Dreamy
Well, I’m at 76K on my current WIP and headed for the finish line.
I vaguely remember the frantic downhill spiral of the last quarter from last year. I spent three or four weeks last year, just writing the last 20K of my story. I lived and breathed that story. The words just rolled off my fingers and onto the page in a big, mangled heap.
It was exhilarating. Exciting. And at the end, I breathed the biggest sigh of relief.
What I didn’t remember—until this week—were the dreams.
For the past week, I’ve been tossing and turning and unable to sleep as I work through the last pages of this book. I think I did the same thing last year, but it must be blocked into the part of my brain where I’ve put labor and delivery. A serious forgetting pain.
Maybe it’s worse this time because my story has become so dark. Yesterday, I wrote the most tortured—literally—scene. My heroine is getting beaten as demons try to infiltrate her brain. It’s awful. Writing it was awful. I fear my CPs are going to dial me in as a rush case at Belleview when they read it.
I didn’t sleep a wink the night before. The story was just right there for me, waiting for me to write it down. And my heroine—all bloody and banged up now—was giving me grief.
Her: “Yo. You. You know, with the laptop? I need some serious first aid here. So while you’re snoozing it out, drooling on the pillow, I’m bleeding, tied up, and surrounded by sadistic people possessed by demons. Not trying to cramp your style, but maybe a little help?”
Me: “I’m SLEEPING HERE!”
Her: “Tough it out, b*tch, you’re not the one with the broken ribs.”
Me: “WHATEVER! You’re a figment of my imagination! Why am I talking to you in the dead of the night!?”
*me, rolling over, disturbing the cat who then proceeds to lick himself, repeatedly, for the next twenty minutes, effectively destroying any chance I had of going back to sleep.*
You see my problem, right?
No, not the cat, though he’s irritating too.
I’ve spent months stressing through issue after issue with this story and now, it’s all clicked and I’m having a hard time keeping up.
And my subconscious is hateful.
I can’t figure it out though. I drag in the center. I spent an entire month rewriting my beginning. Why is the end so quick for me when I start so slow?
My current hypothesis is that my characters were still growing for me in the beginning. Now, it all makes more sense to me. Now they act in logical (to me) ways and I understand what they’ll do next. Maybe I’m just one of those writers who has to cozy up to them, that has to play the “ice-breaker” games with my characters.
Anyone else have this start slow problem? If so, why do you think you do? Are you a “you’re your characters/they come full grown” writer or a “hi-how-are-ya-what’s-your-sign” get to know you writer? Anyone else dream out their stories? Anyone else ever feel like they can’t keep up with what they see?
Books by the Crew
53 comments:
Whoa, that is tough. I'd say toss the cat out a' window...
Characters? Oh, well...that is harder! Mine don't come fully realized, but not total strangers either. Sort a' silhouettes that fill in as I go along. And they constantly surprise me.
I do 'ave convos with them, but generally more like I find meself apologizin' like crazy and bein' reassured that it's ok...they all like the endin's so what they go through ta get there be worth it. (A personal philosophy I keep writin' into me characters.)
And me lead hero is always pokin' at me, wantin' ta be taller. But no keepin' me up at night...
As fer the keepin' up wit' the story? When it be flowin' that strong I just stay up until me eyes can't stay open... Yeah, those heady days when writin' thousands a' words a day came easy! But I can stay up 'cause, fer the most part, I be a woman a' leisure.
Sorry. Hate me later.
I have an idea about my characters when I begin writing, but I don't really get to know them until the end of the first draft. It's during the revisions that I know them enough to know for sure how they'll act in any given situation.
I do spend many a night dreaming, or in bed staring at the ceiling. Of course, I continue staring until sleep takes over and then I lose all those great scenes I thought up.
I start fast--like hyperspeed fast until I hit the middle. I am dragging myself with bloody fingers and broken legs by the end of it. We are opposites in writing.
Yes I dream about my stories. So far, it's only the books I happen to be working on that do that to me.
