And that third novel has mostly sat on my computer, remaining a rough draft.
But last year, I revisited it in the summer. I revised about half before getting busy with my day job as a university instructor. But I want to finish that revision (and additional revisions after that). I want to try to get this book into the world.
Here's what I know about myself as a writer and where I fall on the continuum of writers: I am decent enough to get some work published in some respectable (if not absolute top tier) journals. I am not about to win the Pulitzer or have something in The New Yorker. But I'm a better writer today than I was fifteen years ago when just starting out. I'm a better writer today than eight years ago when completing my MFA. And while I have high hopes for my second novel and the small press route, I have higher hopes that my third novel (once it's revised and polished) could break into the mainstream world of publishing.
It's sometimes tough to be honest with yourself about how good you really are. We writers tend to have both inflated egos and low self esteem. We think we're brilliant and terrible at alternate moments. But honest assessment is important.
Showing posts with label young adult literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label young adult literature. Show all posts
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Writing is Easy!
What's that old quote about writing? It's easy: you just stare at the blank page until drops of blood form on your forehead. Something like that. I could look up it, but I'm lazy. Anyway, the idea is clear. Recently I've grown a new appreciation for the difficulty of writing. It's weird that this should come to me now, since I've been writing seriously the past several years. It's the one thing I've been devoting the majority of my adult life to, and yet it seems harder now than it used to. Maybe it's that old thing about if one really knew how difficult it is, one would never attempt it in the first place.
I don't even know that hard or difficult or tough or whatever is exactly right. The thing that has struck me most recently is simply how long it takes to write well. How slow it is. I've been rewriting my kids book, and, admittedly, some of my slow pace in proceeding through the pages comes from not spending as much time bleeding from my forehead as I could. Instead of writing, I do other things: I watch TV, I work in a bookstore, I read, I grade papers, I prepare quizzes about punctuation, I apply for full time jobs, I do things related to writing like sending out stories to magazines or applying for grants. Sure, all that stuff eats away at my time and some of it is unnecessary or could be eliminated from my schedule so I write more. But that's not even what I mean when I mention that my writing is slow.
When I am actually sitting down working on my novel, I move at a slower pace than I remember in the past. I take more time sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. The result is good. I think the new draft of this book is coming together really well. When I finish this second draft, I think it will be closer to the strength of a third or fourth or even fifth draft of my past work. I'm now focusing more on the issues of language, the specific details that make the story pop. Perhaps part of the reason I can do this already with my first revision is that I pretty well worked out the story in the rough draft (which was the fastest I've ever written), and now I don't have to go through and sift out the actual story from the mass of material to quite the extent that I often do after finishing a rough draft. This isn't to say that I'm not also doing this. I know there are things that need to be cut or added. I know that some chapters go on too long or end in the wrong place or that characters come and go haphazardly. But as I read through and rework what I have, I feel pretty confident that much of the piece, the skeleton, is strong and solid and will hold up. So rather than moving around major items and transplanting passages of text, I'm doing the cosmetic surgery already and analyzing the language in detail and attempting to convey the story as efficiently and effectively as I can. And that is damn slow going.
I sit and stare at sentences and think about how I can put images and sounds and smells into the reader's head. I try to eliminate clichés or alter details that are vague. I read over paragraphs to see if the words flow, if I'm repeating myself, if the sequence is solid or if I'm forecasting events that should come further down the page. I'm concentrating on what I do at every moment (or at least as much as I can). And although I'm so far quite pleased with what I'm producing, I wish I had more pages in my file marked "Draft 2."
I don't even know that hard or difficult or tough or whatever is exactly right. The thing that has struck me most recently is simply how long it takes to write well. How slow it is. I've been rewriting my kids book, and, admittedly, some of my slow pace in proceeding through the pages comes from not spending as much time bleeding from my forehead as I could. Instead of writing, I do other things: I watch TV, I work in a bookstore, I read, I grade papers, I prepare quizzes about punctuation, I apply for full time jobs, I do things related to writing like sending out stories to magazines or applying for grants. Sure, all that stuff eats away at my time and some of it is unnecessary or could be eliminated from my schedule so I write more. But that's not even what I mean when I mention that my writing is slow.
