Torreybird

Writing the novel

Enjoying friends

Shopping for groceries

Changing the oil

Meeting, writing, emailing: working

Thinking about scrubbing the bathroom

Writing for the website

Travelling east

Listening to others

Showing knives

Flying rockets

Reading nonfiction

Reviewing nonfiction

Learning Aikido

Feeding the chickens

Restoring orphan tools

Drawing for fun

Showing up

Battling evil

Saving the world

On the web, I haven’t written much–so here you go.

In the novel, we now know some of the motivations of some of the greater powers beyond our protagonist’s control. We don’t yet know what will happen when she takes control of things–and we don’t know how the God of Earth and the Underworld will change the stakes, but he just kidnapped her.

Maiden, mother, queen, and crone–they languish. Well, no they don’t. I am still writing on them, but it’s been interrupted and slow. There’s more to write–and draw, and decide, and research, and validate. I worry that I like the idea better than I am prepared to write about it–so there’s nothing to do but better prepare.

Short stories–perhaps writing another would be a lovely diversion, kind of like taking a day trip in the midst of a longer journey. At the same time, perhaps those “lovely day trips” are often terrible ideas, that only serve to further exhaust the resources depleted by the long journey. Right now, I don’t have any short stories on my plate, though I’d like to. They feel light and easy, even though my memory reminds me of the months I’ve spent wrestling them, in the past.

At work, I’m writing very short, very precise things for review by multiple stakeholders before eventually, right before release, it all changes again and gets rapidly rewritten, re-reviewed, then localized, then published to the world. Also having lovely discussions about capitalization, typography, punctuation, and the appropriate function of the ampersand.

So, life is good. Write on.

I look up to master storytellers who can plan their stories the way a master gardener can espalier a pear tree, knowing where each bud will bloom, at what angle each leaf will grasp its own light, and how the fruit will taste.

I’m a gazillion ploughed rows from being that good.

I put a seed in my earth and the full sunshine of my hope. When I put up a pole or a cage or a fence to guide the story’s growth, it is a drastic act of imagination.

I rejoice in the miracle of the first shoots, and feel lucky when the vines climb. My job is to attach the young story to its bare outline, to the few rules I reliably remember to use.

Over the growing season, that frame weathers and shows its weakness. Inevitably, I must buttress the structure against collapse.

All the while, I learn new rules, new ideas, from others who grow their stories. But there are better and worse times to put them into regular garden use. I shouldn’t overshadow my story with a massive structure it’s not ready for—it’s not strong enough for—it can’t reach. Too big of a change will cripple or kill the adolescent plant.

Instead, I must wait for—and allow—a period of quiescence before the next growth begins, even if that means putting away the shiny new thing to wait for the next growing season.  

In that precious in-between time, it’s okay that my writing diverges from my daily fiction. It ploughs inward instead, stirring up my symbiotes and mixing in more fertilizer. I retire to the shed of unused notebooks and decadent pens, abandoned during the growing season of efficient word-processor use. The lessons of the past season become the ambitious frame my next seeds can reach toward.

I’m supposed to be at 28K words–and I’m at 10K or so.

The thing I’ve consistenly taken away from #Nanowrimo–every year, from 2006 to last year, is a renewed habit of the daily discipline of sitting down to write.

Last year, I specifically used NaNo to re-develop that habit, and I’ve successfully kept it up–daily writing, all year long.

But there’s more I should be getting out of it, this year–more that I could be getting from it: the discipline of sticking to the goddamn outline, or failing that, at least sticking with my characters and their story.

It’s a touchy balance between “the story I first thought up” and “what the character wants to do” and “oh crap, I hadn’t thought of that.” They are each pitfalls, and they are each paths.

The discipline is to be honest with myself which one it is, and pressing on or redirecting as necessary.

So–no more blogging for me right now. I’ve got a plot to de-re-enpitfallize.

I’ve never posted such low November word counts. It feels like I’m doing something naughty.

On the other hand, I look at my outline, the story I’ve been trying and trying to write, and I’m right on target.

According to the 50,000-word goal, I should be at 16,670 words today. As of right now, I’m at 8,366.

But given this past year of daily writing, for-real writing, even my dubious brain points out: 8,366 is about 10% of a salable-length novel. I recognize that the plot is established, I’m deep into character development, and it’s probably time to do some more work on establishing setting.

I’m doing a good job.

I also don’t expect to keep all these words, mind you. This is raw, first draft, needs work, will-be-edited prose. But the first step for me is getting it roughed out. Having it be on-story through this first, crucial start, means that the characters just have to be themselves, and the middle will take care of itself.