Yay on wordcount, Marn. I'm sitting at 82K and plan to finish my book over the long weekend. :) Dragging myself bloody and beaten all the way *w*
I start fast too, but discover all sorts of things that make me go back and layer. My characters definitely don't arrive with all their baggage packed. The middle always seems endless. Endless. And the end starts slow, then all of a sudden I can't shut up and go over my self-imposed word count. I'm less than 20,000 words away now, and starting to get as excited as you are!
Chance - The window + cat scenerio is tempting, but I've refrained all these years. Almost seems like giving in now. (For real, I adore that cat--not so much the other one--but the licking/noise at night is really annoying.)
Woman of leisure. *snort* I'm definitely not a woman of leisure right now. I know I can usually stay up until midnight and still function when my little man wakes up in the morning, but that's pretty much as far as I'll go.
I'm sure, even across the country, you can tell my eyes are green with envy.
Renee - I've definitely had those think up something great just to lose it over night issues. I think because a lot of my wilder stuff happens in those seconds right before I sleep. :)
And I'm hoping revisions with this story won't be TOO horrible.
Tiff - LOL! We are opposites! I start slow slow slow and then drag my bloody fingers through the middle. Then the end is like a rush to the finish. Congrats on the word count! 82! You're almost there!! :) Good luck!
Mags - Good luck to you too! I think you and I sound a lot closer in our writing methodology. My characters don't come with their bags packed either. I end up doing the proverbial ice-breakers. "So, tell me three truths and a lie."
Why is that screaming, "You are a figment of my imagination!" never seems to put them back in their place? LOL!!
I'm at the same place you are, Marn. Well, I'm a bit behind - I'm at 64k this week. But after two months of tweaking and revising and plotting and hating the whole damn thing, it all finally clicked in my head and now it's pouring out. I can't keep up.
And how funny that this week we're both writing scenes where our heroines are tortured! Maybe Bellevue will come for us together :)
Congrats on almost reaching the finishing line! You may be tired, but it's worth it. Hang on to that "high" that will come at the end - - it doesn't come along very often. :)
I see so many similarities and also differences. The first similarity is having to pull myself back to "the land of the living" and take care of my child when I get so absorbed in the story. :)
Whether or not my characters, the hero and heroine at least, come to me fully grown determines if I will write the story at all. It's pretty cut and dried that way; characters first, story second. And many stories have been abandoned when I didn't follow that pattern. It's the plot that trips me up, but that's something I can persevere with looking for solutions much more so than getting to know the characters.
Melissa - don't I know that the high doesn't come often. LOL!! And the whole return to the land of the living thing.... Some days is harder than others.... :)
So, you're a characters first, plot second writer. I think that we kind of fall into two categories that way. I'm more plot first, characters second. As mentioned, I don't get them until I start writing them. So I start with plot and wait for them to tell me if the plot I set out works for them or not.... :)
Hal - She definitely wasn't listening to me. Maybe Sarah's one of those who won't suffer in silence, ya know? LOL!
And one of the reasons we make such great CPs is that our process is so similar. A rush to the finish line it is!!
Naomi's getting tortured too?! Awesome!
You think they'll let us share a patted cell at Bellevue? And do you think it has internet access?
Padded. Not patted. Ugh.
I hate to admit this, but it's been a couple years since I finished my last manuscript and I don't really remember how it was at the end.
I really need to write faster.
My characters tend to evolve. I am under the mistaken impression the come to me fully formed, but I just don't know them yet. Like friends I know I'll be friends with forever, but I don't know their background and quirks yet. I know their wit and intelligence, I know a few quirks or their ways of dealing with people--but I don't know them as if I knew them from the cradle. (Though admittedly, I have a friend I've known practically from the cradle and though we'd claim to know each other better than we practically know ourselves, there are many times we surprise each other--so I don't think you can ever know anyone completely. They're always evolving.)
