Research

So yesterday I went to the library with my sister, and I picked up a few things to read. She took one look at my list and said, "You can tell you're a writer."

I laughed and said, "What do you mean?"

"Well," she said, "normal people don't check out books about cancer or anorexia."

She's very right, and that's one of the reasons I'm glad the library staff knows me so well. Your average nineteen-year-old does not pick up "Advanced Cancer," "Understanding Cancer, " "When the Focus Is on Care," and "Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa," in the middle of summer.

Why the heavy reading list, then? RESEARCH. It hit me that since my characters spend so much time at the hospital, it ought to have a name, and what's more, it ought to be a real place. In a ideal world, I would just hop in a plane and go to San Francisco, but luckily, we are living in the age of the internet. Still, googling "oncology San Francisco" isn't as helpful as I wish it were, so I have checked out books about cancer.

Also a book on anorexia, but that has nothing to do with my novel. Admittedly, neither do "Othello," "Enthusiasm," or "Great Expectations."

I've also ordered several books on the early history of the planet Earth--specifically, the years before the dinosuars, when there were no flowers or bees and the only animals that creeped were lizard, and even before that age, where the only life was in the sea.

I am not sure if they taught you this in history class, but we have evolved from sea creatures.

For my author research project, I have been looking up Jodi Picoult, and she writes that she researches extensively even before she begins writing. I have failed to do this, but I am not above a lot of editing. In the early stages of my novel, Hussein was originally from Saudi Arabia, until a Lebanese friend of mine told me frankly that it was impossible.


Speaking of, I should probably research Lebanon too.

EDITING

In two hour's time I will find myself at the local tea shop buying Lady Blue with quarters, but right now I am sitting in the local library, listening to Regina Spektor, and about to start the most dangerous process known to woman:

Editing.

Last time we spoke, I had procured a binder and printed off nearly fifty pages of my manuscript in orange ink, and was planning on cutting it up. I have done so, and now I am about to take the changes I made on paper and fix them onscreen. I always find this harder, because it involves writing as well; writing between lines already penned and thoughts that connected then but do not connect now. I am breaking up the order I created and replacing it with chaos.

If you look at the samples I have provided, you can see a lot of "TRANSITION" and cuts. In fact, I have dedicated a photograph to the simple word, CUT. In others, I have only changed tenses and added new paragraphs. It's very messy. And distracting for me as a writer, as I am so used to either ordering other people to make the changes then report back to me, or sitting down and typing onto an endless white screen.

During my editing, a nagging memory has been plaguing me. Somewhere once I read to cut characters, to blend them, to make them interesting, and I have cut Jordan from the apartment. I am holding her in reserve, in case she is needed again, but as it is, there are already too many characters for little ol' me to handle, and I'm certainly no Faulkner. I'm just a college student writing in the local library who resents the head librarian because I'm too young to flirt with him.

At any rate, I have put off my editing too long as it is, and my friends are already texting me about when I'm going to go to the tea shop. My time is limited, and so I will spend it with my characters. 

Little Binder of Joy

Yesterday I wrote a little under six pages. Six pages has become my new "limit" when writing. In high school and middle school I used to be satisfied with three, but as I get more and more crunched for time, as I get older, and as editing becomes a real and immediate threat, I need more wordage to analyze and rewrite and throw out, and, when absolutely necessary, keep.


I'm at about 41 pages now, and six chapters, and I figured that it's time to do some really in-depth editing, especially because my adviser e-mailed me her comments on my first chapter. So last night I printed out all 41 pages right under my father's nose, and put them all nice and neat in a free binder I found at my University.

Here it is! All nice and neat and organized by chapter. I'm so happy. As you can see, it is printed in orange ink, but that s because I am too cheap to spring for the money to print at my University, and because we're out of black ink at home, and because dad's less likely to flip about me printing nearly 50 pages of stuff if it's orange.


I do the best job of editing when I can hold a manuscript in my hands. So once I've edited an on-screen edition several times, and I'm getting cocky, I print and suddenly find all sorts of errors I didn't realize existed. Also, it's nice to carry around and show friends, all of whom are very obliging about finding the one word you misspelled and then not telling you what they thought of your actual writing.


Besides, it'll be nice to show off in class today, if I have the gumption to do it.

Walking the Tightrope

GUESS WHO WORKED FIFTY HOURS LAST WEEK?!?!

