0 Three Weeks of Revisions, Shown in Nail Polish

When I began this revision, I was feeling a little vulnerable.
I wanted my nails to make me think of claws,

or maybe little shields.

My palette.

During the next week, things briefly got impossible
and I needed my nails to help me feel as hard as asphalt.

My palette.

This morning, I have gotten to a place of hope. :o)

My palette.

Detail: Three Weeks of Revisions, Shown in Nail Polish

0 On Writing: Dealing with "I Don't Wanna"

Sometimes, while writing, instead of feeling like, "Gosh, this is really hard," I feel like, "Holy hell. This is AGONIZING." I expect this happens to most every writer. When it happens to me, I call it the I Don't Wannas, because, as it gets to be time for me to sit my butt in the chair and start working, every cell in my body is screaming, "I DON'T WANNA! I DON'T WANNA! I DON'T WANNA!"

This can happen at any point in a project, but for me, there are particular circumstances under which it always happens. When I'm coming to the end of the planning stage of a revision, for example, and transitioning into the actual doing-the-work stage, the I Don't Wannas arrive like clockwork. I think it's because in that moment, I'm holding in my cupped hands the entirety of a finished draft that's not working AND an unstarted draft composed only of magic ideas, and it feels like the magic is dribbling away through my fingers. When I'm trying to hold both past and future versions of a lengthy writing project in my mind, remembering the ways it doesn't work and all the ways I dream of it working, it can be too much for my little brains. And when I'm planning to do complicated work but haven't done it yet, it can feel like I'm losing the work at every moment. The entire endeavor begins to feel too hard… and I just don't wanna.

I'd like to share a few of the things that I've learned, from experience, help me through the I Don't Wannas. I hope that writing them down will help me remember them, and that one or two or seven of them might help you!

• I remind myself that the only way to alleviate this feeling is progress: the only way out of this feeling is through. If I don't sit down and push myself to make real progress today, I will feel exactly this bad when I sit down again tomorrow, and in fact, I will probably feel worse, because of the time I wasted yesterday. This is merely how beginning feels. I need to work while I feel it, or else I'll never get past the beginning and I'll never stop feeling it.

• I remind myself to focus on the trees, not the forest. When I sit down, I don't need to be thinking about every part of the previous draft and everything I hope to do in the next draft. I don't need to be thinking of all the ways all the parts touch on all the characters, plot points, and themes. I only need to be thinking about the two or three pages -- maybe even the two or three lines -- in front of my face.

• I'm careful about how I schedule my writing time -- about when I work. I don't always have a choice about when I work (life being one of those things that resists control ^_^), but some days/weeks I can create more flexibility than others, and sometimes I find I'm in a stretch where I'm most productive if I roll out of bed and go to my writing table immediately. Other times, I find I'm in a stretch where I work best between midnight and 4 AM. My point is that I pay attention to when the notion of working is, for whatever reason, less painful, and I try to work then.

• I'm careful not to overwork. This is really important. It's easier to sit down at my desk if I know I only have to be there for two or three or four hours. Overworking creates burnout. Plus, there exists a necessary part of the work that can only take place in the unconscious mind, thoughts that need to settle when you're not consciously working. When my time is up, I put my notebook and papers someplace where they won't catch my eye, and I spend the rest of the day doing other parts of my job and non-work-related things.

• In a similar vein, I try to be careful not to confuse "I Don't Wanna" with "I Truly Can't." There are times when it's just not happening, no matter how hard I push. It's a special kind of exhaustion that isn't about "This work is too hard so I don't want to do it" and is about "I actually can't do this right now." In my experience, the only way out of this feeling is rest. Pushing through it only makes the burnout worse. How do you learn to tell the difference? Every writer has to figure this one out, and I'm still learning it… by trying things, making mistakes, and paying attention.

• I notice how, when my writing's going badly, it infects other parts of my life, too – and find myself laughing about it. Sometimes, when my writing's going badly, I start to feel like I'm inept at everything, and broadly offensive to all the nice people in the world. Since I don't generally feel that way, I realize it's coming from my writing, and when you start to notice things like that about yourself, it can be both interesting and funny. It makes me realize how much writing is tied to my identity. It's evidence that the only thing for me to do is try again tomorrow at the writing. And it makes me want to give myself a hug.

• I forgive myself. Writers: please, please be kind to yourselves. If you give yourself a pardon for time you may have wasted or writing that seems insufferable, you'll feel better, which is reason enough. But also, if you give the writing permission to be an awful mess, it will begin to feel comfortable with itself, and safe on the page. It will stand up tall, grow, get stronger, and begin to be what you're trying to make it. 

