Writing habits and other madness

Writing a book is a solitary endeavor. It does not lend itself well to a group activity. You can’t do it while delivering lunches to farmers in the field or show-grooming dogs for the weekend trial or agonizing about what colors to choose for a new custom-braided leash. You can think about writing a book during all of those circumstances, but the actual writing requires quality time alone with a laptop and your thoughts.

 

When I started writing “How to Live with a Ghost,” quality time alone was a prime commodity, regardless of what I did with it. I was juggling a full-time job, a full-time dog training addiction and annoying expectations of life like laundry and meal prep and paying bills. Which explains why it took so long to get The Book done, although there is no hard and fast rule governing how long it should take to write a novel. It will take as long as it takes.

 

I feel the orange slice should be substantially larger.

 I started writing “Ghost” about the same time the newspaper industry started going down the toilet. Corporate’s view on news room employees was that they were unnecessary and there was no need to pay a full staff when two people could do what six had previously done. I was one of the chosen two. I spent the next five years feeling like Indiana Jones in the scene where he’s being chased by that big, rolling boulder. As long as I kept moving forward at high speed, I’d be okay. Probably. 

 

So I wrote to escape reality. I created a parallel universe where I could hang out with characters doing fun, flirty things and not worrying about water treatment plants or school funding issues or why a subscriber in Petaluma, Calif., didn’t get their paper last week. This imagination-fueled escapism wasn’t anything new. In elementary school, my friends and I used to pretend we were characters in our favorite books and TV shows, flying starships and riding wild mustangs and exploring abandoned mansions. I never outgrew that.

 

 

I started carving out time every morning before work to write. Some days it yielded multiple pages. Others, I only managed to chisel out a sentence or two. But I wrote almost every day. It started becoming a habit, and in the way of habits, it was self-rewarding because it yielded tangible results. Pages turned into chapters that eventually turned into an awkward, stumbling first draft.

 

 At this point I should note there are two approaches to writing: outline the entire manuscript before typing the first sentence or fly by the seat of your pants. In spite of being mildly OCD (certain friends are laughing, I can hear you), I fell solidly into the latter category with "Ghost," probably because I never really thought I'd finish it.

 

Neither approach is right or wrong, although after struggling through the mayhem of rewrites to create a sensible beginning, middle and end for “Ghost,” I can appreciate the benefits of outlining. My brain just didn’t work that way on this book. Maybe it will for the next one. (Brain is screaming FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WOMAN, PLEASE OUTLINE AND SAVE YOURSELF 5 YEARS OF MAYHEM AND CONFUSION!)

 

I was also not a linear writer who started at the beginning and wrote straight through to the end. The story refused to unfold in my head in a chronological manner, so I wrote scenes as they popped up and sorted them out later, then filled in the things that needed to happen in-between to pull it all together.

 

This is an accurate representation of
writing a novel and/or training a dog.
Except for both, the line should go entirely
off the page and disappear for a while.

 The process taught me a few valuable lessons they probably teach in Fiction Writing 101, which I didn’t take because I was across the hall in News Reporting 101.

 

Mainly, just sit down and write already. Get your first draft on paper, even if it’s awful. (Helpful hint: it will be all kinds of awful. Who cares. Now you have something to work with. You can’t edit a blank page.) Write even on the days when you wonder if you have any business writing. You do. The fact you want to do this madness means you should be doing it.

 

I had a lot of doubt. Like, seriously a lot. Who did I think I was to write a book? What if I spent all this time on a project no one but myself would ever read? What if someone did read it and thought it was terrible? Did J.K. Rowling or John Sandford or Craig Johnson ever feel this way?

 

 

But I kept writing because I enjoyed it, and at the end of the day, it felt like time well spent.

 

Next week: I’m not sure what’s coming next week. Maybe book stuff. Maybe not book stuff. Like writing, publishing is a marathon, not a sprint. My publisher assures me Things Are Happening, and has hinted as soon as the cover design is in-hand, there is possibility of pre-orders. That's all I know. Have a great week.