And then I turned into a NaNoWriMo zombie.

Remember those diagrams in your old science books: a close-close-close up of a leaf? With arrows in and arrows out? The photosynthesis diagram, that's what I'm thinking of. And your teacher saying, Trees take air and sunlight and soil, and then they make their own food! 

(Which is still pretty cool. Good job, trees.)

Right, well, I'm feeling a bit like that lately. Only instead of dealing with sunlight and carbon dioxide, I've been taking in coffee and toast, and turning it into words.

Thousands, and thousands, and thousands of words.

I joined NaNoWriMo on day ten, right? Much to my chagrin and panic.

Well, it's day twenty-one. And I just crossed the 37,000-word mark. Which means--for those of you who are keeping score, because I'm totally keeping score--I have caught up to the pack of Wrimos who began on day one.

In eleven days (I did take one off!), I've somehow ended up with 140 handwritten pages. 

And even in my kindest moments to myself, I have to admit that I'm feeling and looking a bit like a zombie. 

A zombie who is writing a novel, sure, but nevertheless: the crazy has arrived.

... Like in a conversation just now, I repeated myself four times in a row before, uh, realizing it.

So this is gonna be a bit more of a list than a post, for the sake of all our (remaining) sanity. I don't know why that makes more sense to me, but it does. Okay. 

(There's no order, there's no theme, and there's no logic to this. I'm sitting here grinning like a zombie, bouncing to some loud music, and just happy to see words move across the screen. Hi, words!)

1. Before we go any further, if you want to know: Is this lifestyle healthy? Am I taking really good care of myself? Making smart choices? The answer would be, um, No. Not at all.

2. Am I taking good care of my characters? Nope. They're in a mess of trouble, and right on schedule too. Bad for them, but good for me, and good for readers! (Yay, readers!)

3. Starbucks Chestnut Praline Lattes. Get one. Get four. Drink up. Thank me later.

4. There's a group of NaNoWriMo participants on Twitter who band together for these little word sprints: TOTAL FUN. If you happen to be NaNo-ing this month, join in! It's awesome. (The leader says something like, "Write for ten minutes starting... now! Go go go!" And when time's up, we all chime in with our word counts. So much more fun being a zombie when you have all your zombie friends!) 

5. I've come down with my usual, mid-project case of separation anxiety. Whenever I step away from the draft, I hear little whimpering noises. And it's not coming from my spiral notebook, it's coming from me. What if the book forgets all about me when I leave? What if I lose the knack (if I even have the knack) for the characters' separate voices?

What if I pass out and never make it back to finish the book, and everyone reads how seriously deeply BAD the writing is, and they'll all say, how are we going to break this to her? Well, when she wakes up, we're gonna steer her in a very different career direction...

6. That said, I do know this: Breaks save you. They really do. So I force myself to stand up and get away. Have a little dance party. (Or a big one.) And sometimes I do some mindless straightening: it gets me moving, and then I come back later and say, Hey! Who cleaned up? It looks nice!

7. Because I can't remember who cleaned up. Because most of what I do away from my book I instantly forget. I'm not mentally stable at the moment. I've been careful not to operate heavy machinery or to sign on for anything that requires a responsible adult.

8. I really wasn't kidding about those Chestnut Lattes. Seriously, friends. I love you, and this is how you know: I want you to go get yourself one. Okay then.

9. When I collapse from a day's work, I grab a gin & tonic and watch Gilmore Girls. I believe that this was also Ernest Hemingway's formula. So, it worked for him, is all I'm saying.

10. Um. 

11. Here's my super serious intention with all this mad-dashery: To finish my book in the next five minutes.

12. Kidding! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Kidding. Not really. 

13. Basically, I want to make the most magnetic storyworld I can. Give the characters powerful voices, build their inner and outer conflicts to a fever pitch, put all the good stuff into it. 

14. Because sometimes fiction--even when you're the one writing it--is a port in a storm. Sometimes making characters face impossible odds helps you face a few odds of your own. Sometimes, when they confront their dark fears, when they band together, when they realize what makes life worth living, sometimes when they do that, they pull you along with them.

