We Are Temporarily Experiencing Higher Call Volume than Anticipated, Your Patience is Appreciated

I'm busy finishing up the final pages of draft three on the novel and getting the last of the holiday shopping finished up, so time is a bit crunched. In lieu of a new post, here's an oldie but goodie and TOTALLY seasonally appropriate:

The Hallelujah Post

Revision - Part 2

While draft two was more complete - the characters more fully fleshed out, the plot holding together, and the major themes and imagery developing nicely - there were more questions to address in the next draft, and, once again I was faced with the dilemma of starting over with a blank piece of paper of editing from what was already on the page.

I should point out, I did read through draft two and made notes to myself, quite extensive notes, about how scenes needed to change. This was my "time to get real" draft, and anything that I was still in the hopeful stage about (as in the "I hope this works, but I know it doesn't") had to go or change. In some cases I left exercises for myself in the margins - list ten things Matt's feeling about Katami, list ten things Rachelle can say to Matt, ten things Alan's thinking - or rewrote passages on the back of the page. Once I began working on draft three, I would put Post-it Notes on the appropriate page as ideas came to me or I knew I would want an image to echo in specific scene later in the novel.

Draft three was the "figuring out the best way to tell the story" draft - the time to work out the structure of the novel (now that I knew what it was about, were there ways in which the form could work with the theme better?), really nail down the timeline, figure out what's working and make sure there wasn't anything in the novel that hadn't earned its place there. I also got really, really real about dialogue and became ruthless with what I call placeholder dialogue - the kind of dialogue characters speak when you know they have to have a particular conversation but you don't know enough about your characters yet to make it subtle.

Once again, I started out thinking I would cut and paste and edit from draft two. I mean, the draft was pretty solid. It was my MFA thesis and my thesis advisor called it one of the most fully realized theses she'd ever read, so why shouldn't I be able to zoom through this draft simply making changes to the existing text? And, once again, I tried for a couple of weeks to do this before succumbing to the blank document method of creating draft three. In this case, the blank document made it possible to break the novel open in an interesting way.

Like I said, this was my "get real" draft, and I had a transition in the first ten pages that had bothered me from the time this was a short story. In every draft I jumped from the very dramatic opening where Matt's older brother dies in a car accident right to the funeral. Then I was faced with the problem of having to introduce a whole bunch of characters (some of them major) in a gang shot - here's Matt's mother, here's his stepdad, here's the stepdad's mother and his sisters, and the dead brother's ex-girlfriend, and, for good measure, let me throw in Matt's soon-to-be-girlfriend whom he hasn't even met yet but he imagines her sitting in the church with them. It was character soup.

Faced with the "get real" moment, I asked myself what I was gaining by not showing the four days between the accident and the funeral. The answer led me to the creation of fifty or so new pages, new scenes that let me introduce all these characters one at a time, give them their moment on the stage, and then move on to another moment.

This change set the stage for draft three being a complete overhaul of draft two. The difference this time was that nothing was created that wasn't needed, wasn't demanded by the story. Maybe 15,000 words out of the 100,000+ in draft three were also in draft two, and there's only one scene in the entire novel that has survived pretty much intact from when this was a short story. It's still the same story, but it's like buying a used car and replacing all the major components and refurbishing the interior so it's still the same car, but everything's shiny and new and it runs great.

Now I'm in the "telling the story in the best way possible" draft and finally able to edit rather than rewrite. This draft focuses on the language and making sure that all the components are doing as much work as they possibly can. If there's a detail, it has to add something to the reader's understanding of character and plot. This draft is also about making sure that the flow in the piece as a whole feels continuous and builds and ebbs where it should. This is the moment for noticing the mechanics - how is the story being told (what's the mixture of narrative and scene)? Does the dialogue sound authentic for the characters? Do scenes begin and end where they should? Is there enough variation or do I have too many characters doing things that are too similar? Do I use the same description too many times? Is it solid or are there still moments where I'm only hoping it works?

So far, it's going well, and I'm really, really happy with the novel. Even though almost every page is bleeding red, all the parts are in the right place, the characters have their own space, and no one is wandering around in search of a plot anymore.

Revision - Part 1

(This week, I'm embarking on a series of posts about the revision process.)

Almost every writer hears the adage "90% of writing is rewriting" at least once in their lives (usually much, much more than that). You can read it, or some similar sentiment, in almost every book on writing even though most books on writing dedicate 90% of their pages to the construction of a story and 10% to revision. Even trying to get writers to talk about revision can be frustrating because it seems to be something you should just innately know how to do.

On one level, this is true. When I wrote my first novel at 13, I immediately began rewriting it. By the time I was finished, I was 16 and had completely rewritten the novel from beginning to end. Revision seemed to be quite simple and straight-forward. But then, so did writing.

