Schedules and Not

Apparently, flu/pneumonia/acute bronchitis can knock me on my ass, literally, for three weeks. There's a permanent indent in my couch now. My husband, in his love and care for me, made me promise I would quit my workaholic ways for the duration of the being sick. My schedule went out the window. The good thing is I'm ok with that and I came to the conclusion that I needed to be funnier. So I started this blog, Pardon My French, and another screenplay instead of working.

Scheduling

Maybe it had something to do with the new year, or maybe it was just the long weekend and staying in my pyjamas most of yesterday, but I scheduled out the next four months of writing. The goal is a chapter a week until the skeleton of my book is finished. Chapter 6 is due to be done this Friday, ugly or not.

This was my original plan when I started writing the book—a chapter a week. Despite derailments, I am back and I will muddle through, whether I like what comes out or not. That is for the rewriting process. The point is to get it out and get it finished so I can get to the real work of rewriting.

Wide awake

It was 1:30 a.m. and I couldn't sleep. A storm raged outside, pelting the windows with icy rain. All I could think was "Who is the hermit?" So I got up to find out.

Working through Chapter 6 in my book with three more pages written tonight in attempt to uncover who this character is, or isn't and what clues he is giving to the direction of my story. Maybe since he is a hermit, I needed to find him when the world was completely still and silent.

If ideas grew on trees

Today I'm scribbling around on my side project, a fairy-tale type story for younger readers. When I was a kid, I used to sneak fairy tale books into the house and hide them. Don't ask what phase my parents were going through at that time. Anyway, on my library shelf I have the Complete Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm. In this book, I have found some weird stuff (which would make understandable the parents' phase) and some fun stories that I had never known before.

Taking inspiration from my daughter's unbridled imagination, and the one I used to have, I'm writing a story where anything can exist. I think this will be a liberating thing for me and a good exercise for the creative process that I need for my novel and for my regular writing work. Lately, I've felt perfectionism sneaking in again, attempting to sabotage my ideas. 

Through a child's eyes

I gave my daughter an assignment from  Gail Carson Levine's book "Writing Magic." After writing half a sentence, she is devouring my name book in search for the perfect names for characters that don't exist. I'm wondering how long this will occupy her. I did this partly to help her work on penmanship and spelling and partly to awaken her realization that she doesn't have to watch or read someone else's stories, but can take part of the creative process in the world. 

I read her the writing prompt and made suggestions to make it her own. I sat listening to her ramble off ideas as they came to her head, watching her eyes sparkle as they appeared. This will be her second story this week. The first one was about a dolphin who lived in the wreck of a red ship. I am fascinated how her young mind runs with ideas that I may censor as not being "believable" and find it refreshing. 

Old boxes of new ideas

Don't throw out old writing...ever. I went through an old box of manuscripts, notes and photos today and found stuff that was inspiring or reminded me of ideas I had forgotten about. In fact, the book I'm writing is a fusion of the initial gypsy girl image and a story I began writing when I was 15. Somehow, it worked and I was glad I don't toss out my scribbles.

One of the papers I found today was torn from a notebook and scrawled in blue pen three things: the lotto-playing nun, father and daughter basketball baby in stroller, and women too rich to carry their own bread.

I wrote that when I worked at a small grocery store. There was this nun who would come in and buy lottery tickets every Tuesday and Friday.  She always smiled and laughed, even while she responded to my "how are you today?" with a tale about having to go to the ER due to some frequent headaches. I don't remember much about the dad, except that he was pushing the little baby in the stroller while the older daughter of about four years, was carrying a basketball. At the store we always asked if the customers would like help with their groceries. I was the one who got to do that. I often enjoyed it as a chance to get outside and would make excuses for people why they needed my amazing assistance. It even became a joke with the fire department crews that would come in for a lunch from the deli. I didn't mind most of the time because most of the time people were kind, appreciative and needed a chance to feel deserving of a helpful gesture. This particular day, a woman who was dressed well and looked stuffy actually asked that I carry her loaf of bread to her waiting Jaguar. Her car was green and reminded me of snot.

Endless beginnings

I've been writing since I was six-years-old. Maybe because I was bored, but regardless the reason, my life has been a long narration. Among the piles of manuscripts under my desk and in some cheap IKEA file holders, there are hundreds of stories that have sprung to an almost life from my brain. Most of them still dangle somewhere between the cosmic Milky Way of ideas and the typed page.

My latest attempt is a fun work in progress. It would need to classified as a science fiction novel, though there are no strange beings or space ships. I like to keep things as believable as possible despite any fantastic elements the tale may hold. 

I was inspired to write this story two years ago when I heard a song while I was working. Particular lyrics often inspire bits of story in me even if the song itself is lame. This one was called "Caravan Girl" or something. The point is that the lyrics invoked the imagery of a gypsy girl that kind of reminded me of Red Riding Hood with the cloak and all that, and a horse and carriage rambling through the forest. At lunch break, in the windowless fluorescent-lit room with a Coke machine, I scribbled down the scene I saw in my head.

I liked this gypsy girl, whoever she was—maybe because "Gypsie" is the nickname my husband gave me when we started dating and I have an egotistical calling to portray aspects of myself on paper.  I thought about her a lot and then decided that she wasn't the main character and she wasn't a gypsy.

The main character showed up first as Caleb, then I changed his name because I needed his name to mean something very specific. I have a thing about names. I love my name book.  My grand-père bought it for me as a gift when I was 14. He always bought me writing books and movies. Maybe I'll write a post later about naming characters because it's one of my favorite things.

I decided, exactly two years ago today, to write in first person and to do something I've never done before—write the story in its entirety before fixing anything. This is a difficult and liberating task never been done by this perfectionist. That was my serial problem. I would edit my writings to death before they could even walk. I had thought about writing an overview first and then putting it all together, however I enjoy the element of surprise and I wanted to see where my characters would take me, so I compromised. I have broken down the book into sections and I have the general idea of how it begins and ends and what must happen to get from Point A to Point B. As a tackle each chapter, I work in three sections each containing about 2,000 words. I name these sections before writing them so I know when the action needs to take a turn. It's helping a lot.

When the skeleton story has been finished, I will then go back and do the fun part of fleshing it out. In that time, the sections will expand or deflate or completely disappear, depending on how all the pieces end up fitting together in the end.  It's my story, I can do what I want.

As of writing this post, I am tumbling through Chapter 6. If I had kept to my original calendar plan, I would have had the skeleton finished in May 2009. But things happen (work, children, moving, and other excuses) and I am recently getting back into a regular writing rhythm. Thus I started this blog, to help keep myself accountable to my goals.