Ray Bradbury: "You only fail if you stop writing."

I am not a multi-tasker.  I cannot do one or two or several things at once with any degree of comfort or grace. And that's what I've been doing over the last few weeks. Lots of stuff I had to do and lots of stuff I probably shouldn't have done.

My problem is this: I do not respect the awesome constraints of time, and I never have.  I tend to be tardy (although I have worked on that since tardiness is a sin against the virtue of justice ... it denies the victims of my tardiness something they should have—their time.) I never allot enough time for the things I decide to do. I waste time watching television (go-to rationalization on this one: story research.) And I do not spend enough time taking real care of myself— doing things like sleeping, eating healthy food, and exercising.

I have been a big spender.  A big spender of seconds, minutes, hours and even days.  And because I've come late to the writer's life, I'm having a hard time taking the time to not "stop writing."

Over the last few months, I've realized it's more than just acquiring good, disciplined habits.  At this very moment, I feel pressure to finish this blog post and get going with the "real" stuff I have to do. Shop for birthday presents, pack for a trip, figure out what to make for dinner and bring some stuff to Goodwill.

The way I'm wired to cope with day-to-day life is still very much to "stop writing."

The wiring is changing, little by slowly.  I'm leaving for a vacation on Saturday, and I'm bringing an old lap-top with me that will work just fine as a typewriter.  I have my "WIP on a STICK," Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies, G.K. Chesterton's St. Francis of Assisi, Jesse Kellerman's Potboiler, Jim Butcher's Ghost Story and Claire Vanderpool's Moon Over Manifest (because reading is the very best motivation to write.) There is not much of anything to "overspend" time on where I'm going.  I will be surrounded by beauty, and beauty is something that almost seems to restore time.

My only sadness is that I won't be able to vote in the fabulous WRiTE CLUB contest while I'm gone, nor will I be able to read the blog posts of Faith Hough, Vijaya Bodach, D.L. Hammon, Lynn Guelzow, Gordon Freeman, Marc Barnes, Heather King or the many, many guest writers on Writer Unboxed.

But I will come back with over ten thousand new words of my WIP and I will not fail.

I only fail if I stop writing.

Where I will be writing for the next two weeks.

This Week's Writer's Exercise

I belong to a Writer's Workshop at the local public library.  It meets on Thursday mornings at 11 a.m. and has been the high point of my week for months now.  Over the last couple of months, those of us with WIPs have been doing exercises pertaining to them.

Last week, we wrote endings to our our books.  There's no guarantee that the endings we wrote are the ones we will use, but it was a compelling thing to do.  Completely different from writing a beginning in so many ways AND, if one is writing a series, sown with the seeds of the next book. 

Endings seem to have valves, where tension is let off in a controlled (but not controlling!) way.  Endings are peaceful and perhaps even resigned.  They are, after all, endings.  AND, since I am both an info-dumper and a banjo-player, endings are balm to an overly-expository writer.  They are chock-full of possibilities that the reader already knows about, so the temptation to "word-herd" the reader is gone.

Now we're working on characters ... index cards with physical descriptions and connecting lines to describe the relationships between the characters.  Sort of like those wonderful family trees one finds at the beginning of a Sharon Kay Penman work of historical fiction.

It turns out the entire room our group meets in has walls of fabric and pushpins can be used EVERYWHERE, all over ALL the walls. Kelly, the leader of our group and head of Library Services, said, "Yes.  Every bit of the wall.  Go for it."  I can't wait.

The problem for me is: I have so many characters, so here's what I've decided I'm going to do:  I will have three sizes of index card to choose from.  That's right ... I'm going to cut some cards in half and some in quarters. Now this isn't to say the characters will remain a particular "size" over the series, but for the current WIP, I have an excellent idea of the "weight" each character brings to the story.

Of course, this could just be the lamest idea ever, but I really want to give it a whirl.  I love a good visual, and the mental picture of a glorious union of the Excel file of my characters, index cards, sharpies and tumbtacks is already dancing in my head.

ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES!

Blog on Blocks

Oh, jeepers ... I have to start blogging again.  I follow a blog called Writer Unboxed and when one comments, they actually post one's latest blog entry along with one's name.  And my latest entry was NOVEMBER.

The main problem for me, though, is when I don't blog, I don't write as much. Blogging is not only a way to have a constant flow of discreet, written entities that have a beginning, a middle and an end (thus ... they are FINISHED, DONE, AWAY!) but it's terrific warm-up for larger, ongoing efforts.

So, this is a "jumper cable post."  The blog battery has been dead, the blog out on blocks in the yard and come spring, the weeds will start growing up through the engine unless I get rolling again. In the YA novel I'm working on, those poor kids have been stuck in a post-cyber war, dystopian setting for four years now (although it was "peak oil" back then. Cyber war gets the job done quicker, and it's lately been in the news quite a bit.)  At least they were having horse-back riding lessons last time I peeked in.

When I blog, I move that situation along, as well. Stories are not meant to languish.  A forgotten story is much like a neglected friend; for me, the relationship becomes full of self-recrimination and guilt.  I don't have the spirit and hopefulness concerning my book when folks ask me about it, because I have let too much time pass.  The main character floats before my eyes and asks questions like, "What's the last name of the homeless bike guy?   What's my aunt's full name?  What's my riding teacher's dog's name?  Hmmmmmm????"  I looked in on the book last week to write an ending for it as an exercise, and all I can say is, thank goodness I kept an Excel file of all the particulars. I am, though, "well-rebuked."

And I will be doomed to keep writing these, "Oh my, look how long it's been!" posts. Because the only person who cares, really, is me.  If I want others to consider reading my writing, I have to write often and get it out there for folks to read, on purpose or by accident.

"Okay ... start it up!"

Jumper cables, anyone?