Katherine Mankiller

Starting over from scratch...

There's this thing I used to do sometimes while writing, where I would follow a character around and see what happened. Dishearteningly, sometimes nothing happened. Other times I would figure out what the heck I was trying to say or do and the story would take shape.

I think I've figured out what one of my problem child stories wants to be. The problem being, of course, that the characters and the structure have changed completely. I don't know what that 10,000 word thing I sent through Critters was, but it wasn't a story. Not structurally.

I have a four sentence outline that feels like a story now.

The thing is, I think it took me several revisions and 10,000 words to figure out what the hell this story wanted to be. I've got to figure out a way to speed up that process. I enjoyed following Chinequa Mark I around--for certain values of "enjoy"--but I'd really like to have a story sooner.

And now, I think it's yoga time.

Tough decisions.

Woe is me! I've decided that Untitled AI is not a story about Julia and Rob, my intrepid reporter and photographer. In fact, Untitled AI is probably two projects, but Julia and Rob have nothing to do with the AI and will need to have a new project just about them. This makes me sad, because I really like Julia and Rob, but there you go.

As for the untitled novel which desperately needs a better title than Lizardfic, I'm going back and making big lists of threads I dropped. D'oh! Most of these are things which are very clearly in the outline, and I got to the end and said, "Oh, wait. I need this." Ah well, this is what revisions are for, right?

Speaking of new titles for the novel formerly known as Lizardfic (and briefly known as Monkeyfic), I feel a perverse desire to play off titles like "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" or, in a more threatening and dadaist vein, "The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors."

Bad Outline, No Biscuit

My novel has changed during the course of writing, which is okay. And I've updated the outline to reflect the changes. Sounds okay, right?

Only there's a bit of a problem. My main POV character is away from all the action for several scenes. Ack! There's a list of five to eight scenes in a row where the POV character isn't her.

No, no, no. I can't do that. I need to restructure things so she's involved in the big bang finale. She is at A. She needs to be at B. In the original outline a bunch of stuff happened at B and she headed out to B to [spoiler redacted], but no, she needs to be involved in the stuff at B.

I may be junking a chapter or two. Sigh. Oh well, it's more important to have it be good, right? Of course it is! Pay no attention to my wibbly lip at the thought of my decreased wordcount.

I can has outline?

One NaNoWriMo novel, one incomplete screenplay, and a novel-in-progress with outlines and I suddenly no longer want to work without them. I suppose this is a good thing, since writing without is sometimes a big timesink, but I still feel like an outline junkie. I've never outlined short fiction before, but I craved the direction.

Not that I, you know, actually wrote on those stories, but you know.

As for the novel, I'm 33,500 words in right now. Despite the outline, which has everything that needs to happen plot-wise, I still find myself pantsing chapters to get to the plot point where I need to be. That seems to work for me. I also have the abortive stub of a chapter in a POV that I decided not to use for that chapter, but I'm not going to cut it yet because I'm trying to keep my wordcount up. Seeing my wordcount go down instead of up is too disheartening to cut things. Rewriting a scene to be someone else's POV was bad enough; I wrote 1000 words that day but only gave myself credit for 500 because as part of the rewrite I cut 500 words. It's silly, but the wordcount really makes me feel like I did something.

Speaking of something, I really need to write some short fiction and send it out. I've only got four stories in circulation right now.

Action Scenes. Hard.

My first drafts of action chapters are about 500-1000 words. This is pitiful, and caused my outline spreadsheet to say my novel would come in short. So I sighed, and turned sentences into paragraphs. It's now about 2000 words, which is still too short, but at least my outline spreadsheet doesn't say my novel is going to come in short any more.

Which is good, because my stuff always gets longer in revision. So my goal is my minimum wordcount. People tell me that's not right, because it's easier to cut than add, but it's more in line with the way I work, so there you go.

Current wordcount: 29387. Guesstimated final wordcount: 80288 (still a little stunted by action miniscenes). Percent complete: 36 and change.

Bad subconscious, no biscuit.

I've been procrastinating about writing. I thought it was because I was stressed about car repairs and the like, but no. I think I just didn't want to write Chapter Four.

Well, I went ahead and started it, and it wasn't so bad while I was writing it, but now I'm all moody again. I don't know why I decided to write something that's so personally button-pushing, but I did.