When I am actually sitting down working on my novel, I move at a slower pace than I remember in the past. I take more time sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. The result is good. I think the new draft of this book is coming together really well. When I finish this second draft, I think it will be closer to the strength of a third or fourth or even fifth draft of my past work. I'm now focusing more on the issues of language, the specific details that make the story pop. Perhaps part of the reason I can do this already with my first revision is that I pretty well worked out the story in the rough draft (which was the fastest I've ever written), and now I don't have to go through and sift out the actual story from the mass of material to quite the extent that I often do after finishing a rough draft. This isn't to say that I'm not also doing this. I know there are things that need to be cut or added. I know that some chapters go on too long or end in the wrong place or that characters come and go haphazardly. But as I read through and rework what I have, I feel pretty confident that much of the piece, the skeleton, is strong and solid and will hold up. So rather than moving around major items and transplanting passages of text, I'm doing the cosmetic surgery already and analyzing the language in detail and attempting to convey the story as efficiently and effectively as I can. And that is damn slow going.
I sit and stare at sentences and think about how I can put images and sounds and smells into the reader's head. I try to eliminate clichés or alter details that are vague. I read over paragraphs to see if the words flow, if I'm repeating myself, if the sequence is solid or if I'm forecasting events that should come further down the page. I'm concentrating on what I do at every moment (or at least as much as I can). And although I'm so far quite pleased with what I'm producing, I wish I had more pages in my file marked "Draft 2."
Friday, January 30, 2009
Some Disconnected and Random Thoughts
1. Once again, I've been evaluating the essay I was working on. After many more hours reading it, editing, reorganizing, composing new material, cutting out old stuff, and so on, I'm still dissatisfied and unsure that it will ever be quite what I want it to be. I've concluded that writing creative nonfiction is incredibly difficult, much more so than I had originally appreciated. There's such a freedom with fiction to manipulate the characters and situation to make it all work, but nonfiction is limited by reality. And reality is messy and without clear themes or conclusions. I had envisioned my essay as having a sort of pivotal epiphany moment, but that's simply not how things happen, at least not for me. Life isn't full of epiphanies. Life is a slow process; changes happen slowly if at all. So condensing that process into a ten or fifteen page essay is a daunting prospect. When I steer the facts--including some details and leave out others--I feel like I'm being dishonest and turning the facts into fiction. I don't know. Maybe that's what all nonfiction writers do. I suppose truth is an impossibility.
2. My next novel has been pushing its way more and more into the forefront of my brain. It's an idea I came up with a few years ago and started a couple years ago as a short story, but after writing it I realized I really wanted to continue on and discover what else happens, where the characters go from the point I'd left them at the end of the story, and that this would wind up as a complete novel idea for me. I had planned on writing this one after my MFA thesis novel, but then I became more interested in writing my kids' book, so I did that first. But now I'm still really early on in the kids' book process--I have a complete draft but have barely started on an initial revision. So I'm left with this question: Do I put the kids' book on hold while I move on to a story that is more pressing on my mind or do I leave the new book alone to keep working on the kids' book? Well, unable to quite decide between the two of those choices, I've opted for the middle ground. I'm going to begin drafting the new one while rewriting the old one. I'm not sure yet whether this is a smart move, but I'll give it a try and see how it goes. My fear is that I won't fully sink into either world and I'll end up doing both poorly, but who knows?
3. With my new novel I'm proceeding in a different manner than I have in the past. Typically I have a basic story idea in mind and start writing even if I'm unsure where exactly it's going. I make a lot of notes as I draft and usually before I'm very far along I have some sort of rough outline of the entire project so I can see where I'm heading even though the route changes as I go and find detours or shortcuts. With my MFA thesis I began writing out of order, originally composing one piece as a short story then another as a separate story until I concluded that rather than a series of linked stories I really was writing a novel. It turned out the early pieces wound up (in rather different forms) as the end of the book. But by the time I had drafted the first few chapters I had a very rough form of the entire book outlined.
