Oh! I didn't forget about you!

It seems like I've gone off somewhere, like I've forgotten all about you, my blog reading friends. But I haven't, I promise. Quite the opposite. For the last few weeks, I've actually been pouring hours and hours (and hours!!) into a total blog overhaul. 

I'm changing it all up.

I'm sprucing the format, looking at the design, clarifying topics, brainstorming big big big projects... All kinds of stuff. 

High fives all around.

Yesterday I listened to a podcast directed at bloggers, and the speaker said something like:

Don't tell your readers you are making big changes! Don't say that you're excited. Because then, if you change it all up and they don't like it, they'll be all disappointed and stuff. Don't set yourself up like that. 

So... I was going to tell you how psyched I am. (Do people still say psyched?) I was going to let you know that I'm throwing everything I've got at this new redesign, and that I think it will be worth the wait. That I feel more energized about blogging than I ever, ever have. And that you can tell all your writing friends about it, because I really think it will be that much fun, and that exciting, and that good.

But... the really smart blogging man said, don't do that. 

So I won't say anything.

I'll just inch off this stage with a HUGE GRIN on my face, and let you draw your own conclusions.

Okay? Okay. 

PS: It all gets real on March 1. I'll be brainstorming like the madwoman that I am until then. 

What to do after finishing a novel

It's kind of like the moment when you realize you need a new haircut--like, yesterday. Or when you discover you're ravenous, and should have eaten an hour ago. When cabin fever strikes, and you needed to take a trip last week, probably. That mad-urgent feeling. You know what I mean?

Well, there comes a point in writing a story when I need to be DONE. 

I can never quite predict what that point will be. I make these wonderful, sensible schedules; and then life happens and shakes 'em up a bit. I readjust my schedules, I get back to a slightly more aggressive plan to make up for lost time; life interrupts again. I back off, I slow down, I reevaluate.

And then I wake up one morning and say: I don't care how many pages are left. What, 60? 70? Pfft. I have today free. LET'S DO THIS.

It's the drafting marathon. That's how I closed out Book Two, and that's how I closed out Book Three: last Tuesday, I worked from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m., cranked out 65 pages, and yup, finished the book.

I slept in the next day, patted myself on the back a lot, and then contracted a serious case of NOW WHAT.

You have to give drafts room--a lot of room--to breathe, before you go back in and start revising. What to do in the in-between time? 

I've heard of very clever writers who crank out a mini-project before coming back to their major projects. Well done is what I have to say to them. That's a tempting option, but I don't have another project that close to being draftable, and besides, I'm practicing being Not Crazy.

I'm finally gonna keep things simple, so instead, my in-between list looks more like this:

1) Type in the draft, for starters! Lament the state of wrists and penmanship. 

2) Embark on a course of light, easy reading. Time to kick back, yes? Select something fun and beachy to start: Anna Karenina. (Although I have to say, the knees on that cover are giving me FITS. Cover design, people. Cover design.)

3) Sign up for a green smoothie challenge! 30 days of green smoothies. Because eating habits during the second half of a draft... not pretty.

4) And on that note: Realize how much sitting has happened. SO MUCH SITTING. Start a new workout routine. 

5) Maybe two. It was really a lot of sitting.

6) Go full throttle in the kitchen. I mean, all out crazy town. If you're not on your feet for three hours, you're not even trying. Reconnect with your love of good eating--I mean good cooking.  

7) And then make more lists!! Places to go! Things to do! Dust bunnies to vacuum! Closets to reorganize! Those file cabinets won't index themselves! 

Seriously, it's funny what I can find time for, without a draft breathing on my brain.

Oh, and hi, 2015. It's good to be here.

This is what happened to us when a story showed up.

It doesn't happen as much as it used to, but I still get that voice in my head at 1 a.m.

You know the voice?

It shows up with a list of things that I can't do anything about. And it rattles them off, accompanied by a dangerous amount of emotional pull and flawed reasoning. 

