On Writing a Trilogy

Piper's Lagoon

I didn't set out to write a trilogy. In fact, the idea of writing one novel seemed pretty intimidating. How would I ever construct such a long document, and keep the whole thing coherent?

My first attempt at writing a novel was about 20 years ago or so. It was a story told from the perspectives of three women who lived on the same street but didn't know each other very well. Each was going through a difficult period in her life, and each was trying to keep her troubles secret. As things got worse for each of them and the polished surface of their lives cracked open, their secrets ceased to be secrets and the women became entangled in each others' lives. I wrote about 2/3 of the first draft, and then I got stuck. I didn't know how to draw all the threads together.

I went to a week-long writers' retreat to try to work through it and finish the novel, and instead started writing another novel.

With this next novel, I managed to finish a very long first draft, which I sent out to some preliminary readers who were kind and helpful. But I became overwhelmed by the massive revisions that needed to be done. Although the story had good bones, almost the whole thing was told from the inside of the main character's head, plodding and slow. The story is about returning from the city to one's childhood home because of the death of a parent. The main character grapples with challenging family dynamics. Then an accident keeps her there much longer than intended, and plunges her back into childhood memories and a ultimately yields a more mature perspective on the family and community that have shaped her. 

So, stuck on the revisions, what did I do? Yes, you guessed it; I started writing another entirely different novel.

Brickyard Bay

This one is speculative fiction, and it takes place in the near future. A group of girls and women have survived an apocalyptic event that has destroyed their society by sheltering underground for many years. It's written from the perspective of two best friends who are coming of age. Each separately faces the choice of whether to stay and try to save her community or find a way out and take her chances in the dangerous unknown lands on the outside. The novel explores themes of power dynamics, friendship, personal integrity, and motherhood.

I have recently completed a third draft of it. My revisions incorporate the feedback from six incredibly helpful preliminary readers, as well as lots of the suggestions given by members of my writers' group over the last 2 1/2 years. My next step with this novel is to take steps to get it published. I have written about this novel here and here.

Spelunking

But, meanwhile, as I wrote this novel, I kept thinking, "I wonder what happened to their world that forced them to have to shelter underground?" A little bit of that story is included in the novel in the form of flashbacks and storytelling events recounting their history. I kept writing background notes about the time before they went into the shelter. And then, all of a sudden, the entire plot line for a prequel novel popped into my head and I wrote it down.

So, last year while my first draft was out with the preliminary readers and I was waiting for their feedback, I started another novel, the story of how the world fell apart and how the women ended up in an underground shelter. I have written about 1/3 of the first draft. You can read a brief excerpt here.

The other thing that happened is that as I was coming to the end of the novel about the women in the shelter, I found that the novel was getting longer and longer but there were several really interesting plot threads that I could not bring to a satisfactory conclusion in the space of the novel. The solution to that problem was. . . yes! You guessed it -- to write yet another novel, a sequel.

So that is how I came to be writing a trilogy: a prequel novel, which I'm partway through writing, the middle novel in the trilogy which is ready to go out for publication, and a sequel novel.

Little Qualicum Falls

Although a few elements in the sequel were clear and I knew how I planned to resolve them, the overall story line was quite hazy to me until about a two weeks ago. Suddenly, the plot line for the third book revealed itself to me, along with the main characters and events, and I wrote it down. 

It seems miraculous how the story suddenly appears like that. But then again, perhaps it's not so surprising. I think about the story for the hours and hours I spend in front of my computer writing and revising day after day. During periods that I'm actively writing, I walk around with my head in the clouds thinking about my story all day long. My characters infiltrate my mind when I'm trying to get to sleep at night. My brain is chugging away much of the time trying to turn my made-up world, my characters, and the events I've already invented into a coherent narrative. So although it feels like the story just pops into my head, in fact, I've been ruminating on it for years.

One of the fascinating things about writing a trilogy is going back and forth between the three stories. There is a character, Mother Beulah, in the completed novel who is important but not a main character. However, in the prequel novel, Beulah is a main character and many of the events are seen from her point of view. I learned more about Beulah as I worked on writing the prequel novel, and was able to go back and deepen Beulah's character in the middle novel while doing my revisions on it.

Writing a trilogy allows me to include more characters and points of view than I could in a single book. It allows me to follow characters in different periods of their lives and different circumstances -- e.g., the younger Beulah and the middle-aged Beulah.