Right now I'm lacking that clear vision of my new book, but rather than beginning with chapter one and seeing where it goes, I'm starting before the beginning of the book. I'm doing character sketches that are more extensive than I've done in the past. Previously I've jotted down key details of characters so I can keep them straight as I go or whatever, but I haven't worried too much about fleshing out their pasts and motivations and so forth since those things tend to come up as I write and I know I'll discover those details by the time I get through a couple of drafts. But now I feel like I won't be quite sure how to proceed with each new section of the story until I have a solid understanding of each character and why they are motivated to do the things they do. So I've written several pages about the lives of the two main characters and have yet to reach the point where the book actually starts. It's really fun to explore the back story like this, and I'm hoping it proves helpful as I move forward. In part I felt compelled to do this because the first big plot point relies on a somewhat absurd turn of events, and I feel like I have to justify those events in order for the story to work. That was one of the problems with the short story version I attempted a couple years ago. I didn't have enough time to make the unlikely event seem plausible. So I need to really understand the character in order for his bizarre action to seem like something he would genuinely do under the circumstances.
Another significant factor with this new novel (that I've commented on before here I believe) is that the story and characters move much further away from my own experiences and characteristics, which in part means I don't have as thorough an understanding of the characters and their motivations. My first novel, my MA thesis, drew heavily on my own traits for the main character: he thought much like I do, had the same tastes and interests, and so on. I didn't have to worry too much about how he would react to different situations because I could simply imagine how I myself would react. My second novel, my MFA thesis, moved further away from myself but still had a lot of me in the characters. While the first book had a stand-in for me, the second one used different aspects of me in different characters, an exaggerated version of characteristic X here, characteristic Y there. None of the main characters were me, but I still felt like I understood them fairly intuitively, that it wasn't a major shift to step into their shoes and discover how they would react in different circumstances. The third book, the kids' book, was a whole different thing, so it doesn't really enter this discussion. With the new novel, though, I don't think any of the characters I've come up with so far have a whole lot in common with me, so it's going to be more of a challenge to figure out exactly how and why they do what they do and then to also make it seem reasonable to a reader that these characters would indeed do what they do. It's fun and exciting to take this new step away from what I've done before.
4. Comedy. I've been reflecting recently on comedy. It's weird, I used to be pretty good at comedy. The major piece of writing I did that convinced me I definitely wanted to devote my life to writing was a one-act farce. I wrote it in college and it was accepted into a festival of one-act plays on campus. Seeing an audience laugh so hard at my words was thrilling. But since that point I've become less and less comic in my writing. I see my new novel as being highly comic. In my mind it's on the lines of A Confederacy of Dunces or Candide, a sprawling episodic novel, maybe picaresque, where a number of characters pursue different goals and keep falling flat and perhaps there's a bit of Camus's absurd thrown into the mix where things fail to turn out as the characters expect. I have a strong sense of the feeling I'd like the novel to have, but I'm a bit doubtful that I'll be able to achieve the right balance. And I realized that the major obstacle in my way is a weird one: empathy.
What's that? Empathy? Why would that be a problem? Well, here's why. I've heard a definition of the difference between comedy and tragedy attributed to Mel Brooks: "Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die; tragedy is when I get a paper cut." There's definitely something to that. Comedy has a distance between the audience and the characters so we feel fine laughing at them. Yes, we often like the characters, but I think we still don't fully empathize. If we did, would we be so callous as to laugh at their misfortunes? Dramatic stories are all about empathy, feeling that torment of the characters. And I feel like over the past decade or so I've shifted somewhat in my level of empathy with my fellow human beings. I formerly identified myself only half-jokingly as a misanthrope, and with a misanthropic view of humanity it's easy to laugh. But more and more I feel a sense of the basic worth and individual suffering and joys of every person, and with that kind of connection, it becomes harder to laugh. So then when creating characters for a story, I want them to be real, to be empathetic, to have people care about them, but then how can I also make them funny? I don't know. I haven't sorted it all out yet. I've heard comedy is all about the head and drama about the heart, and I think my heart has become a bigger part of me than it used to be.
2. My next novel has been pushing its way more and more into the forefront of my brain. It's an idea I came up with a few years ago and started a couple years ago as a short story, but after writing it I realized I really wanted to continue on and discover what else happens, where the characters go from the point I'd left them at the end of the story, and that this would wind up as a complete novel idea for me. I had planned on writing this one after my MFA thesis novel, but then I became more interested in writing my kids' book, so I did that first. But now I'm still really early on in the kids' book process--I have a complete draft but have barely started on an initial revision. So I'm left with this question: Do I put the kids' book on hold while I move on to a story that is more pressing on my mind or do I leave the new book alone to keep working on the kids' book? Well, unable to quite decide between the two of those choices, I've opted for the middle ground. I'm going to begin drafting the new one while rewriting the old one. I'm not sure yet whether this is a smart move, but I'll give it a try and see how it goes. My fear is that I won't fully sink into either world and I'll end up doing both poorly, but who knows?