This voice is always convinced that it is right, it never lets me argue back, and it's sporting a t-shirt with the slogan "IT IS ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE."

I haven't heard from this voice in a few months, but as of last Wednesday night, it's camping next to my pillow, knitting long unhappy scarves and crowing over my frustrations. 

It's really fun. Definitely has put me in the Christmas spirit.

It's been a long time since I've felt like my job is useless, but that's one of those happy little thoughts that show up at 1 a.m.

My family and I have been immersed in the medical world lately. I've learned to be so grateful for skilled nurses and doctors and surgeons: If you can wield an I.V. without traumatizing your patient, if you don't flinch at the word "catheter," and if you are compassionate on top of all that...

Well. You're a superhero. 

I have a long gratitude list right now. So many people, in so many different roles, have held my family together, given us the information and courage and support we needed. 

But it gets easy to think that everyone else is doing important work, while I somehow lost myself in a silly dream of putting words on pages.

The books that I'm writing--well, I love them. No matter what the 1 a.m. voice says, I still do love these stories. But they aren't important. You can't confuse my work with, say, a doctoral thesis. I'm writing about themes I love, absolutely, and this trilogy is for an age group (eleven-year-olds!) that I care deeply about, but the books are also very ...

Wacky.

(I'm secretly terrified that my friends will read them and then take five quick steps away from me. You can know me pretty well and never guess the kinds of things I'm writing about. Because... how do I put this... there are telepathic lizards in these books. I'm still surprised that they're in there, but, yup, that's what they are.

And there's a family of aristocratic assassins with funny names, and a whole town devoted to jam-making, and these spiders that became really important to the plot somehow, and a whole troop of monocle-wearing superpowered who-knows-whats. 

It's goofy, is what I'm saying.)

Right. So I've had a few interactions with an insanely gifted surgeon, and then I go back to my desk and write about lizards. And then I stare at the ceiling past 1 a.m. wondering what on earth I'm doing with my life.

Do you have these kinds of nights?

But then I remembered one very important moment, and it shut the voice right up.

See, we were in my mom's hospital room. Waiting with her as they tweaked her pain medication, waiting for her to recover just enough from the surgery to go home. We were looking out at the amazing view from the seventeenth floor. Letting her rest, grabbing coffee from the lobby, keeping each other company.

And then: we were reading out loud. 

My family has always read out loud to one another: something my parents were doing for us when we were kids, and none of us got around to outgrowing it. So my mom packed a lighthearted novel for her hospital stay, and Dad and I read it out loud.

And something funny happened. Instead of being overwhelmingly conscious of I.V. cords and hospital gowns, the smells of antiseptic, the sounds of the equipment in the room (I never knew hospital beds were so loud)... instead of all our worries about the surgery itself, and the outcome, and what the rest of recovery would be like, and if any other treatment was needed--

We all teleported. 

To 1930s England. To chauffeurs in uniform, to having tea and lemonade on the lawn, to entertaining the vicar. To frivolous women and pompous young men and imperious great-aunts. To thwarted love and silly mix-ups and endangered inheritances. It was one of those comedy-of-manners kinds of books, trivial and subtle and funny. 

The only thing I had to focus on was reading the very next sentence. Everything else faded away. Mom listened and rested. Dad and I wrapped ourselves up in the story. 

And at one point I looked up to see my mom's roommate standing there, listening to me read. She was holding onto her I.V. pole, with a feeding tube snaking into her nose, but she was with us in the 1930s, standing there in England, just for a little while. 

(She told us--in a beautiful accent that none of us could quite place--that she and her husband had been listening to us for a while, that it was lovely to overhear someone reading, instead of the noise of the TV. "There's a TV in here?" I said later, surprised. We had never even noticed.)

In other words--I tell this emphatically to the doubting voice in my head--in other words, books are still important.

Even when your family gets all shaken around and can't figure out what normal is for a while.