Yes, none other than yours truly. Suffice to say, I am glad that week is over and that a new one has begun. I had gotten to the point where I was literally falling asleep on my feet behind the cash registers, and my boss kept having to wave at me over the bins of 50% off products to snap me out of my reverie.

I do not know how working people do it. I will either have to shape up, or write this novel quickly and pray its sales give me enough for food and an apartment and a sheepdog.

This week the first chapter of my novel was due. I have already skated on to chapter seven, which is not required for the class at all, and is probably ruining my editing for the first three chapters that ARE due. Anyway, I turned in my first chapter, and almost a full week later, I have only received one review. It was a very helpful review, but I am still rather aggravated, because I can't find any other proofers I trust.

I would proofread my own work, but I lost faith in my ability to proofread my own works aeons ago, when I ripped a short story I had written to pieces in front of my friends and obsessively-compulsively went through the leftover snowflakes to rip apart the words that had survived my massacre. Not a single "a" or "the" escaped my wrath. Since then I have to be gentler with myself, and humbly ask for help.

So far two people have read pieces of this story: My friend Brooke, and Rachel-from-class. My mother volunteered very bravely to read it after I ranted at her for an hour, but I know better than to give her anything I write, if only because she doesn't understand what I write at all, and because when she gives me constructive criticism I get mad. However, I anticipate and appreciate other people's criticism.  Oddly.

I have figured out a psychological reason for this: The little demon editor in my mind has my mother's voice. This is the voice Anne Lamott tells her readers in Bird By Bird that we are to put in soundproof mayonnaise jars.

Besides, my characters swear, and if my mom found out I think she might kill me.

Anyway, in terms of my own edits, things are going okay-ish. I had some difficulty with tenses last week, and I decided to stick to present tense, after a heavy amount of influence from Lauren Oliver, and the fact that past tense just wasn't working for me. My characters are completely and totally set in the now. Originally I wanted to tell their story from diaries and blogs, which is day-to-day, but that didn't work, so the only alternative is present tense.

I am also trying something new. When I write, I tend to rely very, very heavily on dialogue. And, more than that, inflection. Like, there will be pages of stuff like this:

                                               "What do you think we should do?"
                                                She thought for a moment. "Go ask Dan."
                                               "Of course! Dan. He'll have the parts we need to fix this machine!"

It's dull. I cut most of it out. Then I'm left with nothing. But luckily I remembered something my friend Shelley taught me. You cannot write a story completely using dialogue; you cannot write a story without it. There must be perfect balance.

I have been working on this balance. It's a bit like tightrope walking over Niagara Falls, but as long as I don't fall off the effect is brilliant, and I get an amazing adrenaline rush.

***Interested in Shelley's Writing Lesson?***

This was how Shelley taught me to balance dialogue appropriately.

Prompt: Two mortal enemies are trapped in an elevator together. For ten minutes,have the students write how the characters treat each other and react to their situation without the use of dialogue.

Give the students ten minutes.

When ten minutes are up, get the group back together. Ask them what they thought, but don't get too in-depth. Now tell them to write for another ten minutes with the same prompt, using only dialogue.

Give the students ten minutes.

When the students finish, let them get together. Maybe let them read some of their work out loud. Ask them: Which was hardest? Which was easiest? Is it possible to write a story with or without dialogue? How much detail can you get across about your character? How much action is possible?

The result of the lesson should be that your students now see how important both dialogue and description are to the story, and hopefully, they'll work harder at balancing them out.

Inspiration Comes to Those Who Wait (Impatiently)

Good news: I have been writing! I will now wait patiently for your cheers of delight.

Okay. Finished? Let's continue.

The other day I had a breakthrough. My story was not working. I had plots, ideas, characters; but none of it was writing. I was so excited with the idea of "Ascent of Women," and I loved what I could do with this story, what I wanted to say. But on paper it was...flat. Boring. Unemotional. It was very distressing for me as a writer, and I found a great deal of solace in re-reading Lauren Oliver's Delirium trilogy and working a lot at Bath & Body Works so I could excuse myself from writing. I also visited my doctor, who diagnosed me with a case of allergies after treating me very gently, as if I was an emotionally unstable patient.

I cried a lot. That didn't help, but there it is.

And then, finally, the Guiding Force inside of me whispered, "Rebekah? You need to start your story later. You've started too soon."