Now I know better (or worse, depending on your perspective), and the revision process on my current novel has been anything but straight-forward. Each stage of the process has been fraught with anxiety and panic, most likely because a previous novel disintegrated like tissue paper in the rain during the revision process, and I was worried the same fate might await this novel. This was the main reason I went to grad school. I wanted to be in an environment where, if the novel started to fall apart, I could get help. Which worked, sort of. I ended up developing my own theory of revision and creating a map to help me through the process. The other week, when the novel started veering off course, I went back to my map and realized I had inadvertently tripped over into a new phase of revision and was, once again, running along without feeling the ground under my feet, making it up as I go along. The good news is I've reached the home stretch of the revision process - I'm into the editing and polishing phase. The likelihood of the novel falling apart here is minimal because all the pieces are in place and they fit very nicely.

The process I outlined for myself is a continuum of writing from the triggering impulse of the project to the very last word you write or change. It has four stages: telling yourself the story, telling the story, figuring out the best way to tell the story, and telling the story in the best way possible. A lot of the process is rewriting in the "start over with a blank sheet of paper" vein of rewriting. I'd heard of writers doing this and was filled with horror at the thought. All those words I'd labored over, all that time and hard work and anxiety, wiped out. Except they weren't totally wiped out. The first draft became the outline for the second. Having completed the first draft (telling myself the story), I now knew what my story was about and where it was going, so I was in a better position to understand which scenes worked in service to the story and which were superfluous (that first draft had a LOT of "character wandering around in search of plot" scenes) and where there were still gaps in my understanding of characters and plot. So draft two became about actually telling the story.

The difference between telling yourself the story and telling the story is like the difference between experiencing something and then telling your friends about it afterwards. You have the benefit of knowing what's going to happen, so you can pick and choose the details that are important and add information that makes the story better. You don't need to tell about the phone call that kept you at the office if the adventure was getting lost while hiking on the weekend. Same thing in writing. Now that you know what your story is about, you can start making sure your scenes, your images, your details line up in service to the story.

Is it possible to do that without scraping everything you wrote? Sure. I initially thought I'd print out my novel by scene, rearrange the scenes, cut and paste and wa la! Instant draft two. That didn't work for me. With this novel, there was too much that needed to move, be rewritten, added. Some of that may be because this novel started out as a short story and draft one happened when the short story began unpacking itself. So I started over with a clean sheet of paper and retyped EVERYTHING. I was completely stymied by the whole process, even down to the physicality of where to put draft one so I could see it while I typed. I kid you not. I finally had to tell myself it's okay to walk off the edge of the world without a parachute and just get to work.

I'm going to leave this here for now. Next week, I'll take us through draft two and the telling the story in the best way possible phase.

Sometimes I Forget

Sometimes I forget one of the most fundamental lessons I've learned about writing (and, probably, one of the most fundamental lessons in life):

Nothing is written in stone.

I forgot this lesson this past weekend and got myself caught up in a full blown panic attack as I felt like the novel was careening out of control just as I was reaching out for the homestretch. I felt like I'd lost touch with the novel's essential themes and was adding endless new (and, most likely, unnecessary) scenes that were only set-blocking. Scenes that had no dramatic reason for being included except for the fact that I had to go from Point A to Point D and the logic circuits of my brain were saying that I had to include Points B and C as well, but they were dramatically uninteresting and not relevant to the plot of the novel.

And I so wanted to be done with the draft this weekend so I could go back being somewhat functional. Even I'm getting tired of putting things off "until after the novel's done" and I'm sure everyone around me is sick of this excuse, too (I mean, I missed all of Lit Quake (SF's fantastic two-week long literary festival at which some of my friends and favorite authors were reading) because, at this point in writing, I don't want to hear, see or read anyone else's words except my own).

In the clear, bright-eyed post-Halloween morning, I realize my panic is unnecessary. Yes, those scenes will probably be edited out or changed so they are dramatically relevant BECAUSE NOTHING IS WRITTEN IN STONE. Even years after his books were published, Faulkner was still revising them and editing them to get closer to what he was intending to say. I don't want to be like that. I want there to be an end point, but, and here's the main point: at this point in the writing process, no matter how much I want it to be the end, it's not. And there isn't anything that's on paper right now that can't be changed, eliminated or made stronger.

So, I'm better now. Feeling a little more grounded in the novel. I had to mark a couple of places as "come back to this" just to get myself back in alignment with the ending, and I may have to work backwards from my ending to make sure everything lines up, that the emotional clock ticks forward the way it's supposed to (right now it feels like my main character veers too suddenly, goes from being a good kid to being a bad-ass).