Where I Write

But it's also challenging because it's harder to remember and hold together the details of the story world and the characters across three books. As well, I am writing the three books so that each of them can be read on its own in any order without having to depend on the information that was in a preceding book. Although each is or will be an intact, complete story, there are certain themes, events, and characters that run across the trilogy.

I have learned a lot from each novel I've written or attempted to write. Writing and revising are very time-consuming processes but I think doing them is the only way to really learn how to write.  

Maybe some day I'll be able to go back and finish those first two novels. Or maybe I'll have gone on to writing something else by then.

It's hard to illustrate a blog post on writing, because all the visuals of the novels are in my head or in words on the page. I've included a photo of my desk where I write. Although I spend a lot of time writing, I do other things too. So I've included a few photos of the amazing landscapes of Vancouver Island from recent excursions.

Settling In; Moving On

Hiking on Vancouver Island, with Physical Distancing

 I'm pleased to report that the revisions to my novel have been going very well recently. This is officially draft number 3. I've expanded the ending, added scenes, and tweaked characters. I've also slashed out a lot of stodgy prose -- adverbs, nominal phrases, redundancies, and the like. It's leaner and punchier. I've managed to cut 5,000 words, which is good, because it's too long.

Unfortunately, when I'm successfully working on my novels, my blog writing doesn't fare as well. So today, I'm taking some time out to post an update.

Pandemic Panic

Like so many others, I was quite calm about staying home and sheltering in place at first. It was an adventure -- a chance to cook new things and use up supplies in the back of the cupboard. "Staying at home for a couple of weeks: how hard can this be?" I said to myself.

But then, I found myself staring at the screen in horror as the death tolls mounted in Italy and Spain. I stayed up into the wee hours poring over corona virus statistics from John Hopkins University, Worldometer, CBC, and the BC Centre for Disease Control. I spent 3 to 5 hours online every day reading news articles, watching videos and live broadcasts, and tracking the statistics. I became a fan of Dr. Bonnie Henry, the top public health officer for BC, and watched her daily update without fail.

Will the Rain Never End?

It gradually dawned on me that we were in this for the long haul -- years, not weeks. I missed seeing my kids, grandchildren, and friends. I went through some pretty bleak weeks, made worse by a bout of cold rainy weather.

The five stages of grief and loss -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance -- I've been going through them all. 

You'd think that staying at home with everything wiped off my calendar would give me ample time for my creative pursuits, writing and painting, which I never seem to have enough time for. But no. For the first six weeks, I couldn't work on my novels. I couldn't seem to focus. I was too anxious. I had to spend all my time reading about the corona virus. 

Perhaps the fact that I'm writing a three-novel apocalyptic trilogy had something to do with it. It's a little creepy when bizarre things I made up and wrote about in my fictional tale have suddenly started happening in real life.  

Settling In 

It's now Day 69 for us. Tomorrow we'll hit the 10 week mark. 

We're starting to settle in. This is our life. We're getting used to it. 

(I'm writing this knowing, with immense gratitude, that I and my family have been extremely fortunate. We're fortunate to be living in BC, where wise Dr. Bonnie Henry has led the provincial epidemic response informed by science, and where the residents of the province have been very socially responsible in following public health guidelines. I'm fortunate to have not lost anyone in my social circle to the virus.)

Settling in means I'm getting comfortable with my life with its new, more restrictive parameters. I'm happy to have time to write, even though it's because so many of the other things I was doing have been put on hold. 

One of my friends said to me, looking a bit guilty as she said it, "I kind of like just staying home."

Adapting

I'm moving on with my life (while adhering strictly to the public health guidelines). Yes, things are different now, but that doesn't mean my life is on hold. I'm adapting to the new circumstances.

One of the advantages of being 63 years old is that I've had lots of practice at this. No, not with pandemics, but with difficult, wrenching life changes. 

I've moved a lot. Every move has meant leaving behind friends, my home, my job, favourite restaurants, and favourite walking trails. 

I've had injuries that have impacted my mobility. There were times I thought I'd never ski again because of knee injuries. I've learned to ski differently. I once broke a bone in my foot that wouldn't heal. I was in a cast for four months. I wondered if I'd ever walk normally again. 

