Writing Process (Part 2)

   I'm sure we all remember being in school and being taught the steps to the writing process. In case you've forgotten they are: Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, Proofreading and Publishing. Now depending on how your brain works, you don't need to do them in that exact order. Of course, you can't publish (that is show off your work) until you've actually written something. But other than that, the order can change a little bit.
   Sometimes I start on a draft and do a little revising and proofing before I prewrite. How is that possible? Well, maybe I have what seems like a great idea in my head, but once I start reading it, it sounds crazy. Maybe crazy isn't the right word. Let's just say there are some serious holes in the story. I fix these holes by doing a post-draft prewrite.
   I put the title at the top of the page and then I summarize what I have written so far. I try to break the story down into parts. The setup/the beginning, the middle/climax, and the end. The setup is all about the characters and who they are. I try to decide what each character's history and motivation is. What are their skills. This is also where I finalize what I want them to look like. It's also a good reference for if I forget how to spell a name or who is related to whom.
    Next I skip to the end. I think about how I want the story to end. I think about how I want the characters to change and what I want them to have learned. I think about what objects I want them to find and how these things help them defeat the villain or grow as people, etc. Then I go back to the middle and try to write what needs to happen to get the characters from the start-up to the end. This doesn't have to be some long, drawn out thing that takes up 10 pages. For me, it's usually 3 pages or less of sentence fragments. It's basically a reminder for what I want to have happen, in case I get stuck or forget. Even though it's my own outline, I don't use everything I've put on it. I treat the ideas like suggestions. I still love to have a little bit of spontaneity when I sit down in front of my computer.
    Now if you prefer to have a 10 page outline of exactly what you want to say before you start writing, that's perfectly fine. Everyone works at their own pace and in his or her own unique way. The most important thing I learned after attending my first writers conference, is that there is no single perfect way to write. Because writing came easy for me I just assumed that it also came easy to everyone else. But writing isn't science. It's art. People like different kinds of art just like they prefer different kinds of books. Some artists adhere strictly to technique while others push the boundaries of convention. Writing is the same. It allows each of us to approach the art in our own way.

Headaches

   Have any of you ever gotten headaches related to writing? I've heard of people getting headaches due to writer's block, but mine go beyond that. If I go too long without writing, I get migraine-type headaches, and nothing seems to cure them: nothing save writing. I've tried everything from aspirin to sleeping in a dark room with a warm compress on my forehead.
   I've been getting these headaches for years and I know they aren't normal. I've often wondered if other writers experience these things or if I should get my head examined. Of course, whenever I think about mentioning it to my doctor, I worry that she'll just consider me crazy or ignore my complaint, so I just don't say anything. I think I'm just too embarrassed to mention it to a professional. Until now, I've been too embarrassed to mention it to anyone other than my husband and my best friend.
   When a headache strikes, the pressure builds like soda in a shaken bottle, only my head doesn't explode. I end up spending one sleepless night after another until I write something. It doesn't matter what I write. It can be a letter to my sister-in-law, a journal entry or a couple of pages in a novel. All I need is to relieve the pressure in my head and the pain subsides. Then, I crash.
   I usually don't dream and I wake feeling like I just closed my eyes. It's never enough sleep. It's barely enough to keep me functioning. I have to say, the headaches were really bad when I was in college. Between work, school and parenthood, I almost never had time to write. And scholarly assignments for class did not count toward headache relief. For years I felt crazy. Sometimes I still do. In school we studied great writers. Some died at early ages for no reason at all and I began to wonder if they suffered from headaches too. Or if what killed them was something else and medical science just wasn't advanced enough to figure it out back then.
   As long as I write, I can keep the problem under control, but I feel like I'm just putting a band-aid on a bleeding gash. It could all be nothing or they could be the sign of some greater problem. Who knows? Maybe I'll one day get the courage to look a doctor in the eye and say, "I'm not crazy. I just want to make sure my brain's not going to explode", or something like that. Even if I didn't get headaches, I think I would write just as much, if not more than I do. I love writing. It's the most natural thing I've ever done. I define myself by it and I don't ever want to give it up. Headaches or not, I think I'd go crazy without good stories in my head.

Inspiration

   I know this is going to sound cliche, but I can find inspiration anywhere. I can never tell what's going to spark an idea. I once wrote the rough draft of an entire novel because of a line I heard in a movie. That unfinished work is still sitting on my shelf awaiting revision.
   Of course, I get my best ideas from listening to music. Sometimes it's the lyrics, sometimes it's the music, and sometimes it's a combination of the two that get my creative juices flowing. I get ideas from dreams and I mentally write scenes while I'm in the shower.
   Keeping up with all these ideas can be a bit of a chore. I can't stand forgetting a little spark of what could later be genius, but it has happened once or twice (meaning a lot). In order to solve this problem, I keep notebooks nearby so I can quickly write my thought and ideas down. Unfortunately, I'm terribly unorganized, so there are about 15 notebooks floating around my house and I'm always losing my pens. This means I usually end up writing my thoughts down with my children's crayons.
   I always go back and rewrite them with pen or type them and keep them in a sort of 'catalogue'. Actually, it's a 3-ring binder that's about 4 inches thick. And in case you're wondering if I've ever had moments when I my mind is blank, the answer is never (well, hardly ever). The fact is my mind has been bombarded with ideas ever since I can remember. I never know what's going to spark my next idea. And I never know when I'm actually going to have time to write, but thank goodness for the 'catalogue'. Over the years my little idea book has gotten crowded, but I don't mind. It just means that I'll always have something to do.