It's uncomfortable, feeling the novel go out of control like this right at the end, but as long as I keep breathing and reminding myself that I can fix whatever I don't like, I should be okay.

Let Me Call You Cupcake

I've been putting in a lot of hours at the computer lately, and talking about things I've learned as I work on the draft of my novel in this blog. Tonight, I want to talk about something sweet and fluffy: cupcakes.

Last year, my younger son was obsessed with baking shows on TV. Cake Boss was probably our favorite, but we also watched Ace of Cakes, Ultimate Cake-off, and, finally, Cupcake Wars. We learned decorating terms like fondant, isomalt,and modeling chocolate, and that you can create just about anything out of crisped rice treats. One of my favorite blogs is Cake Wrecks.

I like cupcakes. I grew up at a time when you only got cupcakes when someone had a birthday and their mom was extra nice and made something for the class. Not all moms did this when I was growing up, as opposed to now when every birthday comes complete with cupcakes for the class. So cupcakes are still something special to me.

Living in a large metropolitan area means I've gotten to benefit from the cupcake shop trend, and there are a few in San Francisco I like to visit.

My favorite is Teacake in Burlingame. Of all the shops I've been to, Teacake has the best combination of cake and frosting in terms of mouth feel and taste. Their flavors are a little limited - vanilla and chocolate with vanilla and chocolate buttercream and one or two special flavors each day. October has been great because they've featured a pumpkin cupcake and an apple crumb cupcake, both with cream cheese buttercream frosting. My spouse all likes Teacake because they do frosting shots of any flavor frosting you'd like. It's $1.00 and you get a generous amount of frosting served in the holder for a mini-cupcake. Kind of a sweet deal for someone who likes frosting a lot more than cake. And their frosting is really good. Not too sweet, not too heavy on the butter side of buttercream.

My next favorite is Cups and Cakes Bakery in San Francisco. These photos don't do justice to their amazing cupcakes, but pictured here are Pineapple Upside Down Cake and Pancake Breakfast. Their flavors are outrageous. Fauxstess, Boston Cream Pie, Rainbow Bright, Peanut Butter Cup, Rootbeer Float, need I go on? One thing I really love about Cups and Cakes is that almost all their featured flavors are available each day in regular and mini (not all flavors are available every day, but you can do special and custom orders. A friend of mine spied an order of Blue Velvet going out the door one time when she was there, and that's not a flavor they have on their menu). If there's one fault with these cupcakes, it's that the frosting is a bit on the sweet side. Still...I love the hot pink storefront and the fact that there's always parking on the street where they live.

Last up is Cako Bakery in Japantown. Cako's has some pretty awesome flavors. That's my younger son's favorite pictured - S'mores with toasted marshmallow frosting and graham cracker base. They also have a Blueberry Cheesecake, Cookies and Cream, Pink Lemonade, and 24 Karat, along with the more traditional flavors. My one complaint with Cako's is that their frosting is often too heavy on the butter side of buttercream leaving me with a mouthful of lightly flavored grease. This is especially true if you order one of the more traditional flavors where the cake isn't as sweet. With Cookies and Cream or some of their more exotic flavors, the cake is sweeter and makes up for the lack of sugar in the frosting. Still...the cake itself is probably the best of the three, and the extras like crushed cookies or graham crackers layered under the cake is phenomenal.

I've yet to hit a couple of the other Bay Area staples for cupcakes: Kara's Cupcakes and Susie Cakes, but I'm sure I'll get to them eventually.

And now, back to the novel...

Shakespeare in Love or In Love with Shakespeare

Home-schooled Teen and I have begun our new school year together, and this year is all about Shakespeare. I'm excited since the last time I really looked at Shakespeare I was all of 21. Granted, it was during my study-abroad semester in London and we went to at least one Shakespeare play a week, many of them by the RSC, but I was 21 and not that widely nor deeply read as I am now.

Last year, HST and I read some of the foundational books of the Western canon - Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, the Aeneid and the Inferno. This year, we are reading, more or less in order: Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar (with the addition of reading Plutarch's chapter on Caesar), Richard III, Henry V, Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Over the summer, we saw a production of Macbeth and read The Tempest (we were supposed to see a production of Tempest, but that's a whole different kettle of fish). My idea is to circle back to Shakespeare's final play so we can look at how he developed certain themes through his career.