Keeping in Touch

I've lost beloved family members. Every time it was extremely painful. It felt as if my own life had ended. I grieved. I came to acceptance. Time kept going along, and once again I found joy. I've adapted to changes and I've had a wonderful life. 

Moving On

Living in the age of the novel corona virus means finding new ways to do things, and continue to live a satisfying, fulfilling life.

I've started texting with my grandsons on Messenger. They love playing with the photo options and other media features. 

We enjoyed a physically distanced Mother's Day picnic with my daughter's family.

Mother's Day Picnic

Before the physical distancing restrictions, I was very involved doing fundraising with my local chapter of Lions International. All of those initiatives have been suspended. 

However, our Lions club has been out with other community members cutting broom. Scotch broom is an invasive plant species that is a problem on Vancouver Island. 

We can stay apart but be together while we cut broom. 

Rob with Broom

Clematis in Bloom

I have spent a lot of time out working in my lovely garden. Although the weeds are endless and I'll never keep up with them, I've been enjoying my gardening time.

I have planted tomatoes, herbs and a few other things in containers on my deck.

The flowering shrubs bring joy. And I'm quite pleased with my little vegetable patch, tucked in amongst the decorative plantings. 

Veggie Garden

On the long weekend, Rob and I went on a beautiful hike around the point with my son and one of my daughters. We enjoyed time together while still observing public health restrictions.

My Son

My Daughter

Another way in which we have adapted is that Rob and I are going for more walks together. To celebrate our recent anniversary, we picked up take-out sushi and ate it at a picnic table in the park. Then we went for a lovely walk around the harbour.

Not Too Old for Selfies

Settling in, adapting, moving on -- a good life.

Self-Sabotaging Writing Habits

Sunset at Lake Cowichan

 If you have been following my blog for awhile, you know that I am a writer. I haven't updated you recently on what's happening in my writing world, so, first the good news!

How the Novel is Coming Along

For the last few years, I have been working on a novel. Last November, I announced that I had completed a first draft of it. But then I changed my mind and re-wrote the ending. Then I read the whole manuscript through and made minor corrections. Then I was finally ready to send the manuscript out to beta readers.

What is it about, you ask?

It is a dystopian tale that takes place in the near future. A small group of survivors, all female, have survived cataclysmic events that have destroyed their city, and for all they know, most people on earth. Years later, two best friends in the shelter come of age and begin to wonder what is outside of their protected enclave. The ecosystem of their little world is beginning to collapse. Each of the two has to make a choice whether to listen to her conscience or follow her heart.

Over the spring, I received feedback from my five beta readers. All of them were very positive about the story: plot, characters, the futuristic setting, the social commentary, and the writing. Two of them recommended changing the ending (again), and I agree. I left things up in the air too much, and that was unsatisfying. My amazing beta readers also gave me lots of pointers about specific changes to make.

I have also read out many snippets to members of my writing group, and their advice is always constructive, gentle, and to the point.

So, the good news is that I've written a novel and I'm really happy with it.

The Revision Process

I spread out all the notes from the beta readers around my computer and began to work through the revisions. That has worked well, as long as I sit down in that room and at that computer. I have found that it is important to not leave too long a time period between each revision session, because then I forget all the details I was trying to hold in mind about what to change, and have to read through all the notes again. Successful revising, for me, appears to be dependent on how I organize my time, space, and written notes.

Before I wrote this novel, I wrote two other novels that I never finished. With the first, I got about 3/4 through a first draft. With the second, I finished a first draft and sent it to beta readers who made excellent suggestions. And then I became so overwhelmed about how to tackle the extensive revisions that I couldn't bring myself to do them.

I am happy to report that I am not struggling with my motivation to do the revisions on this novel. I am enjoying the revision process, and I love sitting down at the computer to work on it. And I really want to finish these revisions and get on with the next phase because this novel is timely right now and because...

It's Going to be a Series!

Yes, it's not going to end with the novel that I have just written. It's going to be a series of three books, and the completed one is the one in the middle. Right now the prequel novel is burning a hole in my brain. I have written copious notes for it, and the opening scene.

Self-Sabotage

So where does the self-sabotage come in? Why am I not finishing the revisions?

I have no desire to avoid working on the revisions. I am eager to sit down at the computer and mentally jump back into the world of my story. I kind of dread the next step of seeking publication, but that is not why I haven't been working on the revisions.