3. With my new novel I'm proceeding in a different manner than I have in the past. Typically I have a basic story idea in mind and start writing even if I'm unsure where exactly it's going. I make a lot of notes as I draft and usually before I'm very far along I have some sort of rough outline of the entire project so I can see where I'm heading even though the route changes as I go and find detours or shortcuts. With my MFA thesis I began writing out of order, originally composing one piece as a short story then another as a separate story until I concluded that rather than a series of linked stories I really was writing a novel. It turned out the early pieces wound up (in rather different forms) as the end of the book. But by the time I had drafted the first few chapters I had a very rough form of the entire book outlined.
Right now I'm lacking that clear vision of my new book, but rather than beginning with chapter one and seeing where it goes, I'm starting before the beginning of the book. I'm doing character sketches that are more extensive than I've done in the past. Previously I've jotted down key details of characters so I can keep them straight as I go or whatever, but I haven't worried too much about fleshing out their pasts and motivations and so forth since those things tend to come up as I write and I know I'll discover those details by the time I get through a couple of drafts. But now I feel like I won't be quite sure how to proceed with each new section of the story until I have a solid understanding of each character and why they are motivated to do the things they do. So I've written several pages about the lives of the two main characters and have yet to reach the point where the book actually starts. It's really fun to explore the back story like this, and I'm hoping it proves helpful as I move forward. In part I felt compelled to do this because the first big plot point relies on a somewhat absurd turn of events, and I feel like I have to justify those events in order for the story to work. That was one of the problems with the short story version I attempted a couple years ago. I didn't have enough time to make the unlikely event seem plausible. So I need to really understand the character in order for his bizarre action to seem like something he would genuinely do under the circumstances.
Another significant factor with this new novel (that I've commented on before here I believe) is that the story and characters move much further away from my own experiences and characteristics, which in part means I don't have as thorough an understanding of the characters and their motivations. My first novel, my MA thesis, drew heavily on my own traits for the main character: he thought much like I do, had the same tastes and interests, and so on. I didn't have to worry too much about how he would react to different situations because I could simply imagine how I myself would react. My second novel, my MFA thesis, moved further away from myself but still had a lot of me in the characters. While the first book had a stand-in for me, the second one used different aspects of me in different characters, an exaggerated version of characteristic X here, characteristic Y there. None of the main characters were me, but I still felt like I understood them fairly intuitively, that it wasn't a major shift to step into their shoes and discover how they would react in different circumstances. The third book, the kids' book, was a whole different thing, so it doesn't really enter this discussion. With the new novel, though, I don't think any of the characters I've come up with so far have a whole lot in common with me, so it's going to be more of a challenge to figure out exactly how and why they do what they do and then to also make it seem reasonable to a reader that these characters would indeed do what they do. It's fun and exciting to take this new step away from what I've done before.
4. Comedy. I've been reflecting recently on comedy. It's weird, I used to be pretty good at comedy. The major piece of writing I did that convinced me I definitely wanted to devote my life to writing was a one-act farce. I wrote it in college and it was accepted into a festival of one-act plays on campus. Seeing an audience laugh so hard at my words was thrilling. But since that point I've become less and less comic in my writing. I see my new novel as being highly comic. In my mind it's on the lines of A Confederacy of Dunces or Candide, a sprawling episodic novel, maybe picaresque, where a number of characters pursue different goals and keep falling flat and perhaps there's a bit of Camus's absurd thrown into the mix where things fail to turn out as the characters expect. I have a strong sense of the feeling I'd like the novel to have, but I'm a bit doubtful that I'll be able to achieve the right balance. And I realized that the major obstacle in my way is a weird one: empathy.
