THIS BLEW MY MIND

Yes, I am still on vacation. I think I am a blogging addict. Seriously, the rest of my family arrives tomorrow, so my blogging writing, reading, and commenting is about to be seriously hampered. In the meantime, I decided to share with you this mind-blowing little nugget I found on a fellow blogger's page. If you have read my "About Me," it says that I have started and stopped several novels. This is true. Until I watched this two minute video, I couldn't figure out WHY. After I watched it, it was painfully OBVIOUS. It freaking BLEW MY MIND. So, this is for anyone who is writing a novel, considering writing a novel, knows someone who is writing a novel, or just wants to laugh at those of us who have tried and failed. Turn off my music player at the bottom of the page. Sorry for the inconvenience.



In some ways, I think I knew what the problem was, but I didn't have a clear handle on it. I always said, "I can't get a through line on it." In other words, I can't see the ending. It never occurred to me that you have to write the ending FIRST. Duh. Now that seems obvious. You get an idea. A good idea and maybe you write the beginning. But, the next thing has to be the ending. You can write the middle in pieces or chronologically. Whatever. But, you have to write the ending at the start. You can always change it if something pivotal happens with your characters in the middle, and you start seeing them differently. I love that about writing. It is a fluid thing. As they come to life in your mind, things can change, and it might alter your ending, but that is okay. It just has to be there to be changed.

One of the best things about joining this blogosphere has been getting the opportunity to follow writers. All kinds of writers. People who write blogs. People who write for magazines. People who write novels. People who write for fun. People who write all of the above.

I haven't said much about my book project, but it is coming along. I am definitely more than halfway done, which is a HUGE milestone for me. I got stuck (because I couldn't see the end, but I didn't know that was why I was stuck) and then Kimberly posted her blog with this video. Mind blowing. That unstuck me. I didn't start writing, but I did start thinking. So, now my ending is coming together in my head, and I tinker now and again where I've left off, when I just feel the need to write *something.* However, I know that the next REAL writing I do will be THE END. And then it will be back to the middle.

Better yet, I am totally jazzed about picking up the novel I put down four years ago. You heard that right. I LOVED LOVED LOVED that idea. I wrote the first three chapters or so, and then "couldn't see the throughline," and gave it up. But it was a great idea (better than this one actually). And once I understood that I had to write the end first, I saw it. I now know how that book ends. I can see THAT ENDING better than this one. And the middle got clearer, too. Additionally, I can see it actually being a series. Too bad Janet Evanovich took the Numbers with her Stepanie Plum series, and Sue Grafton got the Alphabet with the Kinsey Millhone series. Drats. Well, it is what it is.

MY MOJO IS BACK

"I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it short."
~Blaise Pascal

I used to be one of those people who thought of fictional stories all of the time. I was a novel starter/stopper. I didn't really like that. I would rather have been a novel finisher, but at least I heard the stories in my head. My problem was the arc, or the through line. I always got bits and pieces of the puzzle, but couldn't put it together. Then another story would come along, and I'd set the old one aside, and just never get back to it. And so it went. A couple of years ago I really thought I found "the story." I was excited. I became a writing fiend. I made the mistake of sharing it with too many people. Some people were really supportive and assured me that it was really, really good. When I say "some people" what I mean is my mom and someone she was working with at the time. Everyone else was like, "Yeah, it's good. Where do you want to eat?" That isn't actually a direct quote from anyone. It just wasn't the standing "O" I needed to keep my momentum going. Had I been finished with the book, that might have been okay. I was about three chapters in. I lost my mojo. It just went away. All of that storyline that had been coming to me so fast and furious that I was losing sleep and typing through the night, just packed its bags and left for parts unknown. It didn't come back.

A little over a year ago, a good friend of mine started corresponding again via email after a long hiatus. Life gets like that. We started talking about writing a book together. I felt the euphoria begin to build the more we talked; it all started coming together in my head. It was the first time that had happened in a while. When I got her pages, I could tell that we weren't seeing this book the same way at all. That wasn't good, bad, right, or wrong. To make matters worse, she was also about to be really busy going back to school, she was a single mom, and I could see that there was no way that she was going to have time for this project even though she liked the idea of it. Heck, I liked the idea of it. I knew that given enough time we could bring the project into sync. Time was something we didn't have. I could feel my mojo slipping and my brain shut the whole thing down.


Yesterday morning I woke up with a fictional book idea buzzing around in my brain, and it wasn't letting go. It hounded me all day. I was having trouble with Microsoft Word on my laptop and I couldn't write a word. Can you say frustrating? I can. Over and over. I fought with it all day. I gave up, wrote my daily blog, watched LOST, took some Excedrin Tension Headache (at 10pm) and knew I was "in for it" because of the caffeine, watched GENERAL HOSPITAL on Soapnet, turned off the TV, and laid on my bed and thought about my book. After thirty minutes of that I got up, picked up my flash drive, got on my stepdad's computer, pulled up Microsoft word, and started typing. Before I knew it, it was 2am. Holy cow! I wasn't even tired. I really wanted to keep going. My brain was firing neurons, or whatever it is your brain fires when it is producing ideas, like fireworks, and I wasn't ready to quit.

The thing is I am SUPPOSED to take Rx internal cortisol at 7am and noon to get my body back on a "normal" schedule. That means not being up all night and sleeping all day. I just got this Rx on Monday and started taking it on Tuesday. I haven't seen 7am in a really long time. When I read the instructions Monday night I knew that wasn't going to happen, so I decided to ease into this and shoot for 9am and noon. It seemed more reasonable since I was currently getting up at 11am. 9am was only seven hours away. Uh oh. I inserted the flash drive and saved my work. There was a problem here. My brain was not done. I laid in bed still writing. The beast had awakened and I couldn't find the Off switch. I turned on my guided meditation CD so that I would listen to that instead. My inner voice just talked LOUDER. I couldn't even hear my CD. I was still mentally writing at 4am and doing a mental countdown to 9am.


When I woke up at 9am I took my cortisol and fell right back to sleep. I really don't think that was what the doctor had in mind at all. It's designed to jump start you. Kick off your day. I woke up again at 1pm and took the other one and made myself a sandwich. I decided to write this blog earlier, rather than later, so that I can get going on my book SOONER. This time NO ONE reads it until it's done. I admit to making mistakes. If there were an Olympic Mistakes Contest I would have medaled A LOT. Gold. Silver. Bronze. I just don't ever want it to be in the same event. I like to spread it around.