I have always been a person who takes on way too much. They are all things that I want to do, like travelling to Crete, or going on an excellent 3-week vacation, or spending time with family or friends, or participating in art shows, or agreeing to do other writing projects. Or they are things that I have committed to do for others, such as volunteer work for my service group.

I am very disciplined about making myself follow through and actually do the things that I have promised that I will do. But the downside is that all those other things have specific more urgent timelines, so my writing time gets pushed into the background.

In the case of the revisions, my summer travels meant that I have had hardly any time to sit down at the particular computer where my revision notes are laid out. I was afraid to take the revision notes with me for fear they would get lost, and also because it takes long stretches of uninterrupted time to get into the head-space and work on revising.

In contrast, I was able to write background notes for my new prequel novel anywhere in any little fragment of time that I had. All I needed was a laptop or pad of paper.

There is a little executive manager in my brain who tells me how to allocate my time. The sabotage equation goes something like this: "I want to work on my revisions, but I've promised to do project X which is due [insert date coming up very soon] so I can't do my revisions until I have finished project X. But I don't really feel like doing project X right now, so first I'll [insert alternative activity such as do the laundry/go for a walk] to get myself into the mood to do project X, and at least [the laundry will be done/I'll get my 10,000 steps]. Oh no, the whole day has gone by and I haven't worked on my revisions or on project X!"

Or I'll be talking to a friend and the next thing I know, I'm meeting them for lunch or dinner, or to go on a bike ride, or X, Y, or Z.  

So that's how I have been sabotaging my revision process. I've been avoiding project X (which is actually a very interesting project and I'm sure I'll enjoy it once I'm actually working on it again), and not allowing myself to work on my revisions until project X is finished. 

Floaters on the River

Never to Old to Ride on a Swing

The other thing is, I've been too busy having fun! I have inserted a couple of photos from my excellent summer vacation to whet your appetite for my next blog post.

Art Show Update and Novel Newsflash

Since returning from our European trip (here, here, here, and here), I have had the chance to relax at home, socialize with friends, and spend some great moments with the grandkids.

Relaxing on the Couch, with Coffee

Sleep over at Grandma's

 

And, we had some great visits with friends and our northern family members throughout August, September, and October too, including a visit from blogging buddy Liesbet and her husband  Mark. I just haven't had time to write about everything that has been happening!

But, that is not what this post is about.

Art Update

This Saturday and Sunday, I will participating in another Studio Tour. As with last time, I will open my art studio and gallery, Notch Hill Art, to the public. I hope to see lots of new and previous visitors! I have blogged about it here. 

Art Show This Weekend!

 So, I have been busy preparing my studio. I have hung several paintings that I have not shown at previous Nanoose Bay Studio Tour events before. It should be a fun weekend!

Long Shadows

 Novel Update

Newsflash! I have just completed a first draft of my novel.  

It clocks in at 30 chapters and more than 100,000 words. I can’t tell you exactly how many words it is because I have written it using an older version of WORD that stops counting at 100,000. It is a somewhat lighthearted post-apocalyptic tale (if you can imagine that) crossed with a coming of age story.

I am excited about having completed the first draft! I have been working on this novel for about three years, although I actually had the original idea for it nearly 30 years ago when my second child was a baby.

My next step with the novel is to read the whole thing through, making small revisions to do with flow and consistency. Then I am going to give it to my beta readers. I am so happy that four people have offered to read it and give me feedback. They are all people who will present perspectives that I know will be very helpful.

During this past year, my writers’ group has been such a great support and source of feedback. I think that knowing that we will be meeting each month helps to motivate me to keep on working on the manuscript. Every month, I want to have something new to read at our meeting.

The other great thing about our writers’ group (besides the fact that they are wonderful people and good writers) is that we have started to go out to writing related events together, like readings and storytelling evenings. I love being connected with a bunch of likeminded writers.

Next month, I will be reading through the manuscript of one of my writer friends, and I am looking forward to that very much (AFTER the art show).

So, in summary, although I have been actively involved in a lot of things this past year, I have still managed to find some time for writing and art. Writing and making art were two priorities that I set for myself when I retired, and it makes me happy that I have persisted toward these goals.

World Building

It is less than three weeks until the art show that I will be participating in. The show opens on Friday evening, April 27, with a special event, and it is open to the public all day on Saturday, April 28 and Sunday, April 29. Rob, dear person that he is, has been busy in his workshop building me a modular framework ("hoardings," he calls them) to set up in the 10'x10' booth so that I have somewhere to hang my paintings.

