Writing Process: June 2008 Archives

You'll feel better if you do it. Don't think too much. Don't talk about it too much. Discussion kills the magic, robs it of power, slows down the momentum. Worst of all, don't think about those who are doing it when you're not. The world is full of talent, but most people lack conviction.

I'm sitting right now at my favorite spot, behind the glass windows of the Mud House coffee shop, typing on my laptop. The chairs around me are fairly empty, except for two young men, one blond, one brown-haired. I was ignoring them until five minutes ago. I've been writing on my novel Atlantis in the Sand and a thousand words came out pretty smoothly. For fear of continuing when I don't know what will happen next (and a fear of becoming too seduced by the sound of my keyboard) I decided to knock it off for today.

I can hear the guys talking about writing. I'm going to write this in my script, one says. This kind of character is best. The other guy says, Yeah, that kind of character is best.

Don't get me wrong. It's fine to talk about writing. The process, the ups and downs, the way it rolls around in your head. I discuss it all the time. It gets you fired up.

Just today I was talking with Steve Rucker again about the novel. And his short stories. We're considering writing something together, even, co-authorship, something I'm interested in. So, yeah, I talk about it. And I read about it, too.

Then I'm fired up. But I know if I get too fired up, I need to do it right then. I can't wait too long or the enthusiasm flags. Right after talking with Steve I came down here and got down to business. No time to waste, etc., etc.

I don't mean to give a ha-ha-I'm-writing-and-they're-not kind of post. I'm not bragging. What I am saying is this: If you want to write, you need to get yourself wound up, and then you need to write the thing. It's hard for me, too. But you have to force yourself, sometimes. Otherwise you won't get it published. The short story. The essay about your Dad. The screenplay that will make you a million dollars. Don't plot it. Don't think about it. If it's been cooking in your head, and you start to type, it will come out. I promise it will.

Sarah always tells me, Have faith. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Today, talking with Steve, I didn't know what would happen next in my novel. I wanted so bad to open it up and keep moving forward. But I had set it aside for two weeks. So I came into the Mud House, switched on my laptop, and waited for it to boot up. Except Google searching the Arabic word for Snow, I did not open the Internet (all good writers should know when to keep the Internet browser closed). I forced myself to write Chapter 2.

Now I'm exhausted again and I'm back to square one.  But I did write. I'm that much closer to the end of the book.

So remember: If you want to finish that piece you're working on, that poem, that novel, or whatever, then you need to do it. No plotting. No fancy software. Just you, your mind, and a computer (or paper, or typewriter).

Don't move. Don't get up. Keep the locked door locked.

A few days ago, Steve Rucker invited me to lunch at a small Italian café downtown, near the square, and I was in such a good mood I said absolutely without consulting my dwindling cash supply. For once didn't think about spending money. Dollars are tight, but not so tight I would turn down a steaming plate of spaghetti. Nona's is a narrow building painted white and trimmed in robin's egg blue, with some of the best food in Greene County for under ten dollars inside.

I had just finished up a meeting with my thesis committee chair, Brian Shawver. He read my proposal and gave me ideas for my thesis. Mostly we just sat around and talked. He talked about concerts in Kansas City, old professors of his from the University of Iowa, and Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union. We drank some coffee and talked about genre fiction and literary fiction, and the coming Fall semester. He gave me his thoughts on how to build convincing characters, and we talked about several points from his books Aftermath and The Cuban Prospect, and we debated the pros and cons of using tricks to burn a character into the reader's mind.

I left feeling wound up, ready to write, excited to tackle this new novel I'm planning, which is titled Atlantis in the Sands. It would have to wait for Nona's, of course.

When I met up with Steve, we fell to talking. I could listen to people like Brian and Steve talk all day long and never get bored. It came up that I had been reading the new The Atlantic article, "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?"

This article isn't what you think--it's not memory-based, really. But the opening bars struck a chord with me. You see, for a while now I've been feeling less sharp than I was. Not that I'm a genius, you know, just that I wasn't always so flaky. The author, Nicholas Carr, suggests that hyper-links and Internet, while making research easier, is actually altering our brain chemistry, and gives several instances of shortened attention spans, etc. You can read the whole article here and I hope you do.

The answer I had been seeking to my questions ("Why can't I finish what I start?" and "Why is it so hard to focus on writing sometimes?") was right in front of my nose. I knew it had something to do with the article, but I didn't know what. As he often does, Steve pointed this out to me. He's got that built-in, shock-proof shit detector Ernest Hemingway loved so much.

Writing is paying attention to a fictional setting moment by moment, with non-judgmental awareness. In mindfulness, when a mind wanders, you bring it back patiently, time after time. In writing, you have to keep closing the Firefox window with Wikipedia in it. Or Google Earth. Or Merriam-Webster Online. Or all those books you checked out from the library.

Mindfulness is hard enough. Writing, too. So why make it more difficult?

Steve said he always had to write late at night. No music, nothing. He said, "It was like I had to be in a bubble." I said, "I should try that." I thought of Stephen King's locked door, which he says is all-important. A locked door to keep distractions out and to keep the writer in.

Apparently, I sometimes need to lock the door in my head.

When I write now, I refuse to open other windows on the computer, even for research, unless the question is very small and easily answered. An example of that would be "When was T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom published?" Answer: "1935." But for something more complicated, like, "How does a steam engine work on an old train?" I do that research before I start writing. Otherwise, it's too easy to get distracted.

When I got home, I tried locking the door in my head for the first time. I wrote 10 pages, 2,000 words, and I plan to write more next week.