Things will be better after Chapter Four. Then I can get into more of the things that I liked about this idea, like the love story. But until I finish Chapter Four, I'm probably going to be cranky.

Note to self.

Dear Self,

Whenever you feel uncertain of what happens next in your novel, why not readest thou of the holy outline? In fact, maybe you should randomly reread the outline for kicks, from time to time. I'm just saying.

Love,
Me

P.S. 10,113 words, go me!

Five hundred words.

I started the new, improved chapter one of lizardfic today. I have a daily word count goal of five hundred words. That's doable.

There was a moment of, "Oh, no! Start? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each." But then I started typing and it went away.

Also, I started a fresh copy of The Motivational Spreadsheet of Doom. To instanag me if I don't write my 500 words and attagrrl me if I do.

I could have written more, but it's Tuesday. Better to pace myself.

Not bad.

Amount of actual words on paper I'm getting down: Almost none.

Amount of figuring out what this story needs to work: Ginormous.

That's not what I sat down to do tonight, but I'll take it. I'll definitely take it.

Holy hand grenades, Batman!

I generally think of myself as bad at plot. Maybe I think this because I sometimes end up writing a first draft in which I follow a character around a setting and nothing happens to him or her. (This is generally what's wrong with the hurricane story, by the way--I followed Chinequa around for 10,000 words, and lots of stuff happened, but there wasn't really, you know, plot.) That happens sometimes when you're a pantser, and apparently I think with my fingers sometimes--sometimes I just need to follow a character around and type.

I feel like I made a lot of plotty breakthroughs in my Outline of d00m. I still don't have anything really resembling an ending, but, you know. I have time to come up with wacky things like endings, especially since I now have what I think are fairly logical, interesting, and conflicty beginning and middle.

Wow. I may actually push this novel out of the ditch by the side of the road yet.

Lots of work for not a lot of prose, and nonfiction reading.

My outline for the novel codenamed Lizardfic is currently 5008 words. That's longer than most of my short stories. This is more outlining than I've ever done for any project, ever. On the other hand, stalled novel, yo. Horrible feeling. Must unstall novel. I'm probably going to outline even more, until I am half-mad with outlining. It's not that I don't like writing from an outline, it's that I really suck at outlining. Hopefully, this will help.

In other news, if you've heard Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit is an excellent book, you heard right. I'm already a Twyla Tharp fan--my sister is a dancer--and she has a lot of advice for creative people of any discipline. It's very applicable to writers. If you don't want to buy it, go to your local public library or bookstore and fondle it. Trust me. I've been reading slowly through it, and finished it today.

I'm not sure if Thomas A. Limoncelli's Time Management for System Administrators is as applicable to writers, but it is applicable to people with day jobs (especially scary devil monastery day jobs) who want to have time to write, so there you go.

Outlining is HARD.

Outlining is hard. Let's do hard-core coding instead!

Seriously. I'd ask y'all to tell me that it was only this bad because I'm a complete pantser and usually pull shorter stories out of my ass out of my subconscious like Athena leaping from the forehead of Zeus, but I know that's not true. It's just hard.

Maybe you can tell me it sucks less if I get better at it. Does it?

Also, I want this. My house is a cellphone black hole.

Your attention, please.

My writer's group is made of win.

That is all.

Getting Things Done

I'm getting lots of things done today. I just don't have any new prose to show for it.

• Critiques!
• Edits on the hurricane story.
• I'm pondering the outline for the new improved Lizardfic.
  

The outlining in particular feels productive. I'm pretty sure that novel stalled because my outline sucked so much. The outline for the NaNovel was a lot better, and I still blew right through it one third of the way through, so clearly it also sucked in its own way.

We'll see how much better I can do this time.

One hundred words.

Hey, it could be worse. I had the summer of overtime. I'm even feeling like I might be able to take the hurricane story out behind the woodshed and beat it into shape soon. Maybe I'll even be able to tackle Lizardfic.

I won't be doing NaNoWriMo, though. It was fun, but my zero draft was so filthy compared to my usual drafts. It served its purpose, in getting me over the novel anxiety, but...

Intent, Schmintent.