And that's my two cents on the I Don't Wannas.

Detail: On Writing: Dealing with "I Don't Wanna"

0 Current Work Breakdown, for Them That's Interested

As I've mentioned recently, I'm revising a manuscript. Here's a breakdown of what this revision tends to look like on a daily basis:

• For one hour or so, I reread and ponder the responses of my early readers and my own notes (as I blogged about recently).
• For maybe two or three hours, I look back over the revising I did yesterday and all the days before, getting a second look at my revisions and changing things here and there.
• For maybe an hour or an hour and a half, I push forward in the book, maybe revising one more chapter.

I find I'm working anywhere from two to seven hours in a session (with a lot of breaks), depending on what else I'm doing that day and how quickly I get mentally drained. I never sit down intending to work seven hours – generally that's too much, too draining – but occasionally I'll look up and be startled to see how much time has passed. (This happens more often in summer than winter – the sun sets so late!)

Sometimes I only skim the responses and notes. Sometimes I never get to the third step, where I'm pushing forward in the book. It all depends on what's happening that day. If I have a sudden revelation about why one of my characters has been behaving the way she's been behaving, for example, I may spend the entire session starting again from the beginning and revising with fresh eyes.

Also, about those breaks I take – they involve a lot of resting my writing mind while listening to music. Especially, though not exclusively, a wide variety of cello music, because cello is relevant to the manuscript I'm revising. I'll probably write more about that at some point.

One more thing about breaks. It can be very hard, on a daily basis, to get started working. You can be overwhelmed with a feeling of "I just don't wanna" and find yourself slow to begin… SO, it can feel really lovely on days when for whatever reason you find yourself eager to get working. However, if I notice that it's anxiety that's making me eager to get working – if the writing has somehow convinced me that there's some part of the novel I should feel anxious about, and should obsess over, RIGHT NOW, this needs to be fixed or something terrible will happen – I've come to realize that this means it's time for a day off. I spend that day consciously rejecting thought about the writing, resting, and doing things to care for the anxiety instead. The next day, I am generally able to return to the manuscript refreshed and with unanxious purpose.

So. This isn't always how I revise, but it's fairly typical for the second or third major revision of a manuscript. As I near any climaxes in the plot and especially as I near the end, my pace will pick up dramatically, and I will probably work longer hours. That just tends to be what the book asks of me.

There is no right or wrong way to do this, no right or wrong way to divide your own time, and you may not have seven free hours (or even two!). That's okay. Trust yourself, and trust the book to tell you what it needs. It's going to be hard and it might never feel quite right. That doesn't mean it's wrong. :)

Moving on: this revision isn't the only creative work I'm doing. Here's a rough breakdown of my overall work:

• Maybe 85% of my work is on this revision.
• Maybe 14.5% of my work goes to planning the next book I intend to write.
• Maybe 0.5% of my work goes to a third book, the first draft of which I recently completed and which I'm currently taking time away from. I try not to think about it at all, because time away is critically important, but occasionally an idea for how to improve the book will present itself, at which point, I'll take down a note.

I didn't plan for this 85/14.5/0.5 split; I let it happen, observed it happening, decided it was okay, and continued to let it happen. If some part of it stops working, I'm sure the percentages will shift, and I'll reassess.

As far as that next book goes  – here's a rough breakdown of what book-planning involves at the moment:

• Maybe 90% of the time is spent reading (probably 80% fiction and 20% nonfiction) and watching things (probably 50% TV and movie dramas, 50% documentaries). With the exception of the nonfiction reading, which is directly about topics relevant to the book, most of what I'm reading or watching would seem, to the casual observer, to have absolutely nothing to do with the book I'm planning. For example, I just watched a Swedish documentary about a world-class ballerina (Dansaran  – loved it) and there is no dancing in the book I'm planning. I'm reading Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, which is about a modern-day hostage situation in an unnamed South American country (and also about opera), and the book I'm planning is a fantasy, not modern-day, that I don't think has anything to do with hostages or opera. I can't explain how I choose the things I'm reading and watching. I'm looking for something, something about people and life, something about the way other people navigate their lives or the way other artists record people navigating their lives. Slowly (SO slowly!), I'm finding what I'm looking for. The book-planning process involves a lot of indirect searching for indirect things, and a lot of trusting that if I am thoughtful and attentive about my input, I will make accidental discoveries. In the meantime, it  – writing, watching, and letting things grow in a non-pressurey way – is one of the most pleasurable things about being a writer.
• Maybe 5% of the time is spent sitting down with my notes, trying to hammer out the plot, and daydreaming. When the majority of my work time eventually shifts to this book (rather than the revision I'm working on), the majority of my planning time will shift to this activity – wracking my brain, hammering out the plot, and also letting my brain wander. I will still be watching things and reading, but these direct activities will take up most of my time.
• Maybe 5% of the time is spent talking to friends about the project.

