Writing Adventures: Part 2

This post was originally published on my blog, Delirious Documentations, on December 15, 2015.

Click here to read Part 1.

After I graduated college, it was exciting to have more time to focus on this writing project of mine--but it also took some getting used to. Suddenly I was able to often spend hours at a time on a project that I had once added to with one tiny piece every couple months at a time. I needed focus now and I needed organization and I needed constant, renewable drive. Music helped some; I'll do a separate post with the book's playlist later, but for now I'll just say that Flyleaf's Memento Mori is so very in sync with this book.

By this point, my book was divided into twenty sections that were each in turn divided into three sections (one per each of the three narrators). Some of the sections, though, had as little as one sentence, while others were fully developed but were only a page or so long. So I developed a method of adding to it all. I went from beginning to end, sub-section to sub-section, and edited the parts I had already written while also adding a pre-determined length to each section.

I did this a few times, slowly adding length so that I could end up with a decent word count. Each time I would finish, I would realize I wasn't there yet and needed more: my book is based less on plot than on imagery, so I had to fill in and brush on details (and even a sprinkling of plot) to make it full. I kept going until I had reached a mild 71,000 words and enough coherency and cohesiveness and all that was left was another edit for grammar/typos and any final adjustments.

But let's back up a step to the strangest part. At about the period where I was able to spend more time on writing, I encountered a certain difficulty with the third narrator (who is the only present day narrator). She used to be a twenty-something. But I was beginning to feel like she was glaring at me, accusing me of not getting her story right; I was afraid to work on her sections because I didn't know what was wrong. And then it hit me. She wasn't in her twenties at all: she's middle-aged. And then some other pieces quickly adjusted to fit in with the different age and suddenly everything was smooth again, so swiftly. This, in turn, meant that I emphasized the youngness of the second narrator (whom I picture to be around sixteen or so) more than I had before (in a positive way, though). And the fact that the three narrators aren't the same age somehow became more cohesive than if they were all, say, in their twenties.

I spent a lot of time while I was working on this book hating it: I think that's just my style. In college, as soon as I would finish writing a paper, I would hate it but it would be too late. So I would turn it in and try and not think about it anymore; but when I got it back, I ended up with an A and realized my hate was unfounded. The hate, hopefully, just means that I can keep a critical eye and change what needs to be changed and make better what is okay but could be wonderful. So ultimately I came to create a novel that I thought made sense as a piece of writing, as something that could be talked about and written about.

Next up: trying to convince outside sources that this novel was worth publishing.

Writing Adventures: Part 1

This post was originally published on my blog, Delirious Documentations, on November 16, 2015.

I have a confession for you all: I'm a writer and not just of blog posts. It has come to my attention that I am crazy (or perhaps overly cautious is the word) for not making some of those blog posts about writing; or maybe the timing just wasn't quite right yet. But it is now. I'd like this new series to come at intervals, updating you on what I've been doing. But first I have to update you on what I have been doing up until now.

Way back during my senior year of high school I started to get this image (of a tree, that is) that I wanted to put down in writing and so I thought I would use it for a scholarship that involved writing a piece of short fiction. So I wrote out this little tableau and I edited it and I tried to get a whole theme and story into it. But as I worked, I realized that I was constraining the image too much by trying to stay within the (fairly short) word count required by the scholarship. So I decided to throw away the idea of using it for the scholarship and let it just grow as much as it wanted.

I worked a little bit on it during the rest of senior year. And then I graduated and went off to college and became a bit more busy. So I was never putting full time work into this piece of writing, but I would return to it now and then and add a scene or another image. I tried to put the date on most of what I wrote because I thought it might be interesting, later on, to see exactly when I wrote particular sections. I would handwrite everything, often on the blank backs of old papers that I didn't need anymore.

I started writing a second narrator and then decided that the two narrators could be put together. Then I added a third narrator. And it all kept growing, tiny piece by tiny piece.

Eventually I typed up all of what I had so far, printed it all (on four pages per sheet so as not to waste paper), and then cut out each individual section and started arranging everything in chronological order on the floor.

You see, I had heard writing advice; I'd heard that you don't need to write first drafts in chronological order. But I always thought that I was a chronological writer. That's how I used to write essays: I would picture the whole thing in my head before I wrote down even one word. But I found that I was writing this project differently, image by image. And the order that I got the images in wasn't necessarily chronological order, especially since I had settled on three narrators simultaneously telling three separate stories. So I ended up with lots of little pieces that needed order, and physically arranging them on the floor, though not a technique I'd expected from myself, turned out to be the best course to take.

Arranging them in order helped me see what pieces were missing, and I continued slowly adding to the project. And then I graduated college with a B.A. in English literature from ASU; I also attended their Barrett Honors College, where I did my senior thesis on three of Charlotte Bronte's novels. And so after graduation, I suddenly had the opportunity to spend much more time on this writing project of mine. That was back in 2013.

It Is Time

I have spent so long first telling people the I was writing a book and then that I was planning to publish said book. Now at last that day is approaching, that day when this book goes public in print (maybe digital, too).

As yet, I don't have an exact date for you (it might be in May), but I will keep you posted when I find out more.

In the meantime, I'm starting work on this website (welcome, by the way). It's still in the early stages: I'm filling things in piece by piece. And there are a couple of things that won't go live until the book is out. If you've been to my blog (Delirious Documentations), you've already been seeing me talk about writing in a series of posts that I do there. From now on, I think I will be posting that series both there and here--so you'll soon see the posts I've already done added on here.

I can't wait to share more with you.