Even in a land of diagnoses and tests and results and lab reports and waiting, waiting, waiting.

After all, anything that can make two women forget--even for an instant--that they are in a lot of pain; anything that can move a group of people over a continent and back about eight decades; heck, anything that can keep me from realizing I'm in a hospital--

Well. That's a very powerful force. Whether the story reminds you of green lawns and sparkling lemonade, or whether it's populated with aristocratic assassins and monocled crime fighters: Stories are important.

And maybe there is no such thing as too silly, when even the silly stories can remind us who we are.

Well, THAT happened.

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Started on Day 10; finished on Day 26. In spite of oh so many things. 

I'm going to wallow in a confetti state of mind, and then, yep, make a pumpkin pie for tomorrow. Do a bit of dancing, have a day of gratitude tomorrow, and then... 

And then get to work on the next 50,000, eh? Because this novel's only half-way written, if you want the truth. And I want it done by the end of the year... oooooh, this trilogy is almost there, I can taste it!! But it is lovely to have half of the marathon over, and that with much rejoicing.

... Pfffft, what am I even SAYING??? Don't listen, I'm delusional. A crazy writing working lady just took over my brain for a second. 

I'm taking a break. I'll pretend that I'm going to write a bit for the next two weeks, but in all honesty, I'll be playing with my nieces and nephew, making up songs to sing, doing silly dances, cooking with my sisters, and generally just being family. Sure, I might nudge my writing along, a page a day, just to remember what's happening in this story, but mostly?

Mostly I'll be living.

It's good for writers to remember: we get to be humans too. We don't just write about them.

Right then. Priorities straightened out.

A merry Thanksgiving, one and all.

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.

There's really nothing I could say that would dignify this.

Probably I am very, very sick, because I'm taking a break from writing by writing.

Sitting here, thinking that through...

Nope. Still doesn't make sense.

Brain and hands are all rather numb, but hi, words! Hello!!

Look at all your nice little shapes on this white screen.

(I have said I get book drunk, right? Yup. And word drunk. Drugged by the sheer momentum of one sentence after another. Whew. Dizzy.)

Last week, I crossed the midpoint of my novel's plot. And then in the last two days, I've cranked out 31 pages, putting me at 261 pages total.

Which sounds pleasantly book-ish.

It also means I'm staggering around the house grinning at everyone, but I keep forgetting what I'm doing or saying. I'm not exactly present.

Instead I'm trying to keep in my mind that image of the strange new city I invented. Trying to keep the pace of that conversation those two characters were having. Trying to get those last nuances sorted into words. Tapping phrases into place.

I made the mistake of thinking about my book while folding laundry, and one article of clothing has absolutely vanished. A pair of black tights, now nowhere to be seen.

I'm convinced they got sucked into my story somehow, and when I'm writing I'll find a pair of tights, surfacing in the midst of an unlikely sentence. 

This is the stage in the game when I'm surprised to see human beings who have three dimensions, instead of two. I feel like we should all be made up of words, sliding around in paragraphs, tumbling across pages. Skin is such a startling thing. Fingers and toes and noses in profile... 

(You think I'm kidding, maybe? But every time I pass a mirror, I'm like oh!! Look! I have a face!)

Momentum. Gosh I love it. It is my best friend when I'm in the midst of a project.

It doesn't mean that I necessarily know what I'm doing... It just means that every page, every scene, every chapter feels like I'm running down a hill. You can forget about picking up your feet and putting them down again (and you're not super aware of any obstacles--say, trees--that loom ahead).

Instead you just concentrate on flying, just relish the feeling of your hair slapping around your face.

The only danger (besides the trees) is when this delirious, daydreaming, word-drunk girl gets her hands on a calendar. That sense of word-urgency meets those blank little boxes, and I start dreaming dangerous dreams. I start thinking violent writing thoughts, like:

I could write the last pages today. Probably I have 180-ish still to go.

I could totally do that.