So–should I worry that I’m not driving to 50,000 at the blistering pace? Nah. Because I’m driving to 80,000 (or so) in a direction that will actually take me there.

I’m going to tack differently into this 2012 nanowrimo wind. Lemme explain.

In 2006, knowing nothing about writing novels (or writing any kind of fiction), I wrote fluidly, solidly, for 84K or so. Since then, no other novel-length work have I written so fast or full of story. But paradoxically, I’ve come to understand that I can write better than I did then—I can choose better words, better pacing, better structure, more satisfying story arc and setting.

But writing to a word count doesn’t help me improve any of the things my writing needs: better characterization, a more nuanced grasp of setting, etc. Even in my day job, I write for meaning first, then trim or expand to make the best use of the available space, to best communicate the necessary information.

So I’ve been frustrated with Nanowrimo, and my husband helped me figure out why: I’ve been playing varsity fiction writing—not necessarily winning, mind you, but playing—and now I’m doing a JV word-count workout, and I’m wondering why the hell I’m doing it.

My writing heroes have written all kinds of stuff—from novellas to flash to novels to essays to poetry to whatever the hell tells the story. Word count isn’t a useful criterion for goodness of story. Appropriateness for a particular market or publishing strategy, sure—but that comes later, after it’s burst forth on the page.

So why am I still participating in Nanowrimo?

First, for the community, camaraderie, frivolity. That’s all good stuff, and stuff I need. And, it should be noted, stuff I get year-round with my regular writing peeps, for whom I’m intensely grateful.

Second, for the structure. Last year, I made a commitment to come in to work on an even earlier bus, and to spend that reclaimed time writing fiction.

I intentionally used last Nanowrimo to start that habit, and have carried it all year—even during crunch-times. There were perhaps four mornings during the year that I started early with work-writing instead of fiction-writing; there were maybe five mornings I was too exhausted to create an imaginary world that wasn’t simply asleep. That’s a record I’m proud of, and I have every intention of continuing.

So did I write 50K words per month? HELL NO. Because there isn’t enough editing time in the world to make that many words usable. This year’s total new fiction word count, so far, is approximately 35,300 words. Some of it is explorational—it may be turned into something, someday, but so far is a fragment in search of a home. Some of it has been submitted and published. One of the best pieces is one of the shortest—fewer than 1000 words—and was the easiest to write.

35K words is not a novel worth of prose. It’s not coherent, and I’m clearly working through experimentation with characterization, setting, story, and pacing. All of which is totally reasonable for anyone in this part of their writing career—by which I mean, is totally reasonable for ME, in this part of MY writing career.

So, what about Nano? I’m going to write, write, write, and lead a write-in, and enjoy the community, and not try to be The Perfect, Fast Novelist.

Will I win for writing 50K words? Probably not. Instead, I’m hoping to win what I actually need—including reasonable, appropriate goals, and practicing patience with myself.

I’m now the proud owner of a used 20-key Silvagni concertina. It’s perfect and shiny and red and has tiny red stars on white paper inside the accordion folds.

Granted, it is possible that my enthusiasm allows flexibility in my judgment of perfection. The concertina, which I will perhaps call Sparky, but that hasn’t been settled yet, came with a few idiosyncrasies.

For example, a few buttons were a zealous about their pressed-in positions, such that they preferred to stay slightly under the level of the box.

In addition, a person playing might be amused by the idea of hidden treasure inside the box-end, under the torn fabric. However, any annoyance that one might experience from the rattling could be compensated for, if one only played more enthusiastically.

The most whimsical of its non-standard features was a rotation across the body of the concertina, with one keyboard 60 degrees out of sync with the other.

Being new to box squeezing, I didn’t do more than coo over these adorabilities when I bought it. My husband didn’t point out any of those things more than twice.

When I started to practice, however, it occurred to me that the concertina, which might also become known as Bunnicornia, wasn’t necessarily comfortable when its buttons jammed open. Especially when I would then dig into the buttons with any slim tool that came to hand. In fact, while jabbing at a key with a sharp knife, I realized that nobody was ever going to recognize “The Erie Canal” if I kept having to stop whenever I used the left-hand-draw-D.

(Did you see what I did there? I made up a little bit of descriptive notation. ‘Cause I don’t actually know what anything is called.)

So I used the incredible resource of http://www.Concertina.net. And I found out that there’s something called a button-sleeve, and there were pictures of someone’s dismantled concertina.

