writing process

Soundtrack to the novel I’m working on

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(picture by Thunder Circus on Flickr)
I’ve been wasting a lot of my precious post-bedtime lately. I’m supposed to be finishing my book, but I find myself listening to groovy music instead. In theory, it’s helping identify with various characters and create atmosphere, but honestly, I’m still pretty much avoiding real work. Here are some highlights.

“Infinity” by Shtar

“Running Away” by Matisyahu (cover of a Bob Marley song)
“I Can’t Be with You” by the Cranberries (female vocalist)
the Diwon remix of “Acharon Acharon, Chaviv” by Lipa Shmeltzer
“You are Never Alone” by Socalled
“Chalomot shel Acherim” by the Idan Raichel Project
“Rachmana” by Ta-Shma
“The Only One” by Moshav
“Down in the Now” by the Crystal Method (with Matisyahu)

Almost (but only almost!)

beccakinla literature, novels, persistence, summer, writer, writing process, ya novels, yetzer hara Leave a comment


(photo by Ian Britton)

Well, my goal for the summer was to finish my first solo effort at a novel and…I didn’t quite finish.

Ugh.

I’m probably just 3,000 words shy of a complete first draft. After ditching my original draft of “Part 3,” I had a good think and outlined a new path for the rest of the book. However, I’m having problems bringing myself to sit down and finish.

What’s my excuse? Instead of spending quality time with my keyboard, I’ve been spending quality time with humans (my husband and kids, now back in school), and I’ve been actively looking for more freelance work.  I finished a writing project last week and submitted something else. It’s not like I’ve been wasting time doing nothing. On the other hand, I have wasted a lot of time blogging, reading weird science news (justifying it as research), and listening to music that’s too noisy for effectively focusing on a computer screen.

It’s time for a completely non-professional attempt at psychoanalyzing myself. I definitely need to figure out why I don’t just sit down for a couple nights and crank out the rest so I can get over it.

1) I used to write for fun. It was relaxing, and even escapist. I still love writing. I’m still very enthusiastic about this project. However, writing has been reclassified in my brain over the last 9 months as a professional exercise and not a hobby. It’s actually work.

2) I think I’m a little freaked out about finishing the first draft because I know it will be…a first draft. Like, not perfect. Like, potentially terrible. I guess I have to just accept that it will start out that way, but trust that it’ll eventually improve.

Making Up New Words to Go with your New Worlds

beccakinla gadget, how to write, naming, new words, sci-fi, writing process Leave a comment

I just finished a sci-fi novel entitled The Empress of Mars. There were many things I liked about it, and one of the things that the author, Kage Baker, managed particularly well was naming all those imaginary new technologies that appear in the story.

Almost all sci-fi stories describe hi-tech gadgets, and if those gadgets are new to your imaginary realm, you have to name them. One of the challenges is naming them in a way that evokes the item’s function, but doesn’t sound too similar to either real-world objects and those that inhabit other author’s books. And you’d better not trample on anyone’s trademark, either. Sometimes you read a book, and you’re lost by the new vocabulary, or it’s clunky and sounds artificial. Ms. Baker did an excellent job of naming things in ways made sense, yet seemed exotic enough to flesh out a new planet, many years in the future.
I have always been the type that makes up words. Long before Frindle, I would spout strange new words that never appeared in a dictionary or thesaurus, but which better described items or behaviors than any word that does. My specialty is turning nouns into verbs, and vice versa. However, my newest invention is “shadebathing.” It is intended to describe the behavior of one of my children, who on a hot day will run into a bit of shade, plotz, and stretch out to cool off, no matter how inconvenient the time or place.
I’m blessed that one of my children has followed in my footsteps. For example, he thinks that the phrase “crime-ridden” should be replaced by the descriptor “crimey.” I voiced the objection that this is too close to the word “criminy,” but he remains unconcerned. “No one knows that word anymore, Ima. Or if they do, they sure don’t use it.”
Naming characters and locations has always been relatively easy for me. I can just make up anything, no rules. However, when you name your fictional gadget, as I mentioned above, you need to balance familiarity with novelty. I find this much tougher. In the novel I’m writing now, I keep picking names for things, then feeling the need to relabel them.
Thank G-d for “Find and Replace!” I seem to be employing it a lot lately.