Building the Hoarding

 I have lots to do to get ready. As I mentioned before, over several weeks I have spent hours photographing my works, editing the photos, organizing them, and preparing them for my art website that is under development. I unpacked a couple more moving boxes to find some more of my paintings. (I still haven't found all of them.) But there is soooo much left to do to get ready, and I have not been ticking many items off the to-do list.

So what have I been doing if not getting ready for the art show? Well, skiing. The spring skiing has been fabulous. We have been going skiing a couple of times a week with friends, and last weekend I had a chance to ski with my son and daughter.

Sunny Day at the Ski Hill

 We also did some house stuff. Our new living room furniture finally was delivered. We replaced and upgraded two toilets. We replaced an item damaged in the move. All of this required much moving of furniture, reorganizing, and cleaning. There have been the usual things like car maintenance, doctor's appointment, tax prep, and grocery shopping. As well, I progressed on some academic writing projects, completing two of them recently.

My service group sponsored an Easter Egg Hunt, which I helped with. I hosted and cooked a family dinner for Easter. As well, I have participated in dog walks, attended a community talk, and spent time with my grandsons.

And there's more! Here is some exciting news. A friend and I are part of a new local writing group that has just formed. I recently attended a "meet and greet" organized by the Federation of BC Writers, and the people present at that event decided to organize ourselves into a writers' group. We have had our first official meeting.

I am so excited about writing again that I have resumed working on my novel. I have finished chapter 26 and am starting on chapter 27. I am getting near the end! Of course, once the first draft is done, the revisions begin, and I cannot say that I am looking forward to revisions. 

The other night, I wrote until late at night, finishing chapter 26. As I drifted off to sleep, my head was swirling with ideas and fragments of paragraphs to write in chapter 27. But then I woke up with a problem. (I guess my brain had been working on the novel while I slept.) I realized that my timelines did not line up properly for the plot to unfold the way that I had planned.

You would think that in a novel that takes place decades into the future, timelines would be pretty flexible. However, throughout the book, I have been building a world. And in the logic of this world, I have created the necessity for certain events to unfold a certain way.

There were two main time sequencing issues. Two characters are having babies, a couple of months apart from each other. Somehow, I had miscounted the due date for the first birth by several weeks. I couldn't just change the date easily, because I had already written about the birth and tied it closely to a certain season of the year. I had also miscounted the due date of the second birth, in this case only by about two weeks, but this also was problematic because I am intending for the mother to be doing something during the plot climax that is very physically grueling, and she would not have planned to do it if she had just given birth. Just as in real life, these fictional babies are being born at inconvenient times!

So the next day, instead of steaming along writing chapter 27, I spent hours recalculating the math for the dates of the births and other events. I corrected my timeline notes. Then, I went back and read through several chapters, and made corrections so the timelines would work out.

With this novel, I have kept a number of files of notes, supplementary to the novel. I have a list of characters with details like their age, appearance, relationship with other characters and so on. I have made a timeline of major social and political events in my imaginary world, both preceding and following the period in which my story takes place. I have written notes about the backstory. I have a list of chapter names along with the page of the manuscript on which each chapter starts.

Supplementary Notes

Some of my notes are very messy and scribbled. For example, I have drawn a rough map of the geographical area where my characters live. About two chapters into the writing, I realized that I needed to keep a timeline of the major events in the story, which takes place over the period of a year. I labelled the day on which the story starts as "Day 1." Quite a bit further along in my writing, I realized that seasons were going to be important in this imaginary world, so I went back and re-labelled Day 1, Day 2, etc., with dates, arbitrarily starting the story on November 16. Although I had a rough plot outline when I started this novel, I mostly have invented the story and the details of my story world as I went along.

For those of you who write fiction, how do you keep track of events and their sequence in a piece of writing as long and complicated as a novel? I would be curious to know about your method. I imagine that dates would be especially tricky to manage in historical fiction, and also when writing a memoir or biography. I look forward to your comments. 

And, yes, I am avoiding doing my art by writing instead. Perverse, I know, but at least the creative juices are flowing.

The Protagonist Problem

Although I have not been working on my works in progress recently, sometimes I think about them. I have written most of two novels (and a very sketchy beginning of a third). The first novel is at the stage of the first draft being three quarters complete. The strength of this one is in its characters, and its primary weakness is plot. I became stuck, unable to bring the themes together into a satisfying conclusion. 