Anyway, this book STARTED a lot like my other book started. The initial beginning came easy--it was fun, I was feeling it--and of course, it was completely the WRONG beginning. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. So then it stagnated for a while as I tried to get everyone to go to group therapy and figure everything out, figure out where I was going, contemplate whether I really wanted to be a writer if all my characters were going to be consummate pains in the ass. There were months I'd go back to my previous relationship (GOGU) to get that thrill of what it's like when you truly know and love someone, to feel like I really know what I'm doing, but it wasn't long before I remembered why that story was finished and why I shouldn't try to take up with old flames.
Eventually I got a new beginning; and I plotted out some stuff; and I wrote. And then finally after coming back to the empty screen long enough, the angels returned and started whispering the story to me again. And I've been trying to write it down ever since. Most of the time it feels like it writes itself, but then I think, Lord, you've spent 2 years percolating on this idea and storyline. (Which is completely demoralizing if I think too much about it.)
I'm in the middle-ish--nowhere close to you guy's phenomenal numbers--but so far, the angels still whisper and I still write. To put it in perspective, I've had about 10,000 words completed probably from Summer 2007 to Summer 2008; and another 10,000 words completed from Summer 2008 to Summer 2009--and in the last month, I've written 10,000 more words. The last 10,000 words I've written came far easier, more interesting, more fun than the previous 20,000. Why is that? I don't know. My Muse is a sadist, maybe? (Actually it's probably because I haven't queried GOGU for several months. Not being rejected every other day has helped with my writing. *snorts*)
I'm sorry. This is too long. My first writing on a story idea is always trashed because it's godawful--so by the time I've tweaked the beginning properly, the middle is somewhat torturous and the end usually comes out pretty fast. It helps though that by then I'm sharing the story with CPs who email and ask, "What's happening now? When can I read it?"
Hellie - this sounds something like how I go too. Tweak tweak tweak the beginning, slog through the center, and then just ride the way to the end. :)
And yay for getting going again! That's awesome. And God bless CPs who email with, "how's it going?" reminders. Excited prods are better than the prods I give myself, which go more like, "gah! you suck!! this is taking FOREVER you stinking slacker!!"
LOL!
Oh yeah, we can share a padded cell *g* We'll tell each other stories from the voices in our heads. It'll be good times :)
“gah! you suck!! this is taking FOREVER you stinking slacker!!”
This is totally what my bitchy old man says. He's sorta a cross between Walter the puppet (Jeff Dunham) and that old military guy on the History Channel who yells at you. "What are you doing? Hussle, hussle, hussle!"
Hal - of course we'll tell each other what the voices in our head are doing. We're NUTS!
Hellie - I love Walter! LOL!! And as I've said before, mine is more a whiny teenager. She should just finish it, "I wanna go fill up my IPOD!"
Walter is my favorite (he reminds me of my father--even Dad snorts at him when he sees him and Dad doesn't really like any TV programming. "This is all crap." See, totally Walter, my father.) but I have a "crush" (if you will) on Ackmed (sp?) because he's so darned hilarious.
"INFIDEL! Shut up! I keeeellll you!"
Hmmm, well, by character first, story second, the characters don't come to me existing in a void exactly. (Picturing a white, empty room, but maybe that's the Belleview cell you and Hal are occupying. lol) The setting, environment and secondary characters are imagined pretty fully formed too, as extensions of the hero and heroine. Maybe it did come to me in a dream. I don't know. When it comes that way, it's as if someone gave me a gift. It's a very rare thing.
But that's as much "easy" I'm apparently allowed for writing. The rest is hard, hard, hard. The occasional gift of fully formed characters is almost like a responsibility to write a story worthy of them. I try to abandon them, I really do, but feel very guilty about it. :)
Hey Hellie and Marnee - you were supposed to throw those voices to the kracken!
Marnee - I totally agree with you. I'm a plot first girl, then the characters come to me. Ideas for both come to me in snippets, but its the "waht it this happened" question that comes to my mind first.
