Tag Archives: amwriting

On patience in revision.

I’ve been thinking about the importance of patience this morning, how it is so necessary, but also something that has to be learned. Why, you ask, was I thinking about this? I spent the morning going through a first draft of a novel, charting all the changes to make before I begin draft two. I charted scenes that are currently in the novel in one column, scenes that I want to be in draft two in a second column. I charted POV, motifs, and details. I feel great about this slow process of revision, but it is something that has taken me twenty years to come to.

Maybe you, like me, came to writing in the first place because you loved the creative immersion, the flow, the story–and I won’t lie–the idea of being a writer? But that only gets you so far. Patience and discipline carry you the rest of the way. Suzannah Windsor Freeman wrote about this idea on Jeff Goins blog. Her post is worth a read. Maybe it will resonate with you the way it did with me?

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Some past posts to keep you making time:
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

Yep. It’s a first draft, all right.

This week, I finished up another draft of a manuscript that is in nearing the publishing phase of the editing process, then finished a read-through of a first draft of a novel I’ll spend the summer revising. A pretty productive week! I had this moment after reading that first draft where I let loose an enormous, heavy sigh. That sigh was me letting go of all the delusions of grandeur I’d let mount over the months I’d spent writing. In fact, in spite of my highest of hopes, it was a true first draft, lacking so much of what I’d intended to be there, including some things I had intended, but that now seem like a pretty bad idea. I’m okay, though, I have a plan.
First, I’ll go through the book again, charting some notes on key scenes, details, conflicts, and motifs chapter by chapter. Then, I’ll write more before diving in and making changes to that first draft. I’ll write new scenes first before going in to delete and change what I already have. Then, I’ll begin weaving it all together into a second draft, hopefully, better than the first. This is how we do it. It’s not magic. It’s first inspiration, then persistence, discipline, and planning.
Tomorrow; however, is Friday, and with all this editing in my life right now, I’m aching for that first draft feeling where it’s all vision and flowing words, and damn, you’re good! So I’ve declared that as for my writing process, my Fridays are going to be something akin to casual Fridays and I will write new words, first drafts.

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Learning from a confidence crash: Reflections from a writing retreat.

I started this blog as a way to keep myself writing. It was the same kind of desperate attempt to build good habits that causes people to talk their significants into doing dietary cleanses with them. I needed an audience, some accountability outside my insecure self. It wasn’t enough to just remind myself why I was writing, how I was writing, that I deserved to make time for writing. I needed to shout it out loud.
That’s still true, but over time it has become a creative work of its own. A voice has emerged, a voice I didn’t know I had. A voice strong, confident in the fact that she has something to say that’s worthy of being heard.
I’m in Ocean Shores on a writing retreat now. This is a place I know well. I’ve spent many hours with my cousins on the beach, the adults who brought us sheltered from the wind in the car we’d driven right onto the beach. Yesterday, I drove into town on my own to pick up a few things from the store, get gas, shop for some souvenirs. I went in to pay for the gas, began pumping, sat in the driver’s seat to wait for the tank to fill. That’s when it happened. My self dissipated. What was I doing here? Who was I kidding? What kind of fraud had I perpetrated, masquerading as a writer for over twenty years?
I’m mostly immune to these kinds of identity crises, though as a young writer they plagued me. You see, I’ve built good habits in getting up in the morning to write, keeping this blog, annotating every book I read. I love the work and I’m not so worried about who approves anymore. In the face of this unforeseen confidence crash, I parked my car at the IGA and went for a walk through town, breathing deep and consciously, feeling the straps of my backpack, each stride. I shook it off, remembered I don’t care about that shit anymore. I simply make time and do the work. Beginning my summer vacation with a writing intensive that includes my summer writing schedule (up at 5AM for a run, shower, then pour a cup of coffee and get to work) is likely the cause of the crisis (when you retreat for a week to write the pressure to get work done is great) and now that I’ve recovered, I’m glad I had that moment. Because when I had returned to my body and was breathing freely again, I felt immense gratitude, commitment to do the work, to stay in the room, focused on the goal or two I’ve set for the day.

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The Power of Play

At risk of sounding like the worst of self-help gurus, I’m going to sound off about the power of play in nurturing (yes, I said nurturing) a consistently productive creative practice. And at risk of insulting the dead, I’m calling for an end to the tortured, self-loathing writer. I’ll begin by telling the story that inspired me to write this.
Despite all my prayers that my son and only child would not struggle with the reticence and hyperconsciousness that I struggled with and that his father struggled with even more and despite the fact that at home he is opinionated and animated (and I mean animated like a cartoon character), he assures me, he is “shy”. Assures isn’t the word—he insists he is shy. So, I try not to dwell on it, not to smother him with encouragement, but to encourage him–damn it–encourage him. Though he was leery about playing basketball for his middle school because of the public spectacle of the competition, he loves to play. He was worried about being on the student news station they show every morning in home room. He was just worried that he’d be too shy to succeed. I acknowledged his feelings and made him try. Now, if he was that shy, there would have been no pushing him. It was to my relief that he reluctantly conceded the point.
How happy was I when he returned from his first practice red-cheeked and smiling? So happy! I knew he would sail through the first three weeks—only practice—and prayed that come time for his first game, camaraderie would trump “shy”. That didn’t exactly happen. The first three games weren’t painful, but I could tell from his reports that he was holding back on the court.
Now, here’s where I get to the point. Friday after the third game, his coach set up a practice based solely on play. He came home elated—chattering about kids laughing so hard they couldn’t dribble.
“You know how I’m usually so shy when I dribble?”
“Uh-huh.” I said.
“Well, today I wasn’t…and he was laughing so hard he couldn’t shoot…and I played so hard.”
“Uh-huh.” I said.
“The point guard said I should be point guard…he said I should be on varsity.”
“Uh-huh.” I said, thinking Yes! Yes! Yes!
And, what do you know? The next game he scored three points and said, “Now that everyone knows I can dribble, the expect me to…”
Yes! Yes! Yes!
I am overjoyed that he is conquering his self-diagnosed shyness, and every day when he comes home, this pattern of growth continues. Yes! Yes! Yes!
What does this have to do with writing? In order to push forward in producing work in spite of all the obstacles we face, there is this too often untapped resource—play. Here are some ways to not take yourself too seriously and so write more and feel better about it:
1. Put on your favorite dance tune. For me that’s Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love”. Let loose.
2. Get outside and play first, then write. A tuned-in walk about town? Frisbee? Fetch with the dog?
3. Give yourself permission to write the worst lines. Do it on purpose. Write the sappiest, most trite, worst stuff you’ve ever written. Read it aloud.
4. Bite, poke, or otherwise harass a friend on facebook.
5. Brig a whoopee cushion to your writer’s group.
6. Kick your feet while you write, or engage in playful fidgeting of your choice.
7. Wear a funny hat while you write.
8. Write upside down (intentionally left up to your interpretation).
9. Doodle in the margins.
10. Fill a page with writing. Then, fold it into a paper airplane and send it sailing.

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Make Time.

Liz Shine: Author, Editor.

Tag Archives: amwriting

On patience in revision.

Yep. It’s a first draft, all right.

Learning from a confidence crash: Reflections from a writing retreat.

The Power of Play