All of these breakdowns omit the other part of the process, namely, that whenever I'm awake, I'm keeping myself open to the arrival of an idea.

And that's what's going on.

My workspace. (At home in Cambridge, MA. I'm back from Paris. I loved Paris! I also love home.)

Happy-making details: my clock.

Lilies increase productivity. It's been proven.

Ear plugs and pink duck eraser: v. important.

Postcard of gargoyles on Notre Dame: stirs the imagination.

Nancy Drew-themed notebook: for jotting down clues.

Index cards: a writer can never have too many.

Detail: Current Work Breakdown, for Them That's Interested

0 On Revising: Embrace Tedium, Embrace Chaos

Note: Now that Bitterblue has been out for over a year, I've (finally!) updated my Awards and Reviews page to reflect it. Possibly my mother is the only person who will find this interesting, but after all, that's reason enough for me to link to it :)

On to the matter at hand.

Tedium is (unfortunately) a big part of the writing process, at various moments and in various forms. Today (and yesterday and the day before, and tomorrow and the day after, and on and on in both directions), I'm beginning the process of planning a revision. As part of this process, I have about 15 singlespaced pages of notes, responses, questions, and suggestions from my editor, from one of my sisters (codename: Apocalyptica the Flimflammer), and from a consultant on a particular relevant matter. Every morning, I start my planning by rereading every word of these 15 pages (and also reading the ever-growing notes I've written into the margins). As I've read these pages many times now, this can be a bit tedious, and I sit down to the job with gritted teeth. But every time I reread them, I understand things I didn't understand before; I see links among and between them; I come up with new ideas; my understanding of this major project I'm about to undertake becomes richer and deeper. Sometimes I feel like the pages must have changed during the night, because I'll come across a line someone has written and it'll be the first time those words truly sink in. I'll wonder, "Were those words there yesterday? Have I ever read them before?"

A revision of a novel can be an enormous project, a chaotic project, and as the writer, you need to hold on to many facets and levels and visions, revisions, dreams, manifestations at once – or maybe it's more accurate to say that you need to find the (constantly wobbly!) balancing point at which all of those things are holding onto you. Your understanding of your characters, and all the things you don't understand yet about your characters. Your current plot and all the ways in which it's not working; your (possibly panicky) worries about how to make the plot work. Your conceptions of the ways in which your tensions and meanings are failing to flow, and your questions about how to combine a gazillion things (like, for example, the personalities, personal identities, hopes, relationships, insecurities, strengths, and fears of characters; numerous intertwining plots and subplots; a setting that may or may not be believable; themes that don't always sit well together and sometimes contradict each other; existing scenes that capture the spirit of the book but don't advance the plot; research information that you need to learn but haven't learned yet, and haven't figured out how/where to access) into a cohesive whole. It's completely normal to get overwhelmed and it's completely normal to have the nagging feeling that you might not be up for this task. That you've bitten off more than you can chew; that you're going to fail.

(You're not going to fail.)

Every day's planning work eventually leads to the point where I realize I've become overwhelmed, and need to stop for the day. (It's important to learn to recognize the moment when you need to stop!) I start the workday with tedium; I end the workday with overwhelm. Both of these things are fine; both get me a little bit further with the project every day. It's hard to embrace overwhelm, because our arms aren't big enough to fit around it :). It's hard to embrace tedium, because, well, it's tedious. But at the end of each workday, I know that tomorrow I'll start again, I'll ground myself again by rereading those 15 pages full of questions, suggestions and notes – and because of today's overwhelm, tomorrow they'll mean what they've always meant AND they'll also mean lots of new things they haven't meant before. Over time, I will no doubt add more of my own thoughts, and probably excerpts from other people's thoughts, to the 15 pages, and my morning reread will get even longer (and more tedious!). The overwhelm will never go away -- in fact, it may even grow -- but it will start to clarify itself in my vision. As it increases, my capacity to hold it (or let it hold me) will increase.

The tedium is like watering the garden so that it can grown into something wild and barely contained -- but still stay rooted.

This is how it all makes me feel.

(Marie Rutkoski took this picture of me and That Thoughtful Guy
at the Musée Rodin today ^_^)

Detail: On Revising: Embrace Tedium, Embrace Chaos