Drat!

beccakinla novels, writing process Leave a comment

As I mentioned before, one of my objectives for the summer has been to complete a first draft of a novel. Make that my weird Jewish, sci-fi, teenage parable. So I was cruising along, having outlined and then fleshing out first part one, then part two, and then got 3000-ish words into part three…when I realized that part three didn’t belong in this book! Yikes. Now I’m trying to decide just what is the real part three that belongs to this book.
I’m not entirely stuck–I’ve added additional materials to part one and two this week (including some borrowed from the now-defunct part three)–and have worked on another couple writing projects, to boot. However, I’m starting to fear I will not finish by Labor Day. I’m starting to fear I will never finish. (Insert image here of me imitating the little boy in the photo at the top of this post.)
I need to decide where I want to go with this book, but the idea of being stuck is giving me such anxiety that I think it’s actually making me more stuck. Usually, I’m not the writer’s block type…but this might be it.
I’m going to go practice some deep breathing now…

Have you always wanted to write a novel?

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So you want to write a novel, but never have motivated yourself to crank it out? Here comes the “Write Your Own Megillah” contest from The Whole Megillah blog to get you moving.

Goal: write a middle-grade Jewish-themed novel of 18,000 words or a YA Jewish-themed novel of 36,000 words in one month this fall (Nov. 21-Dec. 21). There are prizes and all sorts of guidance offered. For more details, check this link: http://thewholemegillah.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/write-your-own-megillah-a-new-whole-megillah-event/ .
Hatzlacha raba!

Self-doubt, or the Intimidating Activity Called "Writing a Novel"

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I’m both distractedly excited and painfully terrified. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I’m trying to change a short story I have written previously into a novel in response to the advice of friends and colleagues. I’m completely overwhelmed by the task at hand, but I want to try to get a rough draft written in the next couple months just so I can get these characters’ voices out of my head, at the very least.

If you don’t want to write a novella–you’re committed to a novel–you have to crank out AT LEAST 30,000 words for middle-grade or YA readers, 50,000 for adults.
At the same time, you don’t want to be “bore-geous,” what Ayelet Waldeman calls writing that is long, lush and vivid but does nothing to further the story line. Neither do you want to add subplot upon subplot upon unnecessary scene upon unnecessary character just to make deadlines, fill up a word count, pad the pocketbook, or all of the above. (The latter often happens with books that start as serials, like those of Charles Dickens, to point out an example that will hurt no one’s feelings and probably not constitute lashon hara.)

The problem is that I HAVE A LIFE, and not a very convenient one at the moment. I have more immediately remunerative work to complete, a husband and children to feed (bli ayin hara!). Tushies to wipe! Candyland to play! I am haunted by the desire to fill in the story of these characters, but have been cruelly separated from my PC.
Even when I resort to writing in a notebook while supervising my children’s play, self-doubt leaves me thinking, “Can I think of enough details and plot twists to fill a novel? And what if I’m just plumping this goose up so it’s ready for the rejection-letter-shaped ax!”
Sometimes, I finally sit down at that PC and can’t even figure out where to start. To prompt me a bit, I’m now improvising a bit on the Snowflake Method, invented by Randy Ingermanson. I’m going over every hinted-at back story, every interesting character, every “off-page” alluded-to event that appears in the initial short story and trying to extend, extend, extend. I am now at just under 7,000 words…and I can’t imagine how this baby is ever going to get done!
I know I’m not alone on this. A quick Google search about novel-writing included an article subtitled “The quiet h*** of 10 years of novel writing,” by Susanna Daniel, and a blog entitled “The Long Path to a Novel” by Rachel Connor.
Check back with me in two months to see if I’m any closer to the “Great American Jewish Sci-Fi Novel’s” completion.