With the second novel, I completed an overly long first draft a few years ago with the help of a couple of NaNoWriMo Novembers. This novel has a more complex structure and plot than the first one, essentially a coming of age story nested within a coming of age story. Although most of the story is told from the female protagonist's perspective, some of it is expressed by the antagonist (who is my favourite character in the book). As well, a third character pops in midway through, briefly, and I have realized that she is quite important to the story, as her perspective serves as a counterpoint to a core identity problem that the protagonist is struggling with. I think I need to add more of this third character's voice. 

This second novel is at the revising stage. Doing the revisions seems so daunting that, while I have written a bunch of notes on what I need to do, I haven't really begun revising. One of my first readers made an excellent observation about my protagonist. We see the protagonist in adulthood and as a child. She is a white woman/girl who is concerned about and at the same time implicated in racist attitudes and social practices. My reader asked why she is so conflicted, as she seems to be doing and saying all the right (anti-racist) things. I was unable to answer this question at the time. 

Now, a couple of years later, I have come to recognize something that I am calling the protagonist problem afflicts both of my novels. While I have been able to develop the other characters quite well and have a good sense of their motivations, perspectives, and flaws, in both novels I have somewhat of a blind spot about the protagonists. I have trouble seeing why they do what they do. I am too close to them. My blind spot about these main characters is almost like the blind spot I have about myself and that each of us has about ourselves - that inability to look at one's self and actions with any kind of objective distance. However, I want to quickly point out that neither of the protagonists is autobiographical; I am not either of them and their experiences are not mine (although I recognize that there is some of me in each of my characters and in the dilemmas that they find themselves in).

Moreover, I feel ambivalent about each of these two main characters. Neither is a hero that is easy to identify with. In the first novel, the main character feels smugly superior to the two other significant characters that she has been thrown together with, and yet also is profoundly lacking in emotional self-awareness as she grieves a death of someone close to her. 

In the second novel, the main character is likeable as a young girl, but when we see her as a woman, she has isolated herself from her family. She has become judgmental and focused on efficiency and career, and is not very effective in being able to form or sustain relationships. The trouble is, how do we care about her and the situations that she is in throughout the book if we don't like her? 

The protagonist problem is this. I am writing each of these stories primarily from the point of view of the main character. Because I am seeing the world from her point of view, I suffer the same kind of lack of insight and self awareness that the character has, or that any any first person perspective has. I as the writer lack narrative distance, and this makes it hard for me to see the main character as a fully rounded complex person. Moreover, in both novels, I have given the protagonist have some personality characteristics that might not make the protagonist particularly endearing to the reader. 

I think that when I finally go back to writing and revising these works in progress, I am going to have to find a way, as the writer, to step back from the two protagonists. By stepping back and taking a longer view, I hope to see them as the characters that they are, interacting with the other characters on the stage of their story. 

Time is a Trickster

Several days ago, during a few minutes of mindless day dreaming, a plot for a new novel popped into my head. I indulged myself, and thought about it for awhile. The genre is speculative fiction. The time is not too far in the future, and some troubles that we face today have played out in a rather bizarre way to create some whopping big problems for North America. (You realize that I am speaking in broad generalities here. I am not quite ready to share any plot details yet.)

This novel would precede another novel, working title Underground, which I have made a bit of a start on -- the first 25 pages. The trouble is, I thought up the idea for  Underground nearly 25 years ago, when my second child was a newborn. I scratched down a few notes and scenes at the time, then came back to it began writing it one year for NaNoWriMo when I was trying to avoid finishing my second novel, Memories of a White Girl.

I have written a complete first draft of Memories. I have given it to first readers. I have spent countless hours thinking about and writing notes for the revision of Memories. But I have scarcely begun the actual revision. I think the story has lots of potential. But it needs lots of revision before it is ready to go out anywhere.

Ironically, or perhaps typically, given my writing tendencies that I have just described to you, I started writing Memories in a week-long writing workshop ten years ago in order to avoid working on my then current novel, working title Friends. The first draft of that one was about three quarters finished, but I  became stuck trying to pull the the themes together into a dramatic and satisfying conclusion. I still love the characters and structure of Friends but haven't even finished the first draft, never mind the revisions.