Every now and then I go out to someone's author blog or something, and they have a post like, "I'm a writer because when I write I'm GOD. I create entire universes and control everything in them. All of creation and destruction lie in my hands! Mwahahahaha!"

I'm not this kind of writer. In fact, the idea of applying this kind of statement to the way I work is ludicrous. Maybe other people's creations are better behaved than mine, but on a good day I'm creating consensus between my wishes, the rules of good story, what the characters want to do, and whatever my subconscious has slipped into the text today. On a bad day, I referee ("Sorry, id, story wins"). On the best of all possible writing days, I'm just the typist. I always like the stuff I didn't intend the best.

My least favorite part of art school was always artist's statements. I loathe them. If I wanted to write a cheesy essay about Man's Fierce Struggle With Navel Lint, I'd do that instead of writing a story or making a piece of art. Maybe someday I'll figure out how to write one that doesn't feel unbearably pretentious and cheesy and it won't be so bad, but I doubt it. ;)

I'm sure this entry wins me no cool points whatsoever. I feel like I'm supposed to be saying, "Why, yes, I meant that, because I'm Dostoyesvky! behold my depth and symbolism!" or something. Meh.

Showing Its Origins

I'm running the NaNovel through critique group right now, and even though I made several passes through it and tried to flesh it out, it's still kind of rushed. It used to feel very much like... if you've ever heard Jaws, the screenreading software for the visually impaired, it used to feel like that. It's not so bad now, but it's still...

Well, you can still tell it's a NaNovel: "Can't stop, will lose momentum. Can't stop, must finish wordcount. Can't stop, clowns will eat me. Clowns will eat me!"

Anyway, my crit group is most awesome. Now I just need more time to rewrite!

A farewell to pantsing?

If I look back over the stories I think have been the most successful and easiest to write, they have something in common. A sense of structure. Even before I wrote the first word I had some idea of the story's structure.

It's a lot easier to write that way than to come in later and add structure so something vague and nebulous and fuzzy. (The hurricane story, alas.)

The easiest, in a sense, was "The Last Wasicu." I spent time before writing asking myself, "What kind of story can I tell with this premise? Who should the story be about?" Things like that. I think "The Last Wasicu" benefitted from NaNoWriMo, where I tried to plan, too.

Of course, the actual outlining thing didn't work very well, in the sense of estimating how much space everything should take. I kind of blew through the outline in the first 10,000 words. But it had enough structure that I was good for the rest of the novel.

The hurricane story was started long before NaNoWriMo, and I just started writing and ended up where I ended up. That's interesting and satisfying during the drafting, but it's hell when I go to edit. On the other hand, having a vague structure in mind doesn't preclude surprising myself, which is fun!

So, note to self. No more pantsing without a structure.

I haven't been plotting enough.

What with all the NaNoEdMo and hurricane story revisions, I must not be doing enough plotting. I'm having really narrative dreams again.

Tonight's was a murder trial, the witness in danger from a serial killer, the people trying to save her life, and breast cancer. It sounds like a movie of the week, doesn't it?

I take it back.

The hurricane story is not the literary equivalent of a Rorschach test.

Out of seven Critters critiques, I had four full groks, two partial groks, and an "Oh, God. Your story is so long and it has so many characters and I give up! I'm not even going to try! You're making me work too hard!"

Why, yes, I probably am. Pay attention! There's a test later! Heh.

Careful readers were thrilled that I rewarded them with information that not-so-careful readers missed completely. Two specifically mentioned liking that. I want other readers to find that information, but I don't want to take the cookie away from the careful readers. Hmmm.

I think what I need is a less steep entry point. I throw a lot of character names at them right at the beginning, which several people mentioned finding confusing.

Also, seven critiques is a lot for an 11,000 word monstrosity in the Critters queue. I must be doing something right.

I should be editing, but no.

I'm distracted by my first Critters critique for the hurricane story, which I expected.

I always think I'm being obvious when I write. I give the story to Brian, who understands it completely and effortlessly. I sent it in for critique. *Wonk!*

Now, don't get me wrong. I think there's so much that a reader brings to a story that this sort of thing is pretty much guaranteed to happen on some level. I'm not bothered by the idea that someone might read one of my stories and think it's a communist manifesto, and the next reader might think it's a story about how we need Jesus. In fact, I think that's kind of cool. On the other hand, it is a little amusing that my critique drafts that I think are oh-so-obvious are apparently the literary equivalent of a Rorschach test. "It's a fly in a swing!"