There were two kinds of commentary: the kind that said “Don’t try to fix,” and the kind that says, “what, can’t you handle an Allen wrench?”

I thought to myself, “I have Allen wrenches.” So here’s what I did.

I started by taking out the pins, using little beading pliers. The whole rattly end lifted right off.

Inside that end, there were only two little screws—slot head. Not a hex head in sight. Once I took those out, I could see what was going on. The button-sleeves had crystalized and cracked and rotted away. Fragments of brown ickies were the rattlers, and took only a moment to clean up.

I took all the buttons off, and brought two of them with me. At my neighborhood Ace Hardware store, I picked up a foot of “Lg Fuel Line” and a foot of “Med Fuel Line.” Turns out, I bought WAY too much—but at least it was less than $4.

At home, I worked out a system. I stuck the end of the Lg Fuel Line on the end of a button-thingie, and cut off the excess with a wire cutter. I pushed it to sit against the button, and then could just barely get it onto the lever.

Then I ran into another problem: getting them in just the right place is kind of a pain. With just one button on the rack of keys, I fit it back into the case. I fit one more, and then the next, with a great deal of trial and error. And then I remembered: I own Sharpies.

With the board in place in the box, I marked the middle of the parts of the levers I could see. Now, I knew just where to put the buttons! I felt a great sense of accomplishment when all 10 keys of the first side fit into place again—which made me really notice the ratty, torn-up fabric that covered the holes.

I just happened to have some brass screening lying around, left over from a hat project. Like you do. But I was concerned it might rattle or buzz in resonant harmony with the notes being blown. So I used a gel-type glue to hold the screen in place, so that hopefully there aren’t any lengths of free metal that would rattle badly.

And, now that I have the power of opening the concertina, I could always tear it out if it didn’t work.

So I cut the screen to roughly fit, and then glued it (with Fabri-Tac), but it didn’t want to lie down flat. So, Sharpie to the rescue! I used some Blue Clamp-on-a-Roll to hold it in place while it cured.

I repeated on the other side – where, much to my surprise, the button sleeves had been replaced much more recently. All 11 keys on this side were much easier to strip and replace the sleeves. The Sharpie trick of marking the button placement worked even better when I used it from the beginning.

And so, with the magic of Internets, it’s all done (3+ hours later.) Remember that quirk about being skewed by 60 degrees? Totally fixed. Also, totally easy to replace the pins.

Oh, pretty Sweethonker*! I’m so looking forward to learning to actually play more than unidirectional, halting scales!

*another potential name for the best little concertina I’ve ever had.

I’m a big believer in change. I’m usually optimistic enough to enjoy it, too. I plan for it, look forward to it, and want to know what’s coming when the page turns and the new day dawns.

More importantly, I know to the bottom of my bottom that when things aren’t right, the answer is change. Even when that change is truly difficult.*

I’m also creative. I live to come up with elegant, lithe, new solutions that delight the senses or fix a problem. I also prefer they be efficient, fast, and cheap. I’m demanding, and my skills are building to the point where if I can’t make the solution I want, I can probably find somebody who I might be able to talk into it. At least, that’s what I think when I’m optimistic.

Without the optimism, there’s not a heck of a lot of new creativity. I know I can boost my hopefulness level by making things – anything, really, as long as I’m actively being creative. But the sweet making-space of creativity comes when my hopefulness tanks are topped off and I’m raring to go.

So the important flipside realization is this: Change minus Optimism equals Destruction. When the answer is change, but I’m full of frustration instead of hope – that’s when things go south. If I can’t make it better, at least I can change it–by smashing it, if necessary. Nuking from orbit. Macerating to a pulp. Grinding into oblivion. Deleting whole paragraphs. Tossing the prototype into the garbage. Setting on fire. Telling the leadership exactly what I think of their ideas.

So that’s what I learned about myself today. I’m hopeful I’ll remember this little insight the next time I want to storm into someone’s office and tell them exactly what I think is wrong with their project.

* Duh, right? Wrong. Remember the last time you found out by surprise that things you thought weren’t bad, actually were horrible? Like when your kid was found doing drugs, and you thought everything was OK, but now it isn’t, and you need to rearrange the whole family’s schedules so that someone is at home every afternoon. Or maybe like how US citizens felt when their overseas “liberating force” was determined to be covering up cruel human rights abuses in their own military prisons. Very tough for them to get behind making a change, even though it was obvious that change needed to happen. Got it now?