My Writing Process

   When I write, I love to listen to music. What I'm in the mood for often affects the tone of the story. As the minutes turn into hours, my ears drown out the lyrics and the artists' voices. My mind slips into a sort of trance where I don't even notice the passage of time. I become so immersed in my own story that it's more like watching a good movie than work. And that's the way it should be.
    For me, writing is as sensuous as delving into a piece of still warm cake. I wrap myself with words the same way I wrap my tongue around a pasty. For me, writing has always been easy. The ideas and words come naturally. Sometimes, I don't even have to think. As long as I have a pen and a piece of paper, my hand knows what to do. I've spent hours scribbling chapter after chapter with my subconscious seemingly in charge of my brain.
   Now, writing won't come easy for everyone. There are writers out there who struggle with getting their ideas onto the page. I've been to writers conferences where one of the featured speakers told us that if you write spontaneously, with little or no planning, that you're a hobbyist, not a writer. That just isn't true. Some people need to spend hours or even weeks planning their story before they start and others can just start writing. I believe what separates a writer from a hobbyist is the revising.
   Without revision, my work isn't ready to be shared. No matter how strong my euphoria after finishing that first draft, I restrain myself from showing it off until I've at least had time to check the spelling and grammar. There are as many missing words as there are mispelled words and misused ones. What I like to do is a quick edit for proofreading. I check grammar and spelling and then print out a hard copy. Once I've done that, I show it to my family and closest friends. Then I label it, bind it, and put it on the shelf for a minimum of 3 months. After that I come back to it and read over it for a full revision.
   Without the words being fresh in my mind, I find it easier to be more objective. This is where I add or remove passages, reorder parts of the story and fix any errors in character descriptions. I ask myself questions about the story that I think a reader would ask and try to use the text to answer them.
   Revising is the most tedious and annoying part of writing, but it is the most necessary. It didn't take me long to learn this, but it did take me a few years to figure out how to do it well. And even after it's all said and done, I always feel like there's room for improvement. I never feel as if I've done a good enough job. I just know that there's something more I should have said or that the book needs one more once over. But at some point, I have to stop and call it done. I send it off for independent editing and, let's be honest, I take their suggestions with a grain of salt. If there is some glaring technical error, I fix it. But suggestions about my story are just that, suggestions. And I don't have to use any of them if I don't want to. I'm not so arrogant that I don't consider the other person's ideas. I've simply learned that it's my story and I have to be satisfied with the final product. If I try to please everyone else, then I'll have nothing that I'd be willing to stand behind.

Where Do I Begin?

The questions I get asked most are "How do you do it?"; "How do you find time to write a novel with 3 kids?"; "How do you write that much?"

I usually just shrug and respond with an "I don't know" or "I just do." This doesn't really answer anyone's questions, but to really explain my writing process would take forever, and let's face it, it would probably bore people to sleep. With 3 children and all the daily things a mother has to do to keep her family functioning, how do I find time to write? The answer is actually quite simple. I make time.

When I was in school (before I had the responsibilities of motherhood) I had more free time. I would write whenever I felt like it. I would tune out my teachers and scribble chapters in my notebook. To my teachers, I'm sure I looked like the studious child who was taking detailed notes. I would spend my entire Saturday writing free hand in spiral bound notebooks and not eat or drink for hours. I ignored the world and immersed myself in worlds of my own creation.

Now, I schedule time to write. If you'd asked me 10 years ago about scheduling hours to write, I would have told you that I didn't find it necessary. And back then, I didn't. I would have told you that chapters written during scheduled hours feel forced and that the reader can tell when you didn't enjoy the process. The truth is, writing on schedule does sometimes feel forced and if you don't edit and revise, the reader will know.

Of course, having children doesn't allow me the luxury to drop everything and seclude myself in a room for 10 hours a day like I used to. I have meals to make and fights to mediate and punishments to dole out. And while my children don't necessarily want to nap at 12 or 2 o'clock every day, or go to bed at the same time every night, I send them to their rooms for quiet time anyway. Nap time isn't just a temporary jail so I can pen a few words. It's the time I use to do laundry and dishes and balance the budget, etc. Some days I don't get any writing done at all. Some days, when I have the time and the peace and quiet to focus, I don't feel like writing or I have horrible writer's block and I can't work, even though I want to. What do I do when that happens? I give up for the day. I take a nap or watch T.V. and wait until another day.

I set overly ambitious schedules for myself to try and finish as many chapters as I can in a month. If I write one chapter a day, I should finish a novel by the end of the month, right? Wrong! Life happens and by the time the end of the month comes around, I'm 20 chapters behind schedule, with another novel coming up to be written. I solve this problem by pushing the new work back to the next month and doubling up on chapters in order to catch up. I typically fail miserably at this. I don't enjoy missing my own deadlines, but I do take pleasure in finally finishing a project.

My satisfaction is usually short lived, because the task of turning an idea into a well developed story isn't complete. I then have to move on to the next step in my writing process. What is "My Writing Process?" I think I'll save that for another post.