Making them courageous has made me more courageous.

15. Yeah.

I don't know if I'll get back to blog before Thanksgiving. At that point, I might just be able to type one letter over and over and over, and not actual words. (If that happens, just know that I'm saying something nice, like Happy Thanksgiving, go hug your family, or something like that.)

But truly, I am pierced with gratitude these days. For doctors and hospitals and medical centers that know what the heck they're doing. For stories--the way they open and guide our hearts, the ways they give us strength and companionship. For all the other marathoning writers participating in NaNoWriMo. For the incredible people in my family--immediate and extended. For hope. For the goldeny color of sunlight in winter. For unexpected snowy days. 

For words. All these words. For a little corner of the blogosphere where I can stand and say a few things, and then for you, sitting where you are, reading them. 

I was born with a writer's heart. And that transaction between reader and writer: it's still one of the most precious things to me. So I'm glad you're there. Happy Thanksgiving, a bit early. Have fun and eat too much pie, okay?

Okay then. I'll be scribbling. 

We the adventurers.

I'm one of those people who hates being late: I feel like my face is melting off when I'm late. And yet, it happens. Like right now. Right now, I'm technically late. Very, very late. 

I started NaNoWriMo on day ten. *face melts*

If you haven't heard of it before, NaNoWriMo is a cult of insane people who craft a work of fiction under impossible circumstances.

Well, okay, that's not the technical definition. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. This month, actually. Participating in NaNoWriMo means: You write a novel of 50,000 words (or more) in a mere thirty days.

Honestly, it's brilliant. With that extreme deadline, you just have to get the heck over yourself. You write really, really badly. And then you write some more. It's exciting, freeing, and a whole lot of fun. Plus, you have the comradeship of zillions of other writers--equally bonkers, equally caffeinated, churning out their own sometimes-great sometimes-terrible prose. 

It's a rush.

And super difficult. Even when you have all thirty days. Showing up on day ten, saying here I am, writers! and then kicking off your project? Not exactly a winning strategy.

But, if you've been following along with me over the last few weeks, you already know that 1) I'm not always sane, 2) I like writing at a breathtaking pace, and 3) I have to crank out the third book of this trilogy!

So I had a long conversation with my calendar. I said: Oh gosh. I have basically six weeks before the holidays really get swinging. Remember holidays? All the mental space I usually reserve for writing gets taken over until I'm all like, "Who's a writer? Do I know any writers?"

That, I said to my calendar, is what happens. 

My calendar is very stoic. But it did point out that six weeks is six weeks, and I couldn't argue with that. It nudged my calculator under my fingertips and said, what would you have to do to finish that novel in six weeks?

WRITE A LOT OF WORDS. REALLY FAST. 50,000 words in the first three weeks. That kind of fast. 

So I dove in. I signed up. And today, I cracked open a fresh spiral notebook, clicked a new pen, and got to work. The first twelve pages on Book Three. I added my word count (2940!) to my NaNo page. And it informed me that at this rate, I would finish my novel sometime in April. 

Ha! I shouted. Ha! said my calendar. Ha! said my calculator. Wanna bet?

I'm gonna have the first 50,000 words done by the end of November, and write the rest during the first three weeks of December.

And then I'll be done. And probably really dizzy. Because this will be a longer book than Book Two--probably--with one less week to do it in. Hence the dizzy. But not so dizzy that I can't string a few lights, sing a few songs, and cook some seriously awesome food.

Food. Wait. That reminds me. There are a few obstacles between now and then. Like, Thanksgiving. Oh, and my family is dealing with a scary medical diagnosis at the moment. There could be a surgery between now and then. Oooh, and this: I just started a new workout program to deal with the impending good-food explosion. Not to mention: have I actually remembered enough words after finishing the last book to be in good shape for this one?

So maybe I started hyperventilating last night, just a wee bit. 

What's your experience with trilogies? Does the third book ever start in a really happy place? Not as far as I know. The characters are not all full of high-fives and back-slaps and party hats. The ones I'm thinking of--The Return of the King and Mockingjay are fresh in my mind--are pretty dang grim on page one. 