My brain does not work like other people's.

Cheerleading!

From Jennifer Pelland, a discussion on the importance of having a writing cheerleader. I actually tried to do that with NaNoWriMo on a sikrit friends-only LJ, but no one commented, alas. Maybe I should have mentioned that was my plan. What, my friends aren't all psychic?

Would anyone like to read my crappy first drafts and say what they like about them?

The world is plenty mean to writers. We need to surround ourselves with people who think we're wonderful.

Or, maybe what I need is a lack of distractions.

1533 words written today, for a total of 4582. That's almost NaNoWriMo productive.

Note to self: Distraction=Evil.

No, it's definitely stalled.

I'm not sure what's up with the story, but it's at 3049 words and just doesn't want to move at all. Maybe this is the equivalent of the NaNoWriMo week two, and I should try to plow forward. Maybe I should set an arbitrary wordcount and do it even if those words suck. Maybe I should try to skip to a more exciting part and fill in the other stuff later. Hmmm.

I think it's a novella or novelette, by the way.

I see why this story has been lying around my hard drive for a year. Clearly, I need to get out and push somehow.

200 words, yay! or something.

Last night, I added 200 words to a story I hadn't touched in over a year. I really like the story, so I hope this means I'm going to finish it now. Of course, I'm also wibbling that I think you can tell where the join is, blah blah, but I should just cut that out. I mean, it's 200 words, and that's what rewrites are for.

This is an idea I had at Dragoncon 2005, by the way. I get a lot of ideas at Dragoncon. I'm not sure why, but there's something about sitting in a panel talking about writing that causes me to get five or six totally unrelated story ideas. Maybe it's just the writerly atmosphere or something.

How I usually write.

I've been thinking about this lately because I just finished NaNoWriMo and am now working on a short story and the two of them just make me feel more aware of mechanics lately.

I usually start with a setting or situation, and then have to find characters and a plot to put in that setting. Some of the original ideas are as simple as the word "mermaids" I have jotted down in my idea book, and some leap into my head almost fully formed. Some, which often come from dreams, are so complete that I don't want to post them here.

If there aren't any people in these settings yet, I put some there.

Usually, I have to write a partial draft to figure out what the plot is going to be. I think this is slow and inefficient and wish I would stop doing it. I outlined NaNoWriMo, and then blew through my outline in one week/12,000 words. Maybe this is just my natural writing style. Maybe I just suck at outlining. At this point in a story, I'm eagerly waiting to find out what happens next, and am really excited when something does.

Then I analyze what I wrote and say, "Oh! So that's what I'm getting at!"

Lately I've been having to go back and do character arcs. That's where I am now with the short story; I have two POV characters that I like a lot, and they kind of wander passively through this setting, but at least I know what's going to happen now. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by the next rewrite right now, though. Maybe I should concentrate on the easier one first and then go to work on the main, harder character.

I may write mermaids next.

Research!

Inspiration just struck for an alternate history story which will require research. Two items in my random idea file collided. Mmm, research! Good idea file. Extra biscuit!

I'm really excited by this idea, but, once again, it's a situation without a plot. That happens to me a lot; I get a situation, or a character, or even characters in a situation, but there's no plot. Here, Plot!

Here's my sleepy question: Is it fantasy because of spoiler, or is it science fiction because it's alternate history?

P.S. Oh my darling Critters! I missed you so much!

Note to Self:

It's fine to have a programmer's aesthetic when writing fiction. Just make sure you declare your variables and functions up at the top. ;)

Getting back on the [insert mythological animal here].

I had two stories in progress when my cat got sick in December, and I hadn't touched either of them since until today.

Well, I just worked on one a little, and I really like it. It's also 2700 words so far and I don't think it's even half-finished, although I could be wrong. I'm very bad at estimating first draft lengths. Partly because I have the basic story beats so far, but not an outline or anything.

Yeah, I'm one of those weirdos who writes to find out what happens next. ;)

This one is surprising me; it's coming out pointed. And there's a lot of religion in this one. Not so much conventional, organized religion, although there's some of that, too. More... what people value.

