October 26, 2008
A New Chapter in Our Lives
You know how people are always saying, “Oh what a lovely new chapter in your life!” I have to say, I totally don’t get that expression. A new chapter is…a positive thing?
You guys know how much I love to write, right? I started writing stories in elementary school and I just never stopped. In my French class in college, I made the teacher tell me how to say “writer” so that when we went around the room and practiced saying what our future careers would be, I could say, I’m going to be a writer. Everyone else said stuff like “teacher,” “lawyer,” or “doctor.” I was sort of going nowhere at the time but I thought I might be able to will this dream into existence.
I love writing. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do and I’m overwhelmed and honored to have the chance to do it. But that doesn’t mean every single moment of the process is happy happy joy joy. In fact, I would argue the absolute worst part is…starting a new book. I hate starting them. HATE.
When Anne and I are starting a new book, as we have been this past month (Book #4 of The Miracle Girls series if you’re counting), we are in almost constant contact. I probably email her five, six, ten times a day. (The poor dear.) And I can barely focus on anything while it’s going on. I lie awake at night asking questions like, But what is Riley going to do? Just being confused isn’t enough. Or…Why would her mom say that? It doesn’t make any sense!
Writing the first few chapters is almost like going through a long and difficult removal of your wisdom teeth. You pull each word out of you slowly, achingly. And you only force yourself to do that because there’s a deadline and you’ve got to turn something in. You promised, after all. And something must be better than nothing, right? Then I look back down at the screen and usually decide that it depends on exactly how bad the something is. But your writing partner is waiting. In fact, so is your editor. And the book has been scheduled and OHMIGOSH, just type something, May!
Don’t think. Just write. Don’t think. Just write.
Over the course of the first month we write bad chapters and then cut them. We write okay chapters, and then edit them to shreds. We happen upon a decent idea and then through discussion and a few “Aha!” moments in the shower or on the subway, we make them better ideas. We procrastinate by reading articles about tangential subjects and we rethink, rethink, rethink. And through it all we agonize. Send us, boils, Lord! We shall tear our clothes and wear nothing but sackcloth and ashes. But no more starting this book! We cannot bear it!
And then, like summiting a mountain, we make it to a breathing place, a peak we can see from, where the future is clearer and footing is surer and the worst is behind us now and amnesia about how very awful the entire ordeal was sets in. And that’s good, because we’re only going to do this again because we can’t help ourselves and we love this racket at the end of the day and how much else is there, anyway? It’s the struggle that matters, right?
Book #4 of The Miracle Girls series is our seventh book. I wish I could say that “Lucky #7″ was easier but it really wasn’t. Crafting an entire world for beautiful, successful, troubled Riley has been hard. We believe in her as a character and we can’t let her down. But I’m pleased to say we’ve made it through the worst now and from here it gets really fun.
Oh, now I feel like I’m standing in front of you in my pajamas. You guys have this problem too, right?
–May
PS Yeah, that’s really what I wear when I’m writing and they’re my pjs too. So…there you go. Me + pjs = soul bared.
Yes, we all have problems too, but we’re not focusing on that today.
Today, we are focusing on the fact that you are AWESOME! Anne and May: you have more guts than ten of me. You are stronger than twenty of me. You. Are. Awesome.
About a year ago, I got really motivated and forced myself to write about 1,000 words every weekend. Then around 10,000 words I stopped. Flat out. And I’ve never gone back.
You guys go back every single day. And you love it. And you write pretty great books.
So I’m proud of you cyber friends. And I’m jealous.
Happy Monday!
First of all, I knew Riley would be the main character senior year, I just knew it. Don’t ask me why - and of course, the process of elimination was helped by the fact that you’re already advertising Christine’s story, but anyway. I believe in Riley too, and I’m sure you’ll give her an awesome journey.
I have only seriously started two books - as in, made it past character names and page one. The first was a memoir - so the story was kind of already there. The second is a novel, and for me starting it was only grueling because the only parts I was sure about happened way later in the story. I think Sarah is very, very right. The reason it’s grueling for you is because you keep doing it every day even when you don’t feel like it. In my opinion, that’s frankly the first and biggest difference between wanna-be writers and actual ones. You can’t get published, after all, if you don’t even finish a book.
Where I can relate best of course is that outside of writing - yea - new chapters can be grueling at first. But not marriage. Marriage is way better than being engaged.
Last night I watched this After Film School special that interviewed the writing team behind (Transformers, Alias, Eagle Eye and Fringe). Robert Orici and Alex Kurtzman are basically J.J. Abrams go-to guys. And the funny thing is that one of them pretty much said the same thing as you just did. But he also mentioned that his writing partner helped balance him out because he liked the beginning process. Here’s the link to it:
http://www.foxmoviechannel.com/FMC-LAFS.html
As for me, I’m going through a somewhat similar process. I’m working on the second draft of my screenplay and the story seems to follow me everywhere. While it’s fun, I’ll be glad when I have the final draft sitting in front of me.