What's that? Empathy? Why would that be a problem? Well, here's why. I've heard a definition of the difference between comedy and tragedy attributed to Mel Brooks: "Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die; tragedy is when I get a paper cut." There's definitely something to that. Comedy has a distance between the audience and the characters so we feel fine laughing at them. Yes, we often like the characters, but I think we still don't fully empathize. If we did, would we be so callous as to laugh at their misfortunes? Dramatic stories are all about empathy, feeling that torment of the characters. And I feel like over the past decade or so I've shifted somewhat in my level of empathy with my fellow human beings. I formerly identified myself only half-jokingly as a misanthrope, and with a misanthropic view of humanity it's easy to laugh. But more and more I feel a sense of the basic worth and individual suffering and joys of every person, and with that kind of connection, it becomes harder to laugh. So then when creating characters for a story, I want them to be real, to be empathetic, to have people care about them, but then how can I also make them funny? I don't know. I haven't sorted it all out yet. I've heard comedy is all about the head and drama about the heart, and I think my heart has become a bigger part of me than it used to be.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Current Project Part II
I made my decision to go ahead and begin working on my young adult fantasy novel a couple weeks ago. Part of what's exciting about it is the idea of working much faster on something than I'm used to. When I'm heavily engrossed in a project I like to set a daily goal of 2,000 words. This is absolutely manageable, and it keeps me going at a good clip. At this rate, I can do an entire first draft of a 90,000 word novel within a couple months, and that's even allowing for days when I don't meet the goal or I tack a weekend off completely or whatever. But with this fantasy book, I saw it as a bit different. Partly because it's aimed at younger readers, I saw it as being a bit shorter than what I've written in the past. Instead of 90,000, a book of 60,000 words seems about right. Also, since the idea has been bouncing around my head for a while I started writing knowing for the most part where I was headed. Of course I still had large holes that needed filling, but I assumed those would come as I discovered the world and grew to know the characters. So I set out with the goal of completing a rough draft within a few weeks. Basically I'm moving soon, and I don't want my progress to be disrupted during that time.
So I broke it down and came up with a daily word count goal. If I did 2,000 words a day, then I could have 60,000 at the end of a month. 4,000 would result in a draft in 15 days. So I figured that somewhere in between was the appropriate daily objective. The chapters for this book are working out to each be in the 4,000 word range. So my basic goal is to write a full chapter each day if I can manage it (4,000+ is lovely), and if I can't get that much done, then to at least hit 2,000 words. This way I'm steadily progressing even if I don't always get as much as would be best.
I began two weeks ago Sunday, and for the first four days, I wrote a chapter a day. Then I slowed a bit and was still hitting the 2,000 word a day goal, but was taking a couple days to finish a chapter. Then I sped back up again, and then slowed again. Anyway, at present I have hit at least 2,000 words every day for the past 15 days with only one exception, and that day I came in around 1,600 words, so it wasn't too bad. Right now I'm halfway through chapter 11 of what I expect to be 15 chapters total. I have about 42,000 words of that 60,000 word mark, so I'm getting close. I fully expect to finish the draft this week, making it by far the fastest I've written anything of this length.
It's been fun to tackle a project like this for several reasons. One: speed. I've read about writers just plowing through books in a week or whatever and wondered how that could be possible. I think Stephen King wrote The Running Man in a week (those claims must only apply to the first draft, however). Or there's the famous case of Keruak writing On The Road in a matter of days, typing the whole draft onto that giant scroll of typing paper so he wouldn't have to slow down to change sheets. And I've discovered there is something energizing and exciting about moving so quickly. I have no delusions that what I've come up with is brilliant. I already know I have tons of corrections to make as far as inconsistencies go in plot details. I've made a bunch of notes about things choices I made later in the story that have implications earlier on. And that's not even considering the rest of the rewriting process that would happen with any book.
Two: plot. As I mentioned in a previous post, I used to read a lot of fantasy, but about a decade ago I moved on to other things. The majority of my reading in recent years has been what might be termed "literary" in the sense that it's about normal people dealing with regular life stuff. That's what I most enjoy, and that's what I've been writing for the past few years. So to switch gears has been like a great vacation since most of my other stories don't hinge on plot. There's that old adage, which I suppose has some validity even though, like most such maxims, it has exceptions and doesn't necessarily stand up to careful critique, but anyway it asserts that plot and character are on a continuum, and when one goes up in development and importance, the other goes down. So basically, a heavily action oriented story doesn't have time to develop the characters into fully three dimensional people, and the stories that most fully explore the inner lives of characters and reveal them as complex humans have little actually happening. In most of what I write, I like to have something going on, but the events take a back seat to the characters and what they're thinking about and how they interact with each other or whatever. But in this fantasy story, I have way more plot. My protagonist is transported to a world of magic, and the world is in the midst of a war, and there's a prophecy concerning his importance, and there's kidnapping and an evil wizard and and and and and . . . So that's fun. I suspect one of the major things I address in rewriting is to carefully go through and make sure that the characters are coming alive in the way they need to, that I haven't slid so far into the plot side of things that I neglect my characters because, after all, if I as a reader don't care about the people in the story, then what difference does it make what crazy stuff happens to them?
