My first draft writing muscles have apparently atrophied during the Year of the Revision. Instead of first draft fun, I’m getting first draft slog. Where’s the wild wonder of unfettered storytelling? After forcing the daily 500 words on to the page, I’m relieved to be done–and more than happy to enjoy Avatar: The Last Airbender guilt-free.

I have so much anxiety about this book. It’s all tying me up in knots. I’ve planned and outlined and mindmapped and brainstormed, but too much is hidden from me still. I’m afraid to write badly, afraid to write anything less than exquisite prose, delightful description, or brilliant characterization After having gone through the work of salvaging a wrecked first draft, I’m afraid of having another mess on my hands. Hence, the slow, over-cautious, pessimistic and perfectionist attitude I’m suffering from.

I’m hoping the daily 500 habit will break that. If not, I may have to up my target to a 1,000 words. Take that, Inner Editor! Let’s see you maintain that stranglehold on my creativity with those kinds of writing speeds. Right Brain, take back the story, or no more Avatar for you.

How’re your writing projects coming along?

Definitely slow, not as steady as I would like. I’m 18.5 K into the story, solidly in the part where all the political intrigue comes into play. I have at least one cool scene coming up which is going to throw my MC into a tailspin and send her running for her life. Is it mean of me to be looking forward to writing that?

My main goal right now, though, is to get back into the habit of writing. Since it’s very easy for me to be distracted by things that are not as hard to do as writing (Internet, video games, reading) and the urgent-but-not-important (almost all housekeeping tasks), I’ve set the bar low for myself: 500 words a day, 5 days a week. That gives me days off, and prevents me from using the excuses of “I’m too tired”, “I don’t have enough time”, and “It’s been a long day” (when are they not??). 500 words a day on a first draft? That’s peanuts. I can do this.

I’m also using author Holly Lisle as a pacesetter, having taken her up on her Write a Book With Me offer. Just posting my wordcounts on her daily threads and enjoying the support of the community she’s created is good for my motivation.

Beginning a writing session is always the hardest part for me. I can spend all day wanting to get to my nightly session. I can think story and plot plots and scheme schemes while washing dishes, vacuuming, and driving. Then the time *finally* comes to sit and write and I got nothing. No fizz, no drive. It’s like wanting to go for a swim and you finally get to the edge of the pool and realize it’s cooooold in there. So you stand there shivering, unable to take the plunge.

So here’s what I came up with to ease myself back into the story: I created a novel journal document and before (and sometimes after) every writing session I throw down all my thoughts about the story: why it’s stupid, what I want to accomplish in the scene I’m working on, a cool realization that RB threw at me, why my characters suck, why my writing sucks, why my story is totally great, etc. etc. This idea is not original; I got it from an essay by Sue Grafton in the The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing. It’s a good way to get all the uggh out of my system so I can get to my story without all the baggage of self-doubt and “why, bother?” and “woe is me, for I am an untalented hack” and all that.

It’s also a handy place to keep notes on my next scene so when I come back to it, I have a map for how that particular scene should go.

Do you have any rituals/tips/tricks to get you started writing and keep you going?

I re-started work on Kai’s Book a couple of weeks ago. Here’s the premise, by the by:

A cursed runaway princess, despised by her people, returns from across worlds to save the homeland she fled after committing murder.

The “princess” part is a bit misleading since your typical princess doesn’t exist in this world. It’s more Dark Ages than medieval, where the king is just the warlord who has a bit more power than all the other warlords. There’s also a viking-type world and a steampunk world thrown in there, which makes things rather fun, especially since Kai crosses over to all of them in the first three chapters.

It’s been a long time since I worked on a first draft of a novel. I had a hard time getting back into the mindset. While looking through my notes, I was rather disturbed by the fact that large swathes of plot were completely unknown to me. Even intensive brainstorming and extensive freewriting didn’t bring these areas to light. I was getting rather worried there…

Then I remembered.

Novel first drafts are like setting out on a journey with a very rudimentary map. The starting point is pretty clear–the star on the northern coast of the continent with a You Are Here right above it–and the ending is generally also somewhat known–that nice beach somewhere down on the balmy southern coast. Between those two points, however, are blank areas with no features, save for maybe a large lake or two in your way and a mountain range bisecting the entire continent (of course!). Off in the fringes are places marked Here Be Dragons.

If you’re lucky, you packed well.

Usually, you didn’t. Usually you didn’t anticipate the desert that appeared right before the mountains, or the landslide that buries your pack mule halfway through the range, or the acidic spores of the Mushroom Forest, or the townspeople that seize you and put you to work in the peanut fields for wearing purple on a Thursday.

But that’s the joy of writing novels. The story is full of surprises, forcing you to be quick-footed and quick-witted, and dealing with the consequences if you’re not.

Not only is writing fun, it’s adventurous. Now that I’ve remembered that, I’m happy to have only a couple scenes plotted out in advance of where I am. More scenes will come to light. They always do.

I just have to keep going on, even if it’s through the Vermilion Marshes of Man-Eating Flies.

How’s your writing going?

It occurs to me that I have neglected to report my writing progress of late. Not that there is much progress to report. Cold-suffering kids, cranky kids, cuddle-wanting kids; evening time brain numbness; the siren-song lure of fantasy novels and my own lack of self-discipline have made the progress slow.

However.

I did finish tinkering with that synopsis.

And I took advantage of D. being home on weekends to disappear into my room to write. I’ve got 6,410 words on Kai’s book (title, please?) to show for it. This is my How to Think Sideways novel and I’ve had success using some of Holly’s tricks to come up with plot goodness. Clustering, character and world worksheets, and the Law of Unintended Consequences have been my friends. My Muse (or subconscious or brain or spleen or whatever part of me that does the creative thing) is keeping about two scenes ahead of me, which is fine. It’s a bit boring to have the whole book charted out ahead of time. I like my unexplored off-the-edge territories and the parts labeled Here Be Dragons. Specifically, I like throwing my characters into those areas and seeing what they can scare up. Heh.

My goal for the month is to get my wordcount for this book up to 12K.