I'd Rather Be...

Instead of going to the Clark Kent job at 3 and staying there until closing tonight, therefore effectively killing my Saturday, I'd much rather be...

Flying a kite. Listening to the new Murder By Death album, which I just got yesterday. Grocery shopping. Doing laundry. At the beach, starting a campfire. Walking through the woods. Visiting a waterfall. Reading a Stephen King novel. Organizing my sock drawer. Cooking steak sandwiches. Having a beer (or three). Watching a movie. Playing with my cats. Talking about the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek ships, and debating which ones are more awesome. Painting. Building a bookshelf. Swimming in my parents' pool. Exploring an abandoned house. Going on a Zorb. Memorizing all fifty state fish in alphabetical order. Doing important research on leftover Easter candy. Rocketing into space to visit the space station. Cleaning out Jeff. Learning sleight of hand. Finding incredible new movie trailers to watch. Talking about which Hobbit was coolest (Samwise has my vote). Picking strawberries. Taking a nap. Climbing trees.

But most of all, I'd rather be...


WRITING.

What about you? Got something you'd rather be doing? Is your RESPONSIBILITY getting in the way of your CREATIVITY? I know how you feel, friend.

Sleepwriting

My best ideas always come at the most inconvenient times - I think I may have mentioned this in my entry about the voice recorder on my phone. I know part of this is because these times are when my brain is the most relaxed, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating to have a good idea and forget it before I can write the details of it down.

My best ideas come in either the shower, the car, or in that hazy place between waking and sleeping, after I've turned off the light for the evening (as the Arcade Fire says, "between the click of the light, and the start of the dream"). The shower's not such a bad place, because I can get to my computer or paper and pen fairly quickly, so I won't lose much of the idea. Same goes for being in the car, especially now that I've realized I have a nifty voice recorder on my cell phone. As I'm falling asleep, however...

That dreamy, half-awake-half-asleep span (I read somewhere it takes the human brain about seven minutes to shut down and unplug all its connections to the "real" world) is always the time I get the absolute best ideas. I think a large part of it comes from my brain being so relaxed and allowing everything to flow through it at once, instead of struggling to sort thoughts and impulses into their proper pigeonholes (one of the hallmarks of ADD is learning to compartmentalize every idea as it comes). My thoughts hover between imagination and dreaming. I think it's interesting how the two states are so similar, yet the former is conscious-driven and voluntary while the latter is powered by our lower brains and we have no choice of what we dream about. At the point of sleep taking over, my imagination sometimes melds with my dreaming brain and I start dreaming about my story.

Often in years past I'd have a good idea and, just before falling asleep, convince myself I'd be able to remember it in the morning. I'd spend the last few seconds of waking concentrating as hard as I could on the idea, so it (in theory) would be the first thing I thought of when I woke up in the morning. This tactic rarely worked. More often than not I would remember I'd thought of something... but I'd have no idea what the details were. Such a frustrating feeling.

Sometimes I'm able to fend off sleep long enough to sit up and jot down a few notes, which is why I keep a pen and pad of paper near the bed. And then sometimes what happened last night happens... I turn over, reach down, pull open my laptop, and engage in a bit of sleepwriting.

Last night as I was passing out, I was hit with a vision of perfect clarity: my antagonist, standing in the grocery store with her hand on a can of beans, listening to a voice in her head. It was so perfect I could even see the label on the beans and hear the stupid muzak pouring out of the overheard speakers. I couldn't shake the vision, so I shrugged off sleep for a moment and took advantage of the clarity in my mind.

I carved out about 400 words, which isn't much, but I don't remember writing a bit of it. I went back and read it this morning am pleased with the result. Not only did I get down the idea which had popped into my almost-sleeping mind, I'd managed to fluidly work it into the current scene. It was fun to read back over, too. Kind of like a letter from my subconscious. I guess it's little scenes like that which help me know I'm still on the right track with this story, over all the months, words, and pages spent on its creation.

Priming the Pump

I've been wrestling with a block for the last few days. It's not that I don't know what to write about next, because almost the whole novel is in my head now. It's more that I either don't have the time or the energy to forge ahead in the story. My Clark Kent job has been kicking my ass the past few days, as it is wont to do every now and again. When I get home, all I want to do is vegetate.

But there's a job to be done... (cue superhero theme music here) ...and no one to do it but me. Let me tell you, being a self-motivator is difficult for me. Especially when I have things working against me like exhaustion and burnout and that all-time champeen of time wasters, Mr. Attention Deficit Disorder. I've been a disorganized time waster my whole life. My study habits (when they existed) used to make my mother, an elementary school teacher, clutch her head and moan miserably. So like everything else in this artistic adventure, I'm making up new habits as I go along.