Character vs Plot: which comes first. I usually think of character first, I think, but maybe I don't. I think I think of a situation first--not the whole plot but a situation--and then I start thinking about the characters. Then my plots derives out of those characters.
Like: what if a guy, who has the reputation for being a cheater, gets shot in front of his wife by an unknown woman? Is the guy a cheater? What does his wife think/do? Who is the woman who shoots him?
OR: Do you think Adam & Eve ever had to go to marriage counseling due to that whole "apple thing" because I'd be pissed if a man refused to take his share of the blame in a situation and left me holding the bag, if you will. If he thought he was ever getting it again, he is deluding himself... (I'm not much of a forgiver.)
See, I think of a situation, but is that the same as plot?
Do I get smacked by the pantsers here if I say situation is like plot?
Yes?
Ok, then no, not at all. COMPLETELY different....
Melissa - I think only one of my characters has ever come fully formed to me. And he'll be the hero of my next book. I'm not sure exactly why he's the one for me, but there he is. And his heroine is pretty clear to me now too. :)
I couldn't resist putting him in this one, though. I heart him.
Hellie - Ahh! Achmed (sp again?) One of my friends was him for Halloween last year. LOL! It was funny. "I KEEELLL you!!"
Sabrina - I'm a "what if this happened" gal myself. That's how I get myself going. What if, what if, and then the characters sorta develop from there.
I think either way works, with each having their own difficulties. I think when plotting first runs the risk of stilted characters. And I think characters first runs the risk of a less concise story, what with following characters around. :)
Pick our poisons, I guess.
It's BRIEF plotting. I go immediately to character after having the situation arise!
A situation is a pantser's best friend. I need a situation or scene to get started, and where that scene occurs in the book doesn't matter. I think I have a bad habit of the situation being a prologue, or some sort of backstory that will probably need to get the ax, but it gets things started.
Is it a plot, or an inciting incident? I usually come up with the inciting incident first, whatever situation is going to kick off the story, and then the characters grow from that.
Though the book I'm half-plotting in the back of my mind right now is a wreck. I have the inciting incident, but no idea how that matches up with the plot or the characters.
Marn, I think I’m opposite to you too. I start off okay when everything is fresh and new in my head, but as I work deeper into the plot the words come more slowly as I have to try to figure everything out—I’m now hoping that because I plotted out the whole book on this new story, that part will lessen and the middle will write more smoothly. But we’ll have to see. As to characters, I don’t always know them inside and out, but I like that. I like being able to figure out how they tick along the way. Makes things interesting. Good luck finishing up!
I haven't written a full length anything in a year- at least- so I can't fully remember that rush you get at the end.
Inciting incident. Hmmm.... Is that like THE BEGINNING OF A PLOT!?!!
LMAO!!
I'm just poking fun, people. No need to panic. I know you're all rebel-like. It's cool with me. :)
Melissa - that backstory stuff is good stuff. I do the same thing. :) I have a little something like that at the beginning of my story too, but I worry it needs the axe too.
JK - You and Tiff. I think she said she works the same way, though I suspect Tiff's more of a pantser. :) Have you plotted in the past or do you just roll with it usually?
I like figuring out how they tick as I go along too. Keeps it interesting. (Sometimes TOO interesting.)
Sin - it's ok, girl. When you finish up before the GH, all that good feeling is going to come back to you. :)
I start with characters. I write detailed biographies of the H/H and secondary characters, brief biographies of tertiary characters. With Max's band, for example, two of them have important roles in the story, and I have three-page bios of them. The other band members only get a page or so.
While I'm working on the biographies, scenes come to me. Those scenes are the gifts--easy in terms of words and action. I rack up words, most with little effort so long as I'm writing scenes. There is no order to this writing. I wrote my black moment and my final scene fairly early in the process. When the well runs dry on the scenes, I put them in order and start working on the stitch-together scenes. Those transitions are where I struggle the hardest. I write and cut and write and cut. Then when I start revisions I cut and rewrite, cut and rewrite forever.