So to summarize, over the last 25 years, I have reached different stages on four draft novels:
1989: plot for Underground and a few notes
2001-03: wrote most of first draft for Friends
2003: wrote 4 linked short stories, which I later reworked into novel chapters for Memories
2004-07: thought about Memories a lot but didn't write much
2007: added 50,000 words to Memories during NaNoWriMo
2008: plodded along adding small bits from time to time, then wrote another 30,000 words during NaNoWriMo. Finally finished the first draft, I forget when.
2010: returned to Underground idea and wrote a bit
2011: did a little revision and sent Memories to readers; wrote notes for more revisions
2013: idea for yet another novel

There's always time, right? The novel drafts will still be waiting for me when I finally have time for them, right?

Well maybe not. A dear colleague has developed a degenerative disease similar to Lou Gerig's disease, and his good mind is increasingly locked within his body as he loses the motor control to speak and type. A brother of a friend is struggling with an aggressive form of Parkinson's disease, recently diagnosed. Another colleague, who was a mentor to me and whom I deeply admired as a leader is having serious health problems of some undetermined cause, just when he should be enjoying his first years of retirement.

Sometimes there isn't all the time in the world. Time is a trickster who changes the rules.

Revision: Beyond Procrastination

Revision, dreaded revision.

Writing the first draft of my novel was fun. I cannot say that it was hard to write it at all. That is not to say that the story just flowed onto the screen. I struggled over sections and got stuck in plot dead-ends. Certain parts didn't work quite right; I wasn't happy with them and not sure how to fix them. But I was happy to sit down to the story and write. Finding enough time to commit to writing was the only hard part (busy life, blah, blah, blah).

But for a year now, I have been in limbo, avoiding getting started on revising. (Moreover, I haven't let myself start writing something else either, knowing that is one of the tricky strategies my procrastinator self uses to get out of things -- like REVISING.)

In November, I began to recognize that some aspects of the manuscript needed work, thanks to a brief but helpful critique from Robert Ray. Although I have read many inspirational books on writing in the past, I began to seek out nuts-and-bolts writing books and websites. I have been reading about plot, subplots, character arcs, back story, building suspense, and so on. And I am finally getting down to working on the revisions.

Here is the good news.

• I have a complex, layered story.
• I have a good character arc for my protagonist that starts on page one and runs through to the last sentence.
• My main antagonist is well-rounded with a good character arc (although his exit still needs a bit of work).
  
• I have tension-building secrets and multiple subplots.
• I have a three act structure (with a twist).
• I have made good use of different character POVs and differentiated the characters' voices.
  

But here is the bad news.

• Much of the first half of Act 1 takes place inside the main protagonist's head.
• By having my protagonist recount, remember, and think about things, I am telling rather than showing, and it is sloooowwww.
• I need action, dialogue, and conflict (not just angst)
• In many sections (e.g., the opening), the ms. lacks vivid word pictures to place the characters in the setting and show what they look like and what they are doing.
• My protagonist's core motivation is not clear.
• I have far too many flashbacks and have fallen prey to the dreaded info-dump
  

That means that I have a lot of rewriting to do.

But at least now I have a better grasp of the task that I face, my revision objectives, and some tools to work with.

Ah, revision. It actually feels better to have finally started revising (even though there are way more troubles than I initially thought, which is as depressing as hell) than it felt to be: a) fooling myself that hardly any revisions were needed (blush); b) realizing that some revisions were needed but avoiding getting started on them; c) in despair that the entire manuscript was unsalvageable; and then d) wanting to revise but having no idea what to do and how.

Out of the Slough of Despond

I recently fell into the Slough of Despond. Or maybe it was the Pit of Despair. In any case, it was a dark, cold place with no up. I fell in suddenly and unexpectedly. The cause? I found out that when I wrote my novel, I hadn't followed any of the rules. Everyone else seemed to know the rules. I hadn't even realized that there were rules. Therefore, my novel must be crap. (And here I had been so satisfied with my first draft, so certain that the next step was simply to put some time into the manuscript revisions and I would have a substantial work.) There was no light anywhere.

Suspended there, motionless, directionless, and quite grumpy, I had my first insight. Perhaps one reason that I had not been proceeding with revising my novel in a timely way was that I was unsure of how to go about doing so. So, as much as I am always tempted to thumb my nose at "the rules" (I don't like rules), I reasoned (in the murky kind of way that one thinks in dark hopeless places) that I should take a closer look at some of those rules that other people follow to see if I could find some tools or strategies that might help me with my revisions.