Which is about how my third book starts too.

My poor main character. Chapter One? Is basically a whole herd of crazy that she could never have predicted. It starts with major difficulties and ends up much worse. She is reeling by page twelve.

So I gave her a pep talk. And because I'm a writer, I wrote it down. And then because I'm reeling too, I read it to myself.

And heck. I don't know where this Monday finds you, but maybe you need this too. It's a fairly multipurpose pep talk, after all. So here it is. 

Remember who you were at the start of this whole thing.

At the beginning of book one, page one. Yeah, life was quiet and "fine," but you knew you were made for more than that. You wanted to know if you could do great things. If you could tackle challenges. Adventures.

You can, and you will. Even though you don't see that now. 

Sometimes bravery means, you don't let the shadows swallow you up.

Sometimes bravery means holding one true thought in your mind, and focusing on that. Letting that truth keep you company.

Bravery means not giving up. Not giving in. 

You're already so much stronger than you were way back in that first chapter, two books ago. Even though you feel small now, look at how much you've grown.

And oh, I'm already planning the ending of this story, and your last page is good. Hard won, but good. You will be so tall and so brave that you will barely recognize the girl from page one.

Don't give up. You really were made to face challenges, to become stronger.

Go and be the adventurer you are. 

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How to survive the end of a novel.

I finish up a novel in the same way that someone else might fling herself off a cliff. (Like in BASE jumping, not like suicide. Not being morbid here.) I make a mad dash for it, and suddenly find myself in midair, no friction, no traction, no story, no nothing.

And apparently we're done.

I finished this wonderful sequel project last Tuesday at 2:00 a.m. I wrote 53 pages by hand, and then just kind of fell over.

(Okay, first I did an ecstatic little happy dance. The last paragraphs felt perfect; there was a breath-stealing twist at the ending; and hopefully it catapults the reader right into the next book. So dance I did. But then I fell over.)

For the next two days, I went back and forth, from feeling brilliant to feeling like a vegetable. Moments of bright conversation where I felt all verbal and warm and quippy, and then the next moment, I couldn't really remember my name or why I had walked into the room.

Writing withdrawal. 

I never handle the end of a draft with any real grace. I have lovely intentions: I wanted to declutter my office area, clearing psychological (as well as actual) space for the next book project. I wanted to catch up on all the correspondence and errands and undone things... everything I'd just forgotten about in the last two weeks of racing toward the end.

And I wanted to do a lot of confetti-tossing, a lot of balloon-gazing, a lot of party-party-party.

Instead I sort of floated around, jellyfish style. I stared at things, and not in a meaningful way but in an I-hope-I'm-not-actually-drooling way.

Maybe I'd burned myself out a bit? Who am I kidding. Of course I was burnt out. 

But the thing is, I've trained this funny brain of mine to invent fictions. And it's going to keep doing that, whether I'm writing a novel at the moment or not.

Frankly? My real life is fraught with enough at the moment that I don't need to be asking what if through each day. I'm full up on real conflict, real stakes, real characters, real risk. But still my brain spins.

So it's time to get back to work. Honestly, that wasn't much of a break: I had dreamed of a lot more Champagne and a lot less catching up the laundry. But I can't let myself invent any more scenarios for what could go wrong. If I'm going to be inventing, I need to put all that craziness into the next project.

Besides, I've already made an exciting little multi-colored chart. (And I cannot say no to the exciting little multi-colored chart.) If I'm very, very good, and eat all of my vegetables, and stretch well before each session, I just might finish book three in time for Christmas.

OH, THE HOPE.

I might be escaping reality a tiny bit, by jumping back into my story world again. Or maybe I'm just that fish on the dock, leaping back into water so she can breathe again. Either way, the beginning of book three is in my fingertips, or at the very least, it's right around my knuckles.

So this week I'll be catching story ideas, feeding the bears, freewriting, daydreaming. And drafting starts again next Monday.

I think it all comes down to this: You survive the end of a novel by starting the next one.

Feed the bears.

Artists, makers, writers, and deep thinkers, take note:

If you throw darts at your subconscious self, she will show up at your desk, gather all your notes and turn them into gibberish, and then disappear.

