Hello, all.

Although I’ve been absent from the blog for a few days, I’ve actually been getting a fair amount of writing done: 2,752 words, some new, some old.

I’m working on my teenage spy novel right now. It’s the closest to completion, and I’ve found some new inspiration for edits and rewrites. So, while I don’t want to share the actual story with you just yet, I thought I’d share some of my process.

Two weeks ago, the day before my hard drive died, you might recall that I printed fresh drafts of the main stories I’m working on. When I get to the editing phase, I find it really helpful to have paper copies to scribble on.

So I’d recently read through everything I’ve got on this story. I had half of a rewritten first chapter already and started pondering how to finish it out. One of my complaints from before was that the action and danger level drops a little fast in the first chapter. The crisis is too easily solved and we really don’t get to see the protagonists in action.

With that problem in mind, I spent a few hours in a car this weekend. I do some of my best thinking in the car. I think it’s the forced inactivity. At home there’s always something to do, and although I’ve been trying to cultivate the quiet and space I need to be creative, there’s nothing like a moving vehicle to get my brain moving.

In the flow of conversation with my family, the topic of chain sawing came up. This isn’t as odd as it sounds, my family has a wood burning stove and my dad has always cut wood for the winter. Recently he’s also taken up wood turning. But, what this sparked in my mind was how when you use power tools for an extended time your arms and hands get tired, and even after you’re done your muscles shake and sometimes your hands flex involuntarily.

This physical phenomenon was what I needed for the scene. I suddenly had an image in my mind of one character needing the other one to help her fingers release from a powerful and dangerous machine. Her hands and arms were exhausted by the vibrations.

 

Handily, I don’t usually get car sick from reading or writing, so I pulled out a piece of paper and started drafting. I couldn’t remember exactly where the draft left off, so I just picked a point and started, knowing I could make the bridge later. All I ended up with was the front and back of a piece of notebook paper, but it was enough to combine with what I already had and springboard into finishing the chapter.

 

The other helpful part about this process is that I’m retyping the entire story, so while I might have been tempted to simply copy and paste previous text, I’m being forced to edit on a sentence by sentence level. I’m not making huge changes, but it’s more than I would have done.

There are still some larger elements that need work in this chapter, but they won’t really come together until I figure out some of the larger story issues.

So, now that I have a lovely chapter one, I’m backing it up in the cloud. (And I’ll probably be printing it soon to add to my binder, as well.)

I didn’t get a prompt posted this morning, but I wanted to share some thoughts anyway.

I’ve been reading a little disjointedly lately. Part of it is adjusting to the way my reading time is limited. Part of it is that I’ve been having trouble finding something that sucks me in. But, I recently started a book that I think is going to have a lot of gems of wisdom.

The Hero is You by Kendra Levin is a writing book that uses the mythical Hero’s Journey to help you discover your own writing process. I love that it focuses on process. In my experience, process matters more than product when it comes to a writing life.

Process is what gets you sitting down with words on a regular basis. Process is what grows you. Process is what creates the product.

I was struck by a section in the introduction of this book that I’d like to share with you:

When we ask the writers we admire about their writing schedules, or their processes, or what their favorite cereal is to eat and what time they like to eat it at, what we’re really asking is, How can I do what you do, the way you do it?

But here’s a more important question: How can I do what  I do in the way that will help me do my best work?

I’m interested to see how the rest of this book works through answering this question, because it is intensely personal. I’m hoping for some insights and prompts and questions that will help me to realize parts of my process that I haven’t been aware of yet. I feel like I’ve figured a few things out over the last 10 days of writing regularly, but I know there’s always more.

I think this applies to more than just writing process. While it is often helpful to hear about how other people accomplish things, simply applying other people’s methods isn’t usually successful. You have to understand your own tendencies, which will help you know what methods might be useful to you.

I’ll keep you posted on what I discover about my own process from this book. But as I discover my process, I’m looking forward to creating some excellent products along the way.