I suspect that the former cliché story stalled because I was resisting the romance that might occur. And also, yes, it needs more conflict. I don't think that one is completely ripe, although I think I've figured it out a little better.

I kind of wish they'd all come out in a big rush like the Just Not Right story, though. Speaking of which, well... *looks at submission tracker, raises eyebrow*

Plan C?

This may be more like it. It's Jay Lake's "one story a week" rules. In short:

1) Write a story every week.
2) Finish everything you start.
3) Don't self-critique while you're writing.
4) Work on one thing at a time.

The only thing that may not work for me is "Work on one story at a time." I like to punish stories that aren't working by making them stand in the corner while I work on another one. On the other hand, he probably does have a point about slogging through them making you a better writer. Hmm.

I already follow his shadow rule: Keep stories in the mail. I'm firmly against letting them hang around the house drinking all my beer. I try to turn them around in 24 hours or less.

Plan B

Um, yeah. 9pm is apparently too late. Also, I apparently need a wordcount. There's that wacky time when I get home, while dinner is cooking; I'd be fresher then.

The Athlete's Diary convinces me that I need to modify the Motivational Spreadsheet of Doom to handle daily wordcount (it's intended for large projects). There's something about looking back over documentation of your efforts that's incredibly encouraging.

It's also possible that the problem is that this story isn't ready to be written. But it's for Scalzi's cliche challenge, and therefore needs to be done and sent by November 1. *shakes fist at story*

It's also possible that this is a problem that requires the application of more diet coke. ;)

Write is the Plan the Plan is Fiction

Every day at 9pm, except Fridays because that's Battlestar Galactica, there will be fiction. I can brainstorm, outline, edit, write first drafts, etc., but there will be fiction at 9pm, and I must spend an hour on this. The me has spoken.

I considered a daily wordcount, and... not yet. Let's see how the first week goes. Especially since, well, I keep starting the cliché story, and keep discarding drafts. Right now I think I have the wrong protagonist/POV character. Hmmmmm.

You know what helps when I'm stuck?

Analyzing structure.

It's not something that tends to occur to me often. I'm more of a sleep-on-it, wake-up-drooling-into-my-pillow-with-the-answer kind of writer. There's a part of my brain that I seem to access most easily if I'm not completely conscious that seems to understand story better than I do. But when it gets stumped, it's time to sit around and ask dumb questions about protagonist and antagonist and beginning/middle/end. You know, bring in the analytic brain when the crazed weasel approach to plotting fails. Sometimes I'm writing to see what happens, and it's often not what I expected when I started the first draft.

And I should be writing.

short fiction paradox

One of my stories in progress has just gone in a totally unexpected direction. Which is when the good stuff happens, in my opinion. I wouldn't go so far as to say that there's no point in writing if I know how the story is going to end, but a large part of the pleasure for me is figuring out what's happening and why the characters are doing what they're doing. Of course, now I don't know what happens next! What I had planned for next was kind of puzzle-boxy, if you know what I mean: clever and perhaps a bit too pat. I'm not sure that fits any more. Hopefully, whatever happens next will be better than what I had planned. That's often how it works out, odd as that may sound.

I took one of those silly online quiz things and it informed me that my writing style was "mystic," which fits. I figure out a lot of plot points in that hypnagogic state between sleeping and waking.

I've been feeling guilty about the amount of writing I've been doing lately (or, to be more accurate, the lack of same). It's the moving thing; I'm completely frazzled. I'm trailing off in mid-sentence when trying to talk to people at work and such. I have stuff in circulation, but I don't think anything is due back. *peeks* Nope. But it would be nice to have something new to go out. I'd hate for JJA to forget about me. ;)

In a complete non-sequitur, the Geek Dinner thing Bill mentioned looks fun! I suspect it would be more fun with Bill and Cynthia, though.

Nifty-swifty-ness on SFWA's site, and my calves.

This is a very useful link for the nightmare story, even if not all the items apply to the story in question. Also, I think I was writing with the wrong POV character, although I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't attempted a draft, since it took me an abortive draft attempt to really figure out what's going on. Or maybe I should condense characters. In fact, I probably should, because if I change POV characters, the original POV character doesn't really serve much purpose.

In other news, I suck at running running is very challenging, and I think I'm pushing too hard. My calves inform me that they hate me I need to slow down.