Last night and the night before I forced myself to sit down and start plugging away at the block. Last night was marginally easier than Monday, but both nights were difficult. I hadn't been writing for almost a week, and the consistency of the story - a warm, silky liquid when I'm going fast and strong - had gooped up to the point of being almost solid. It took me a while to get the first few sentences right. I tore about half a page out and reworked it before I could stop rolling my eyes at myself. But then last night, the story loosened up around me and I was suddenly back in my fictional town of Bulton, sitting with Jack and Bertram at the picnic table behind the orchard's fruit stand, listening to their worried conversation about Dan. I fell back into it, and the feeling was bliss. But I had to "prime the pump" - an expression that Brian K. Ladd and myself use frequently to describe the act of working the cooling story from something thick and viscous into a liquid river of fire running right through the center of our brains.

One of the most pleasurable sensations in the world.

I was transported last night, taken from my bedroom in the dark recesses of 1 am to a sunny summer morning in a little Southern town, just outside the beautiful reaches of a huge peach orchard. It was so real I could almost smell the trees and the thick curls of Bertram's pipe smoke. I was lost for hours, and happily ignorant of the time. But before I fell through the "hole in the page" (a phrase I humbly borrow from Stephen King), I had to push and work and shove and mentally sweat my way through clunky dialogue and halting character action. I had to persevere, keep pushing against that block which had taken up residence between my fingers and my brain and wait for the story to start breathing again. Eventually it did, and the sound of its labored breath smoothed out after a bit and became fluid and loose. Until then, though, the priming was all I could do, and I pumped that story until my arm damn near fell off.

It's a valuable lesson, one I keep learning over and over, which amounts to one we all learn when we're small, barely old enough to hold a fat red pencil and make our straggling first letters of the alphabet: Never give up! Keep trying, it'll come eventually!

Gotta keep that at the forefront of my mind.

Focusing on the Goal

Now that I'm over halfway to my goal of 100,000 words, I have a conflicting rush of emotions regarding my work on this project.

This is my first book and I feel like the proverbial babe in the woods, because everyone I look up to seems to have already completed at least one novel, if not two or three or ten or... you get what I mean. It's uncharted territory for me, and I'm making it up as I go along (literally AND figuratively).

I'm a horrible procrastinator and my ADD adds to my inability to finish projects, so it took me a long time to commit to writing a book. I never thought I would be able to finish such a long project. I'm not finished yet, but I'm still going strong. It's daunting because I look back at all the pages I already have (179) and know I need to make about the same amount again to get the story finished. I know the work is starting to pick up now that the characters have been developed and the stage has been set and a lot of weird shit has gone down in the story, but there still seems to be so much left to go.

I'm proud of what I've already accomplished. This book is already the longest thing I've ever written, and the story is solid. Weird, but solid. I am worried I won't get it finished by my personal goal date (May 1st), but I refuse to give up on myself. Attending regular writers' meetings helps my motivation tremendously, because I get feedback on the pages I've written plus insights on the work I may not have thought of. It also keeps me accountable, makes me continue to produce. I love writing and I adore getting lost in my own story, but one of the hardest things about it is that there's nobody making you write, except yourself. If you don't get it done, nothing really bad happens; you just don't finish. Writers' meeting keeps me honest, keeps me working, because I feel the need to show Brian K. Ladd and Gail Gray my work. They're hooked on the story, especially Gail, and I have that great feeling that I imagine all storytellers get when they have someone entranced with a tale - exhilarated, passionate, excited, devious, a little cocky...

I'm keeping my focus on the goal of May 1st. I'm scared, excited, happy, frustrated, tired... so many different emotions, brewing together to make their own unique stew of feeling. It's hard to process. In the meantime, while I'm processing, I'm doing my best to just keep typing.

Fun Discovery

I drive a lot, and often I'm hit with interesting ideas or arresting images that would go well in a story while I'm behind the wheel. Problem is, I often lose those ideas because I don't have a way to record them when I'm driving.

I had a voice recorder for a while, but never really warmed to it - mostly because I hated having to keep up with one more thing; something else to add to the wallet-keys-phone-inhaler-lighter ensemble that lives in the pockets of my pants was irritating. I'd forget and leave it at home, then when I needed it, I'd resent myself and the damn thing for not being where I wanted it to be.

Today in the car, I had another one of those isn't-this-interesting ideas which so often strike me in the most inopportune places (they also hit hard in the shower, and right before I'm asleep at night, drifting in that hazy awake/asleep pseudo-reality). I liked the idea so much, but I felt immediate frustration because I knew there was no way I'd hold on to it until I got to a place where I could write it down. Parts of the concept, maybe, but not the whole thing, not all the nuances; not the things that turn the vision from something ordinary into something spectacular.

Suddenly I remembered my new phone has a lot of nifty gadgets on it that I never thought I'd use. Wonder if it has a voice recorder? I thought. I quickly navigated to my tools. Lo and behold, there was a recorder icon! I was elated. I used it to record the idea I'd had, along with all the interesting little details I'd been noodling.

The discovery made my day. I hope to lose less ideas and thoughts now that I know I'll almost always have a voice recorder with me. Amazing!