Three: rediscovering the fun of stories for younger readers. I wrote previously about not having read much fantasy in recent years, but I realized the other day that the one area I have actually continued to read in that genre has been children's books. In the years during which I don't think I've picked up more than two or three adult fantasies, I've reread or listened to audiobooks (or both) of the Chronicles of Prydain (still one of my all time favorites), Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, and others. So I wasn't as unprepared as I initially worried I might be to tackle such a writing project. But in order to further understand what I'm attempting, I began looking at some books that are currently on bookstore shelves in the genre, and that has been so much fun. There are some great books out there. I am absolutely in love with the Spiderwick Chronicles. Artemis Fowl was fun. There's one called Erec Rex that is a blast.
Four: being engrossed. The major reason I write is because I love doing it. Ultimately, yes, I hope to publish. If I could actually make a living at it, that would be awesome. Not because I want to be a famous writer or anything like that, but simply because it would mean that I could do for my job something that I would do for fun anyway instead of doing something that always felt like work. I know writing is hard work, but it's more fun than it is frustrating, wheras jobs I've had are on the reverse of that. But as much fun as writing is, it's not always on the same level. During the last stages of my previous novel, it was definitely leaning toward the hard work and not too fun side of things simply because I was at the point of going through and trying to fix grammar and typos and little things. It was tedious and didn't transfix me the way earlier stages of the process can. But now again, for the past two weeks, I've simply been having a blast as I sit down to write, and during the rest of the day when the story plays out in my head and I solve the puzzles of how to continue forward and how to bring everything together in a satisfying conclusion.
Five: publishability. I didn't begin writing this book with thoughts of publication, but as I've continued on, the idea has occurred to me more. In general genre writing is easier to get out there than literary stuff. I hope I can find an agent for my literary novel and then get it to a publisher, but I don't know. I think it's strong, but the market is so tough, it might never happen. And not to say that getting this YA fantasy published will be a cinch, but it seems like I'll face fewer of the difficulties than with an adult literary novel. At the moment I have no plans for additional fantasy stories. I don't especially see this one as the first of a series, although I'm sure it could be possible. But if somehow I hit it big with this and fell into the possibility of a career writing this kind of book, I would love it. That wouldn't be my top choice since I'd still rather write literary stuff, and I have more ideas for those novels at the moment. But it would still be far more preferable than the kind of day job scenario I see for myself for the next thirty years.
So I broke it down and came up with a daily word count goal. If I did 2,000 words a day, then I could have 60,000 at the end of a month. 4,000 would result in a draft in 15 days. So I figured that somewhere in between was the appropriate daily objective. The chapters for this book are working out to each be in the 4,000 word range. So my basic goal is to write a full chapter each day if I can manage it (4,000+ is lovely), and if I can't get that much done, then to at least hit 2,000 words. This way I'm steadily progressing even if I don't always get as much as would be best.
I began two weeks ago Sunday, and for the first four days, I wrote a chapter a day. Then I slowed a bit and was still hitting the 2,000 word a day goal, but was taking a couple days to finish a chapter. Then I sped back up again, and then slowed again. Anyway, at present I have hit at least 2,000 words every day for the past 15 days with only one exception, and that day I came in around 1,600 words, so it wasn't too bad. Right now I'm halfway through chapter 11 of what I expect to be 15 chapters total. I have about 42,000 words of that 60,000 word mark, so I'm getting close. I fully expect to finish the draft this week, making it by far the fastest I've written anything of this length.