I don't recommend this.

So much better to send your subconscious brownies, mochas, flowers, wine, kittens, knitting patterns, cozy socks... Send it some love. Big floppy valentines and silly movies. Love your subconscious, and bless its heart, the subconscious will love you right back.

Last week I had this tiny little tantrum about not knowing what the heck I was doing. I glared at my manuscript and my manuscript sent me a scowl of its own. Meanwhile, my subconscious, that most versatile and helpful of sidekicks, stood to one side with her arms folded.

They're so difficult at this age, she said as she watched my fits and shrieks.

I'll just admit right here: I'm not that comfortable talking about THE SUBCONSCIOUS all the time. Makes me feel a little goofy, like I'm just two steps away from dressing up in ridiculous head scarves and ropes of pearls and spending my time whispering to windows. 

But there has to be some way to talk about that sense of otherness. This story isn't coming from the same place that scribbled answers to trigonometry quizzes and chemistry equations. Stories come from the murky mysterious side of things. Call it the subconscious or don't: it's still there and it's still essential.

Stephen King famously refers to that story-making side as "the boys in the basement"; Heather Sellers talks about the compost pile of ideas and experiences from which the best stories rise.

Whatever it is, you have to take care of it. 

So after my tantrum, I finally quieted down enough to remember: 

When the unknowingness gets frantic, I have to decide that it's okay to not know what comes next. 

It's okay. To not know.

My job isn't so much based on knowing; my job is just to write some words down. That's really it. 

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So writing is dreaming. But how do you get the right dreams? Jack London said, you can't wait around for inspiration, you have to "light out after it with a club."

With a club, my friends. 

And that's how I turned my manuscript around over the weekend. Not by working hard, not with blood or sweat or tears. I lit out with a club, with butterfly nets and mousetraps, checking every trap and hole I could find for the inspiration I needed.

I watched movie trailers compulsively, paying attention to anything that sparked my heart, any premise that I found fascinating. There you go, I thought. Let's see what you make of that.

I listened to Pandora radio and assigned every song to a character. The best songs were the ones that didn't seem to fit anyone. So I'd toss them at a random character and make a case for why that was the right character and the right song. 

I drowned myself in poetry before falling asleep, mixing and matching the images in my head. And I asked myself a story question each night before bed, sticking it in my subconscious's inbox. Take a look at that overnight, if you have the time, I thought. No big deal. Just see what you think.

I was a little nervous this morning. Mondays. They always take a bit of extra oomph, right? But I sat down and wrote ten pages without breaking a sweat.

Ten pages?? Without any bleeding? And after a meltdown last week? 

I can't say subconscious one more time without needing to slap myself in the face. Compost is smelly, and "boys in the basement" hits me weird. So how about this for an out-there metaphor:

Feeding the bears.

Those are the bears that come up with the stories. I don't have to force them to do anything; I just find all their favorite treats. I light out after inspiration with a club; I catch it and bring it back home and give it to the bears. 

I have no idea what story they will come up with. It's always wilder that I expect, always startling. And yet--I'm thrilled and breathless, being pulled along by something much bigger than I am.

And if I keep the bears happy, they're going to dream up the rest of this crazy, untamed story. 

So if you'll excuse me, tomorrow is coming, and I've got some traps to check. 

How to keep going.

The first bout of writing momentum has worn off: that first big oomph that carries me over the hurdle of the deaf-and-dumb blank pages, over the hurdle of it's-been-too-long-since-I've-done-this. 

The first few days of a draft are a brass band clanging through the heart, and all the trumpets are blaring, YOU CAN DO IT! 

But now it's week two. I've waded over 13,000 words into this story. And while there's still a fair amount of oompah-oompah going on, I'm also faced with the general suckiness of the first draft.

The characters are first draft characters, which means they are shrill, they don't argue enough with each other (or, terribly, all they do is argue), or sometimes they drop out of the story all together. They move in fits and starts, jerking around, and I get into hovering-author mode, meaning I write breathtaking sequences such as: She stood. She moved near the door. She bit her lip. She sat down again. 