At the moment I have a hole in TLWH where I cut three chapters. So far I don't know what will fill in the hole. So far I have written three possibilities, and I don't like any of them.
But I have new, more detailed bios for the H/H of Home Is a Four-Letter Word (book 2 of 3)and shorter bios for three characters new to the series. I also have about 20K keepable words in scenes for book 2. I hope to have another 25K by the end of this month. I even have the opening scene and what may be a flashback for Who Says You Can't Go Home? (book 3). I know my process would drive most of you crazy, but there are other writers who work as non-linearly as I do.
Marn is a TAIL TWEAKER! TWEAKER!
Janga, you can write as non-linearly as possible so long as you publish and don't keep us waiting like Marsha Moyer does.
Janga - these stories sound wonderful! :) And your process is very interesting. Very different than mine, but very interesting. I've always found non-linear writing so cool, but I can't do it. I'm roadblocked unless I write in a line. But The Long Way Home (and its sequels) sound like they're going to rock hard.
Hells - LOL!
Great blog, Marnee!
I wish I had more written. It seems as though, every time I sit down to write-there's just no words. I hsve lots of ideas, I know where the story goes. *sigh* I know the problem-I'm scared. Yep, I'm afraid that what I write is the worst crap ever.
Di
I did earn me woman of leisure time...trust me!
I don't really plot, but I do feel me characters plot behind me back...
Ya know the headsmack Gibbs keeps usin' on NCIS? That's me, the grunt, while me characters be Gibbs.
;) Do I need ta invite the Kraken back fer a visit?
I do tend to start strong, then run outta breath, stagger at the middle and sometimes I gets me second wind in time fer the end of a WIP, sometimes I get lost on the route, and sometimes I crawl across that finish ribbon. No pattern.
Chance - LOL! "sometimes I gets me second wind in time fer the end of a WIP, sometimes I get lost on the route, and sometimes I crawl across that finish ribbon. No pattern." This cracked me up. Don't get much more of a pantser than that. LOL!!
Di - *hugs* Trust me, I've definitely believed at one point or another that what I'm writing is the worst crap ever. I think everyone feels like that sometimes (back me up people, it's not just me right?).
What works for me is just writing the worst crap ever and then coming back later to fix it. Sometimes it is the worst crap ever and completely unredeemable. But sometimes it's not as bad as I thought it was. Just needs a little TLC. :)
Good luck!
Janga, your non-linear method sounds wonderful!I can't switch between stories very well (I wish!), but I do write scenes out of order within the story. What appeals to me with this approach is the potential to be almost surprised with how much progress you've made. Like voila!(sp?), just a few holes to fill. :) It's not that simple, of course, but I also prefer to whittle away at manageable pieces and have something to revise.
I would like to be surprised by my progress. Instead, I stare at the wordcounter on Word, wondering why it's taking so long to increase. LOL!
Marnee, I'm always looking for tricks, some way to fool myself that writing isn't work. :) I like what Chance says about feeling like her characters plot behind her back. Hey, if they do the work...lol
"Hey, if they do the work..." LOL!!
Seriously. Why we gotta pull all the weight around here? LOL!!
The beginning is usually fast for me. If the first chapter (first scene!) is like pulling teeth, I feel like I must be doing something wrong. If I can't get excited about the beginning, why would anyone else?
Usually in the middle I feel a little turned around and confused—I can only hope the story's making forward progress, because I'm way too close to it to be able to tell.
And usually, the end comes fairly quickly for me—especially the black moment. (I love those scenes!!) But the final resolution usually takes a lot of care.
On my last MS (which you haven't seen yet), the end was really tough because I hadn't hammered out all the details of how they were going to catch the bad guys. I had to think about it for a couple days, and finally go back and delete part of the scene—I'd written myself into a corner.
And then the ending dragged on, both in the writing and the concluding. I made the mistake of writing an epilogue, instead of putting the ending where it belonged. (But I just wanted to know how he was going to propose!)
