-I started writing a book this week. It was supposed to be a piece of creative nonfiction. I had research materials on the topic in the house and a conceptual structure in place in my mind. When I sat down to write it (it was in the moment that I began typing "Stupid blank page!" onto a stupid blank page) a novel dropped on my head. Figuratively speaking.
-For the last few years I have been trying to come up with a solid fiction idea. A short story would have sufficed. Nothing was happening. And then it did.
-Starting to write fiction by writing a novel is insane. But the story is definitely a novel. So whatever.
-If you really want to know, it is a young adult fantasy. It is not about vampires.
-After spewing a detailed plot description into a document, and making notes for characterization and odds and ends, I started the first draft. If by some miracle I maintain my current rate of five or six pages every day, I will reach my anticipated page length of 300 or so pages in about a month and a half. Doubling that time frame seems more realistic.
-So far my first draft is unreadable. I anticipate revision taking some time. But: I'm eight pages into a first draft. When your imagination has not been in the habit of giving up the goods in any useful form, having eight unreadable pages is Nothing to Shake a Stick At.
-At around page seven I gained a functional grasp of what "show" looks like, as opposed to "tell". Both have their place. Things have been looking significantly better since that point.
-Again, learning how to write fiction by writing a novel is ridiculous. But I'm going to do it anyway.
-I have found that writing comes much more easily and begins from a more complete place when I make guitar face and talk to myself. This may be unique to me, but I suspect that it is one of the sorts of habits that makes writing best suited for stark solitude.
-I can write while listening to music. If it matches the tone of what I'm writing, it actually seems to be helpful. That surprises me. I've had Standchen on repeat.
-I think a little wine might help, too. A little. Let's not get all Hemingway about it.
-The best, and I do mean the very best aspect of this budding writing life (and it takes over your brain! It does, it does!) is that I have said the words "I'm writing a novel" to my daughter and, after looking at me in momentary disbelief, she has fully accepted that A PERSON CAN CREATE. People, even mothers, decide to write books and then write them. Just like that.
-She has come up with all sorts of ideas for novels now, mostly about komodo dragons. I didn't tell her that the process is exquisitely awful and most writers hate it.
-My aim is to write during the part of the day where Baby is napping, and at night after the kids are in bed. I'm tired.
-I caught myself reading something about Charlie Sheen in the internet a few minutes ago, and stopped mid-article because I want to write my book a whole lot more than I want to spend my time thinking about Charlie Sheen.
-Writing this blog post has felt extremely costly, time-wise. It will probably not be repeated for a while.
-While I typed the other day, Big Kid came up to the table and sat next to me and listened to The Cunning Little Vixen. That was very cool.
-I think I've finally given up on trying to be a good housewife. But not on being a good mother. And there are a lot of ways to do that.