Hmm, a faint sickly sort of light above me; I clawed my way upward. I inspected tools and rewriting advice: character grids, plot and subplot structure, archetypes, core stories. I began to analyze my manuscript in a structural way, similar to how I might approach a literary analysis of any other writer's work. Rather than "crap," I discovered interesting complexities of plot, character relationships, symbols, and social commentary there in the manuscript already, along with some flaws that had been invisible to me previously.

And now I'm out of the hole, back in the light, working through additional steps of analysis. I'm almost ready to start a beginning-to-end reread/manuscript markup. I'm not following anyone's exact prescription, but taking bits and pieces that fit my revision needs. And the next step after that, I think, will be to actually start rewriting the thing, with all my new ideas about character arcs and motives, plot points, etc. to guide me and my battered ego.

A Sad NaNo Season

This year, at the beginning of October, I was looking forward to National Novel Writing Month with gusto. I have participated in it the past three Novembers. In 2007, I wrote over 50,000 words, developing 4 short stories that I had written years earlier into a novel. It was not nearly finished, so I continued working on it for each of the next two Novembers. By November 2009, it was 114,000 words long and the first draft was very close to being finished. A few months later, with some intermittent work on it, I finally had a completed first draft. I felt happy with it.

And then it sat. I made a few halfhearted attempts at revision. I did some research to fill in details that I had been vague on during the initial writing, but not much because that seemed to lead me off into endless digressions (internet surfing). I made a list of (mostly minor) problems with the manuscript that I needed to consider and rework. But then I didn't do it.

So when November rolled around again this year, I considered and rejected the idea of using NaNoWriMo to work on my revisions. Although NaNo might motivate me to work on those pesky revisions and it might add some necessary discipline and structure, revisions aren't really what NaNoWriMo is all about. Is it?

My next novel was rolling around in my head. I was laying out scenes, thinking about plot, building my novel world in my mind -- I was pumped and ready to go!

And then I went to the Surrey International Writers' Conference (SiWC) in late October. In three intense, useful days, I suddenly discovered why I was making so little progress revising my manuscript. It wasn't just that I was procrastinating (although I was), and it wasn't just that I had way too much stress at work (although I did). My revisions were stymied because I didn't really have a clue how to evaluate my novel's structure, story, and style. I didn't know what wasn't working well in it, or how to go about fixing it.

Although it was disappointing to realize that my manuscript was far less finished than I thought, at least I returned from the conference with some great insights about the revisions that I need to do and why. For the last few weeks, I have been evaluating the manuscript in terms of subplot structure, conflict, tension, character development, action, dialogue, and description. I have been developing a plan for the revisions.

So why is it a sad NaNo season? Well, I've shelved my new novel idea for now. It's time to work on those revisions.

Revision Advice

Well, now that the first draft of my novel is finished (and apparently too long already at 114,329 words in Times New Roman), it is time to start revising. I do not write in the NaNoWriMo style, which involves putting as many words down on paper as fast as possible without editing, but instead I have been editing and revising as I have gone along. However, the revisions have mostly pertained to each small section that I was working on at the time, not to the overall structure of the story.

Another way that my story differs from a NaNo story is that I have written most of it over a period of three years (except for a small core section that started as four short stories written in 2003). So rather than springing out of my head in one short month, my story has had time to percolate and develop over a period of years.

Nevertheless, I do know that it needs revisions. For example, as I was writing, if I came to something that needed research or fact checking, often I just simply inserted asterisks as a reminder to go back later and correct the details, rather than stopping the flow and getting distracted with research right at that moment. (Note: I did not do this for facts that were critical to the plot, just for details and minor events.) As well, I know that there were some shifts in characterization as the book evolved.

What I need to do is sit down and read the whole thing at a sitting to see how it holds together. One of my concerns about revising is that I know that I hate to cut (but am happy to add!). But this manuscript already is too long; I'm going to have to be brutal and cut, cut, cut. Another concern is that I am not sure how to keep it coherent and consistent, given that it is so long. I am used to writing and revising much shorter pieces.

So, if you were hoping for revision advice, that's not really what this post is about. It's more about me looking for advice. I have come across one site that looks very helpful: HollyLisle.com.