Writing about writing – what is it with us writers? There’s nothing so absorbing as reading about the way another person writes. It’s as if we’re waiting for the solution. I actually get excited when I realize someone is going to reveal in the next few sentences how she writes – where it happens, what time she writes, what method she uses, where she sits, what music she listens to (or doesn’t). It’s like I’m waiting for the magic key. If asked, I could tell you there is no magic key. I know that. I know that books are made of sentences, and sentences are written a moment at a time. That’s all writing is – stringing together sentences one after another. It isn’t magic. (Well, that could be argued, but it ain’t Cinderella garden-variety magic. It’s more like soul magic, if anything.)
But when I read that a successful novel was written long-hand on yellow legal pads with a number two pencil, I give it a thought. Hmmm. I picture myself on my couch, pencil in hand (do I even OWN a number two right now?), I envision the pile of yellow legal pads. And I know that I HATE to write long-hand nowadays, and I should let the dream go. But for a brief moment I think, huh. Maybe that’s the way a real writer writes.
Have been thinking about emotion and how to drop down into it. God forbid I push my little characters into emotions that aren’t real, appropriate for the situation, or honestly felt, but I’ve got them sitting in the kitchen TRYING to feel. I’m trying to feel for them, and it’s not working. My characters usually do their own thing, or most of them do. When I have to push them it’s because they don’t want to move. I should heed that. I think that music could be a key for me (yellow legal pad?) but I’m going to wait until the rewrite(s) to try that out. Logistics play into this: I write early in the morning and I live in an apartment where I can hear every word the girl next door says. If I played music at six a.m., she’d shoot me. And I write on my break at work – also not feasible to listen to music, even on a walkman (I have to listen for the page in case it gets busy and I have to respond back).
Geez, I sound like I’m justifying. Maybe I am, a little. Okay, a lot. I’m TERRIFIED to write to music, lest I cliff-dive without calling the paramedics first and having them stand by. But when I finish, and start ripping the book apart (I almost feel like I’ll be really starting to write then), I’ll try music. I swear.
This week I’m re-reading The Right to Write by Julia Cameron. She’s pretty touchy-feely and just a touch new-agey, but it works for me. I’m thinking a lot about quantity. If I take care of the quantity, the universe will take care of the quality. It sounds odd and a little out there, but I’ve found it to be true time and time again. If I show up and write, it works out that it doesn’t suck that much. In fact, it’s usually pretty all right.
Me in the torso of my Noro raglan:
‘Scuse the uniform underneath.
I think I’m going to do ¾ sleeves and cardiganize it, using Lisa’s crochet method. I’ve never tried it so I’m a little nervous about it, but crochet steek, here I come! Happy Monday, all.
Leap and the net will appear…*hee*
Cliff diving must be done without calling
for backup ahead of time, or you lose the essential adrenaline RUSH. I know whereof I speak on this one….
Here’s what I REALLY want to say:
I read your blog because you are a WRITER.
let me repeat myself….
when you write at 6am or on break
and just let it pour out onto the blog..
it makes me SWOON.(and I aint easy to please….)
Don’t you DARE start fooling around with legal pads
or music….
it’ll end up contrived and
somebody else’s STYLE.
You are a wonderful gifted writer.
Just write. Write some more. Keep going, don’t stop…
You know the joke about how to get to Carnegie Hall, right???
oh and hey, the Noro is FAB!
The uni cracks me up 🙂
Wow, Rachael, you’re totally flying on that Noro raglan! I love the progress pictures — the lovely Noro slowly defeating your uniform. “Take that! I am the all-powerful Noro! Uniforms are no match for me! I will envelop and destroy you! [Mwaaaah-ha-ha-ha!!]”
yellow legal pads, you say? At 6:30 in the morning? After a breakfast of tea and melon and three cigarettes? Will number three pencils do instead of twos? I’m there. Sign me up. Yeah…I’m a sucker for that stuff too.
And Alison’s right. You’re zipping right through that raglan!
You got me thinking the other day that it would be neat to have the characters that do not easily display *what lurks within* to be the ones to explore this within the story — have them do the work regarding why they are the way they are. I think I will try this myself as a writing exercise. Maybe even try interviewing one of my characters to see what’s up.
I’m digging the uniform. 😉
“God forbid I push my little characters into emotions that aren’t real, appropriate for the situation, or honestly felt, …”
Right. As in, would certain characters be more likely to open up their feelings in the company of a good friend, or would they tend to be blindsided by an event that shakes the feelings to the surface? If you know this much about them, you could perhaps provide the situations and see what comes then.
I do admire you for working on your characters’ expressing more emotions. On one end of the spectrum there are books in which the characters reflect endlessly, but nothing HAPPENS. Even more frustrating is when you never find out what motivates a character’s actions — i.e., who that ‘person’ really is.
Yeah, I love this stuff too. I write at work; I can’t write at home (I disappear, and it’s hard on the loved ones; also, home is for knitting and reading and petting cats). I like to write directly on the computer and throw books on the floor, OR, I do admit, use yellow legal pads. I like the size of the legal pads.
Also. I use fountain pens. Veyr retro.
speaking of writing, i have a friend who is writing her third novel…she writes on lined white paper, but she writes the whole thing backwards!! when you hold it up to a mirror you can read it! and she writes fast too, i’ve seen her do it…she says it gets her mind passed the inside battle of correct grammar and she can flow the story without getting stuck on the details…and she can read it from the paper without holding it up to a mirror…weird huh?!