I am excited about this year for a number of reasons. One, I really do love Shakespeare and often forget how much I love him until I pick up or see one of his plays. And then remember all over again how amazing a writer he is. Two, I am going to be teaching a class at Buena Vista University in Iowa this January about appropriation, and the Bard is a master appropriator. Having read the books we read last year, I find myself picking up on his references to the Aeneid in many of his plays. But he also used folktales, popular plays by other writers, gossip, Plutarch, Virgil and almost any other writer with whom the public might be familiar to recontextualize themes and characters who were well-known. Three, I find some of the themes he returns to fascinating. The public versus the private self. The roles people assume and what makes a king a king (I'm not a Shakespearean scholar, but I would almost guarantee that some of the very first seeds of the American Revolution were sown from Henry V and Shakespeare's musing on the idea that a king is just a man with good props). And, four, this time period in European history is incredible. The more I learn, the more fascinated I am with it. We may think our country is in turmoil right now, but it is nothing, NOTHING compared to 16th century Europe with the conflict between the Catholic Church and the Protestants, the rise of the moneyed merchant class, colonization of North America, a woman (WOMAN!) on the throne of England, and the rise of England as the dominant world power. The intrigue, the politics, the social upheaval. How could it not be the stuff of great stories?

So, HST and I have embarked. Our first stop on this voyage is Taming of the Shrew, probably one of the most controversial plays for contemporary audiences. One critic I read as I was preparing my study guide of HST talked about how, though the play is a farce, it can't be forgotten that Shakespeare was a man and how constrained women's roles were during this age. True. But I think it forgets that this is also the man who presents more nuanced roles for women in his other plays. Why would he have other female characters who have great strength and ask us, in this farce, to take Katherine at face value when she talks about the rightful domination of women by men? It's a difficult play for contemporary women to stomach, I agree. I saw a production that went the full nine yards of making Kate a victim of domestic violence. HST and I have just started, so I'll post again about some of the conclusions we come to, and I've paired Shrew up with Romeo and Juliet, so we have two looks at marriage in radically different plays that both, at their heart, turn on the idea of arranged marriage versus marriage for love.

Getting Near the End

I went away to a lovely little house on the Russian River last week so I could get some writing done, and ended up with forty-eight pages and 13,000 words, which means I'm about seventy pages from the end.

For the most part, the next seventy pages will be some of the easiest writing of the entire draft. I've got very few notes from my draft two read-through, which means I'm just typing, adding in some layering, some deeper understandings of the characters and the imagery of the novel that have developed during the writing of the third draft. With the exception of one sequence of scenes (which I've mapped out so thoroughly at this point), I won't be writing large chunks of new text. Although, I've said that before and found myself writing LOTS of new text in this draft. In a strange way, draft three is the same as the previous draft, and in some ways, it's radically different.

On Facebook, I'm inundating my friends with updates about how many pages I've written, and my frustrations with interruptions (I returned to a remodel in one of our neighbor's houses) and just fitting my life in when my mind is perpetually elsewhere. At this point, Altar is officially the longest thing I've ever written and the longest I've ever spent writing something. One of my friends asked me what I'm going to do after it's done, and I jokingly said, "Go to Disneyland." To which she replied, "That's not a bad idea." I know. I feel it starting already. Though there will be editing to do when (fingers crossed) the novel gets taken by an agent and bought by an editor, it will not occupy me in the same way the writing does. I will not live with my characters in the way I do now. For one thing, I will have moved on to the next project by the time that comes about, for another, I won't have to be living so deeply in the story.

So what does it feel like right now? Fluid. Very fluid. I feel a lightness, an ease not only in my mind, but in my body. I am smiling a lot these days. For the most part, small annoyances (like rude drivers) don't stick with me. I get cranky when I can't get to the words (like earlier this week - re-entry was rough with a long list of things that had piled up while I was away. I still haven't worked my way through all of it), I get cranky with my family when they ask to borrow my time for things that were completely avoidable (aka: when the kids call because they've forgotten something at home that they need for school ASAP), and I get cranky when the hammering starts up in the remodel and interrupts my flow of words.

I am posting word totals to Facebook because that is truly what is going on in my life right now. Words. On the page. The story flowing forward in such a beautiful and profound way it's almost like it's not even me writing it at times. It seems to come through me rather than from me. And that is when writing is at its best. There is a tension building as I write ever closer to the final words, as I write towards some of my favorite scenes in the entire book, as I envision myself staring at the computer screen and hearing the printer churn out page after page of the completed manuscript.

I think what surprises me most is how easy it has been to follow this story to this conclusive moment. Over the years, I've heard of writers who spend decades on a single novel and wondered how they could do that, how they could maintain the focus, how they could not drive themselves mad with all the other ideas they weren't getting to. The answer turns out to be that it's surprisingly simple when the idea, the characters, the way the story develops continues to surprise you, to delight you, to reward your attention by getting better and deeper. It hasn't been easy. I have put this story down many times. It started as a 25-page short story in 1999. It grew into a novella a couple of years later. Three years ago, it turned into a full-fledged novel, and here I am, at last, reaching out for the end.