I could have done a face palm. That's how obvious the answer was. I had started "Ascent of Women" with three of the main characters chilling. Just chilling. The first plot twist has not come into existence, and most of it is moaning and groaning about Dania's lame boyfriend forgetting that she exists.

I should not speak about my characters that way. I think that it may be against some universal bylaws for an author to call their character "lame." I will rephrase.

Most of the first chapter was moaning and groaning about Dania's boyfriend, who often forgets about Dania due to his recent soul-searching and renewed strength and interest in his religion. This worries Dania, who is very attached to her boyfriend, and does not like to feel forgotten, especially when it is by a God that Dania does not believe in. It's kind of like if your significant other suddenly finds a lifelong passion in cooking banana-related foods, but you are allergic to bananas. You are happy that s/he has found a passion, but you are distressed that you are unable to share this passion.

Which is lame, but whatever.

The problem with the first few pages is that there was no action, and I spent too much time trying to introduce...well...everyone, and in trying to introduce everyone, I introduced no one. So I cut out the first five pages and started with Dania thinking about her boyfriend during her drive to the hospital, where she is going to pick up her friend Carol. Carol, for some reason not yet explained, was kept overnight at the hospital to undergo some tests. After Dania and Carol are properly introduced, the other main characters come into play for a brief period, and the chapter ends with Dania once again thinking about her boyfriend.

I think that there's some sort of strategy playing there. Bookend? I don't know, but my history professor would probably know.

Anyway, once I got the story properly introduced, the other chapters flowed better, and I felt more confident about what I was doing.

Jack London once said, "You cannot wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." This is true. Despite my sojourn into Bath & Body Works, doctor's offices, dystopian worlds, and my slight mental breakdown, I never stopped thinking about my characters. And because I didn't stop thinking and wondering and remembering and imagining, that wall I had built tumbled, and the Writer Voice--I call her Carla--was able to speak.

So here is my lesson for writers today: Inspiration will come to those who wait. Impatiently. 

The Writing Will Come

So today I did what I always do when I am plagued with doubt: I revisited my baby.

"My baby," otherwise referred to as "Niel," was the first real novel I ever wrote. It was a 9th grade achievement, written in the wings of the stage during play practice for Alice in Wonderland. I was a chorus member, and instead of focusing on costuming or cool effects or even really learning my lines (demoting me to a parrot) I scribbled in the half-light.

The reason I always go back to "Niel" when I am in a slump is because it was work, but not the work we associate with getting up at 6:00 in the morning, commuting, and filing papers. It was work that started with a vision. Late one night, after coming home from some practice or other (I want to say drama rehearsal, but it might have been a band performance), a girl spoke to me, and she said, "A penny for your thoughts."

But, I realized then, she was not talking to me. There was a boy there, in the early morning light, and he was the one she was addressing.

There was a problem. The girl did not know it, but I knew there was a problem.

The boy was mute. He could not speak.

Why was this girl talking to a boy who could not speak? And what would the boy do in the absense of words?

This late-night inspiration would fuel 300 pages, last me from October to December, and basically put off what I know now but did not realize then was a full-on panic attack. Writing "Niel," saved me, and I will never understand or know how, but these characters exist somewhere, and they chose me to relay the story to.

It was not easy. Some days the words did not come. But for one page, for a few lines, they had spoken clearly, and I knew as long as I was faithful, my characters would stay true.

The writings of a 9th grader on the verge of a nervous breakdown are not pretty. They are muddy and grammatically poor. Yet I love that story. So for the last few days I went back to "Niel," and I have dedicated hours to slogging over just two pages, staring at the words until, as one famous author said, drops of blood appear on my forehead. And the result is the writing of a college junior: a little frazzled, a little intimidated, on the brink of a grand adventure. 

I do not know if my writing is good yet. I do not know if it will ever be good. But when the words won't come I remember how a little girl whispered in my ear, and how the rest, while work, while effort, will come.

In Desperate Need of Backup

I have written ten pages, and I am plagued by doubt.

Virginia Woolfe said to write you must have 500 pounds a year. I do not have an inheritance, British money is currently giving me a headache, and despite the fact I have had an amazing three days off from work, I DO NOT LIKE WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN SO FAR.

It is time to call in the backup: PROOFREADERS.

That, or I am giving up on this assignment and going through my flashdrive to find something else.