I’m sitting in a hotel room supposedly writing while my husband attends a medical conference downstairs, and my work-in-progress is stuck. I know from experience that approximately one hour into the writing process today, I’ll finally hit the flow and say, “Oh, yeah. The story is still here.” But I’m doing everything I can think of to procrastinate, because the first words are always so hard! So, now that your post has inspired/shamed/encouraged/challenged me, I’m going to log off and write instead of reading about it
Starting is hard - I agree. But I admire you guys for continuing to start, again and again. I agree with Serenity that perseverance and plain stubbornness makes the difference between talented wannabes and talented “real” writers.
Keep it up - we believe in you! (And hey, writing in your pj’s is a definite perk, I think.)
About half way through each book, I LOVE writing. Before that, it’s just really hard work. It’s so great to have a partner to help med through the touch times when I just want to give up.
I’m getting really psyched about starting NaNoWriMo and have been thinking about my character like crazy, so I have a little idea of what you mean. I can’t wait to start writing her this weekend!!
On a side note, I’d love to hear more about how your writing partnership really works. Like do you take turns writing? Or does one of you write specific parts? I’m a total newbie but have always been interested in writing partnerships.
FYI- sometimes when I type on my macbook it gets wacky, hence the name “gidgety!” above- not quite sure how that happened.
For starters: writing is hell. It’s enormous fun, and can feel as though God is — quite literally — within a writer’s bloodstream like a gorgeous virus when it’s going well (and when it isn’t), but it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever done next to being married (which is a challenge unlike ANY other and which two people enter with blinders on, even having had premarital counseling). But — again, as with being married — writing is immensely rewarding. I’ve been reduced to tears as I write, not because I’m high on the qualities of what I’ve written (Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone just popped into my head) so much as that I’m writing at all — and that writing, in those moments, feels like a contract being kept with God. We know — somehow, mysteriously, intuitively — when, in a given moment, we’re doing what God would have us do in that moment, or with our lives full stop. Rilke wrote that one shouldn’t write unless it would kill him to not write, and I believe that. Our lives need to sing — not at every turn, or with every breath we take — but because we can feel God smiling when such is the case. Having just finished the first Miracle Girls novel, and having been as impressed with it as I am, I feel as certain that God smiles on your work as I feel certain that He smiled, for instance, on Cather having written My Antonia.
Yes, it’s hell — it took me three full weeks to recover my energy once I’d finished and defended my thesis — but it’s also singing.
At the end it seems so effortless. Ha!
Thanks for letting us know we’re not the only ones! Or at least, I’m not the only one. Because every day it’s a love-hate thing. But there’s nothing else in the world I’d rather do…
I actually like writing the first couple chapters…its after that when it starts becoming difficult for me because I start getting all these ideas of where the story should go (even if I have an outline-which I never am able to follow) and how I can add things in the beginning so I find it hard to get myself to continue. Like with the story I am writing at the moment. I have about 56,000 words (I was writing anywhere between 1,000-5,000 words a day for about two weeks). And now that I only have a few more chapters to go, I’m finding it hard to finish. Maybe because I really don’t want the story to end, but also because I have all these ideas on expanding the beginning of the novel. Sigh.
I will finish it though, but the work (college) that I have been putting off these last couple weeks has started to catch up to me and I have to put more focus on that until after this weekend.
Thank you so much for baring your PJ’d soul. You described exactly the ring of fire I dance through every time I start a story. I swear, I love the thought of being a writer, I love the planning, the outlining, the character development. I even love the critiques! But actually putting the words down is like getting a root canal with a rusty Black and Decker. In a perverse way, it makes me grin to know I’m not the only one.
Odd. I love starting new chapters. It’s editing that trips me up. I love being in the middle of the creative flow, sorting the tangle can wait. There’s a rush when you’re lost in the new world of a book. Making the world solid is harder for me.
Good luck.
This may depend on where you consider the beginning. I write about 4 pages before that happens to me. Four GREAT pages, only to slow to a stop and think. I’m actually plotting this ms that i’m working on now. so that’s different, but I haven’t decided if it’s making the beginning easier or more difficult.
I find it easier to let the character do whatever the heck they want in order to get words on paper. I just hate the revision process afterwards, it’s much worse that way. So, i’m trying to plot. Keep the peeps in line, so to speak. 
good luck on number 7.
Hey. Cool blog. I just wanted to say that your post resonated with me. I’ve never struggled with beginnings before, until this past WIP. I could not believe how awful I felt and how much the story sucked. I was taking this novella and expanding, because I knew it was a novel, I just didn’t know how, and it felt like going through physical therapy. In the first three months I wrote about 60K and only kept 25K of it. There is nothing worse a writer can do that struggle and struggle to create something, anything, and realize they have to throw it out.
It did get better once I hit the middle, though. Good luck with your novel
-CA