The characters torment me the whole time with the "hurry up and get to this part! I have the cleverest dialogue EVER and if you don't hurry up and get there you'll forget it!" and the "ooh, when you get here, let's throw in this twist!"
Q: Where'd you get the image? I really want to do a silhouette like that on Rebecca's wall (specifically, a tree, and a girl reading a book on the grass beneath it. Maybe by a pond. Maybe with another kid in the tree. And then make a picture frame to put on the wall around the picture. Um, anyway.)
You know, when Hellie goes AWOL, someone notices. When I go AWOL, no one notices. Where's the love, people?
I don't have much to contribute anyway. I spent 2 years coming up with less than 100 pages and I can't even creep into the middle never mind get to the end of anything.
I can say my characters come first and I know where they are, small town, small island, etc... But the plot takes a bit more time.
I woulda missed ya if'n I'd been here, T.
Ah, geez. Terrio! Cry me a river! You were in school! Studying hard! I've been at Momma Chances fer two weeks and written nothing but nasty erotica. ('cause a' the stress...really.) But I ain't whining about it. (I actually enjoy writin' nasty erotica, but...nevermind...)
NO MORE WHINING! What is this, a contest for who did the least the longest!?
Or who writes the worst crap ever?!
(Would you believe I got a massage this morning and I'm still this crabby?) ;!
Is this a record? I killed the blog again!?
Jordan - I think you're right, that the resolution takes a lot of care. I'm going to write my black moment tonight (the real black moment, not the gray moments I've been writing) and I realized as I was driving today that I don't want to rush this part. I have four more chapters to write and I really need to think them out. :)
As for the image... Here ya go....
http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/u81/midnight_dreams.jpg
Ter - I noticed, but I didn't want to harass if you were busy. :) I figured you'd get here and ya did!!
Characters first, huh? I think a lot of the pantsers seem to be characters first folks. Very interesting....
Chance- You didn't kill the blog again! :) And that's hilarious that being at your mom's house makes you write erotica. :)
And no one sucks the worst... (Wait, that sounds funny...)
Chance, if you break a record for killing the blog it's likely because you are on the west coast. :)
Terri, you have tons to contribute and I did miss your witty comments. You WILL finish. It took me half my life to finish I think, which is probably not encouraging. I'd like to think that finishing one manuscript would mean I would suddenly write faster, plot faster, or do a lot things faster from now on. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. :) It does feel good to say my FIRST manuscript, but I might not ever write another. I'll have to be okay with that, just like being okay with referring to having a FIRST husband when I may not have another. lol
I don't know how some writers are so prolific. There are probably many reasons, but I don't think there is a word count requirement for gaining the title of writer.
Melissa, when I saw Julie&Julia and she whines about not being a writer I just want to scream at the screen - YES, YOU ARE! DUMMY!
Doesn't matter if you finish, if you publish...how many words you write. If you write, by definition, you are a writer. Make that when you write!
I like that first husband thing! LOL!
Sorry, I'm cranky. LOL! It's this damn fatigue. That's what I was doing today. One of the things anyway. Trying to get the doctor to figure out what I need to stay awake! Then after a morning of running, I slept all afternoon. *sigh*
I never said I'm not a writer. LOL! I just can't get to THE END. For a person who needs to feel like I'm accomplishing something, it's most annoying.
I had that same reaction watching J&J.
Oh, and I could say "first husband" I guess, but since there is yet to be a second husband, I simply say "the ex." Well, I've been known to call him other things, but I won't type all those here. ;)
As long as you don't have doubts about being a writer, then finishing is just a matter of time. :) I know what it's like to need to finish for the sense of accomplishment.
The non-linear approach, as Janga described, really helped me finish. I didn't write that way the first half and thought I needed a very straight course, chapter by chapter. My thought was I'd just make things harder for myself in revision. But if I hadn't skipped around, I'd probably still be bogged down in the middle.
2nd: you need to come up with a drink called Blog Killer...
I also think there should be a Tail Tweaker drink.
I just got a 2 hour massage and ate chinese food. Life is good.
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