This makes for thrilling fiction.

Not to be outdone, the settings are first draft settings. I've scrounged around in my imagination and come up with a few dusty props: some old trees leftover from a deleted chunk of a different novel; a tent that I imagined up for half a short story a few years ago; and then a weird taxidermy deer that appeared out of nowhere but seemed useful after I brushed off the cobwebs...

In other words, I'm blocking out the story in big broad strokes. The details are pretty darn hazy, which means the writing fills up with adverbs and adjectives: the discount construction paper and paste of the fiction world. 

I begin each session by rereading what I wrote yesterday, which means I'm all grounded in my storyworld again. Yay.

... But which also means that my toes are still curling from the awkward word choice and totally goofy dialogue that came out of no human mouth ever, not for this story or any other. 

I get discouraged, is what I'm saying. 

And I feel very sure that the knack for dishing out good words--if I ever had such a knack--has completely left me. The talent-o-meter readings are negative.

So it's good to remember this quote. (Yes! A quote! You knew where this was going.)

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Well, that is all kinds of cheering.

It's not about busting out beautiful prose on the first try, but more about being so darned stubborn and bullheaded that I will keep practicing, and practicing, and practicing.

Stretch out my toes, from that strenuous toe-curling, and then practice some more. 

It's too easy to take a look at the crappiness of a first draft, sling my desk chair through my computer screen, and decide on another career.

But I think I'll be stubborn. I think I'll keep practicing.

I think I'll stick with this one. 

The most important talent might be the talent for practice itself. -- Atul Gawande

Let's go get it.

In one week: I start working on the first draft of a new book.

New book. First draft. 

Cue the butterflies in my stomach, performing their usual air-show feats. 

Oh first drafts. So much excitement, so much rush, so many ideas in my mind when I sit down to work, so that I feel like a little god over my fictional universe... and then all the brilliant ideas flee.

Like roaches scattering when the kitchen light turns on. 

And the whole world narrows down to me, and page one.

And I can't always remember why I'm doing this at all. Or where my ideas went. Or why I ever thought they were good. Or if I even have a decent working knowledge of language, period. 

But hey. This is my fifth first-draft-of-a-novel. I know the process.  

And I know that if you want to find those ideas, you might have to get down on your hands and knees and crawl to those hard-to-reach corners. You get to the places with all the lint and dirt and raisins-that-rolled-away and toast fragments and very old cheese crumbs. 

And you find the ideas and drag them out. And put them to work.

So. If, in a week, I start feeling panicky, I'll just remember this brilliant quote from Charles Baudelaire: 

The ideas come when you put your time in. When you show up.

When you get cobwebs in your hair and sweat prickling your scalp and smudges on your knees and goop from who-knows-what on your cheek. 

I know it works.

And it will work this time around too.

Inspiration is to work every day. -- Charles Baudelaire

Being scared of the right thing.

A good reminder before Monday comes knocking:

This week, I need to make serious tracks in revising my current work-in-progress. Some scenes just need a bit of tidying, but others... 

Let's just say, there will be a massive amount of re-imagining this week. 

And I can already feel that hovercraft of uncertainty skimming around in my mind. Rewriting is always a tricky business. I know that the old draft needs major reworking, but I'm always sure I'm making things worse. Sucking out the magic of the first draft, and replacing it with ponderous cluttered paragraphs.

Yikes.

But I want to face that head on this week. To risk it. 

I'd always regret it if I didn't tackle this draft. I mean, I freaking love this story. These crazy characters. All the messes they make, the trouble they get into, their narrow escapes. I even love the setting, which is a pretty big deal for me.

And I know I'd regret it if I didn't roll up my sleeves and keep working, until it's as polished and brilliant as I can make it. I need to be motivated by that possible regret. I need to stare down the possibility of failure, until it flinches first.

That's right, story of mine. I'm talking about you. This week, we'll get better together.

Failure is never as frightening as regret. -- Stefan G. Bucher

So how about you? How about your projects? Let's do this together, okay? This week, let's take a plunge. Let's be willing to risk.