Okay, okay. I could take tomorrow too, I guess. A day and a half? Absolutely. 

So what if my hands are sore? So what if I'm only barely coherent in this blog post? So what if I don't know what happens next in the novel? We find out by writing! Let's keep writing. 

MORE WORDS! FEED THE DRAFT!

I think my all-time record was 45 pages in a single day. (After which I basically fell over on the floor with my four paws in the air, as rigor mortis set in.)

So 180 is a heck of a stretch. And okay, I guess I know it's not possible. I guess.

Kinda.

But it just feels possible, right? Right? You think it's possible. I can totally tell. You're nodding at me.

OH MY GOSH I COULD. Oooh. Let's go finish it. Let's just finish the whole book. RIGHT NOW.

Yes. YES. Okay. Excuse me.

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There is nothing to prove and everything to imagine. -- Eugene Ionesco

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. 

I am not epic.

At the risk of sounding like a snark (which I am, so I guess that's fair), this rampant use of the word epic is starting to grate. 

Probably I've just spent too much time on the Internet. If you keep clicking all the links of here is how to become amazing at writing ... well, you hear a lot of advice about being epic.

Make it epic. Write at an epic level. It needs to be epic.

And I kept nodding while reading this, yes, yes, yes, I want to write something EPIC. But today I snapped or maybe just got tired. 

I know we need an all-purpose word to capture amazing/rad/fantastic/awesome, and since it's all purpose, we go through it really fast. Use it a bunch, wear it out, toss it, and find a new one. The word life cycle: I am familiar with you.

But all this hype about becoming epic, becoming legendary... it's a little wearing? 

So I want to bellow back at these articles, something like, I sing of the rage of Achilles!! And then I'll blabber about gods and monsters and heroes, about metamorphoses and ill-fated love stories, and then I'll make up a joke about a satyr.

Pfft. Satyrs. 

All this to say, at the moment I am profoundly ordinary. 

The draft (at 39,600 words) isn't quite at the slog stage, but ... slog threatens. The mad dash through the opening chapters has turned into more of a trudge. It's just plain old hard work, that's all, unraveling that skein of story every day, hoping I don't find a knot, a snarl, a fray, a break. 

Okay. Here's the honest truth. I have no idea what happens next. 

I've hassled my poor cast of characters through a fair series of early obstacles, and it's time for them to catch their breath--just long enough to hear how the stakes are higher than they knew, their enemy stronger, and their time to act shorter. 

And then I'll catapult them into . . .

Into . . . 

Hmm. 

The unepic writer scratches her head, wanders around her house, thinks about the laundry, and eats an apple. Thinks about those villains, and tries to chew more menacingly. 

I know there will be a mystery person in the next chapter or two. And I know there will be something of a prison break at the midpoint of the story. 

Prison break? I'm going to write about a prison break. Never mind that I wouldn't be able to break my own self out of a locked closet if I needed to.

Oh, and the climax of the whole story? Yeah. Complete mystery to me. Ditto the ending.

I am trying to remember that I knew this was coming. The wide blank howling fields of I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm remembering that my job is to just show up. To lighten my grip.

So I'm not hyperventilating. I'm just a little edgy. And anyone who screeches GO BE EPIC is asking for a cool reply involving centaurs.

The one good thing? Even though I've no clue what happens next in my story, my imagination is still firing on all cylinders. I keep seeing things that aren't actually there.

The lynx slinking across the street. A picture of buildings turned into a boy alone at a train station, a wall of raincoats behind him. I keep seeing shadowy shapes walking past my window. Little things flitting past at the edges of sight. I hear phantom footsteps all through the house.

If I wasn't actively drafting, this kind of thing would make me dial an emergency number or two. But for now, it means that my writerly brain is still churning up images, tossing out ideas, sparking new scenarios. Twisting what it sees into something intriguing.

So I'll show up. And I'll keep going. 

And write my way forward, one ordinary word at a time.