It's been fun to tackle a project like this for several reasons. One: speed. I've read about writers just plowing through books in a week or whatever and wondered how that could be possible. I think Stephen King wrote The Running Man in a week (those claims must only apply to the first draft, however). Or there's the famous case of Keruak writing On The Road in a matter of days, typing the whole draft onto that giant scroll of typing paper so he wouldn't have to slow down to change sheets. And I've discovered there is something energizing and exciting about moving so quickly. I have no delusions that what I've come up with is brilliant. I already know I have tons of corrections to make as far as inconsistencies go in plot details. I've made a bunch of notes about things choices I made later in the story that have implications earlier on. And that's not even considering the rest of the rewriting process that would happen with any book.
Two: plot. As I mentioned in a previous post, I used to read a lot of fantasy, but about a decade ago I moved on to other things. The majority of my reading in recent years has been what might be termed "literary" in the sense that it's about normal people dealing with regular life stuff. That's what I most enjoy, and that's what I've been writing for the past few years. So to switch gears has been like a great vacation since most of my other stories don't hinge on plot. There's that old adage, which I suppose has some validity even though, like most such maxims, it has exceptions and doesn't necessarily stand up to careful critique, but anyway it asserts that plot and character are on a continuum, and when one goes up in development and importance, the other goes down. So basically, a heavily action oriented story doesn't have time to develop the characters into fully three dimensional people, and the stories that most fully explore the inner lives of characters and reveal them as complex humans have little actually happening. In most of what I write, I like to have something going on, but the events take a back seat to the characters and what they're thinking about and how they interact with each other or whatever. But in this fantasy story, I have way more plot. My protagonist is transported to a world of magic, and the world is in the midst of a war, and there's a prophecy concerning his importance, and there's kidnapping and an evil wizard and and and and and . . . So that's fun. I suspect one of the major things I address in rewriting is to carefully go through and make sure that the characters are coming alive in the way they need to, that I haven't slid so far into the plot side of things that I neglect my characters because, after all, if I as a reader don't care about the people in the story, then what difference does it make what crazy stuff happens to them?
Three: rediscovering the fun of stories for younger readers. I wrote previously about not having read much fantasy in recent years, but I realized the other day that the one area I have actually continued to read in that genre has been children's books. In the years during which I don't think I've picked up more than two or three adult fantasies, I've reread or listened to audiobooks (or both) of the Chronicles of Prydain (still one of my all time favorites), Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, and others. So I wasn't as unprepared as I initially worried I might be to tackle such a writing project. But in order to further understand what I'm attempting, I began looking at some books that are currently on bookstore shelves in the genre, and that has been so much fun. There are some great books out there. I am absolutely in love with the Spiderwick Chronicles. Artemis Fowl was fun. There's one called Erec Rex that is a blast.
Four: being engrossed. The major reason I write is because I love doing it. Ultimately, yes, I hope to publish. If I could actually make a living at it, that would be awesome. Not because I want to be a famous writer or anything like that, but simply because it would mean that I could do for my job something that I would do for fun anyway instead of doing something that always felt like work. I know writing is hard work, but it's more fun than it is frustrating, wheras jobs I've had are on the reverse of that. But as much fun as writing is, it's not always on the same level. During the last stages of my previous novel, it was definitely leaning toward the hard work and not too fun side of things simply because I was at the point of going through and trying to fix grammar and typos and little things. It was tedious and didn't transfix me the way earlier stages of the process can. But now again, for the past two weeks, I've simply been having a blast as I sit down to write, and during the rest of the day when the story plays out in my head and I solve the puzzles of how to continue forward and how to bring everything together in a satisfying conclusion.
Five: publishability. I didn't begin writing this book with thoughts of publication, but as I've continued on, the idea has occurred to me more. In general genre writing is easier to get out there than literary stuff. I hope I can find an agent for my literary novel and then get it to a publisher, but I don't know. I think it's strong, but the market is so tough, it might never happen. And not to say that getting this YA fantasy published will be a cinch, but it seems like I'll face fewer of the difficulties than with an adult literary novel. At the moment I have no plans for additional fantasy stories. I don't especially see this one as the first of a series, although I'm sure it could be possible. But if somehow I hit it big with this and fell into the possibility of a career writing this kind of book, I would love it. That wouldn't be my top choice since I'd still rather write literary stuff, and I have more ideas for those novels at the moment. But it would still be far more preferable than the kind of day job scenario I see for myself for the next thirty years.
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