Write on Wednesday-Revision Redux

The revision process continues to be on my mind this summer - notice I said "on my mind," meaning I haven't done much more than think about it. The whole process of novel revision seems terribly daunting. I've been collecting other writer's thoughts on their process of revision, hoping to get inspired, and it worked to some degree. I've started revising a short story I wrote last winter, hoping that by "practicing" on something smaller, I'll be less intimidated by the work involved in revising the novel. Here's some food for thought regarding the revision process...as you will see, every author approaches it completely differently!

"I start on the first page. Then, I rewrite that page twenty or forty times until it's right, and then it's finished. Then, I go to page two and I do the same thing twenty or forty times." Stephen Dixon

"I go over what I've written, but I'm not making major changes. I'm just fixing it by making minor changes that might have a big effect. I hardly throw anything out." Jayne Ann Phillips

"I do twenty or thirty drafts. I'm a big reviser. I go back...and polish the beginning, then I force myself to go through page by page from beginning to end, over and over again." Amy Bloom

"I go through with a very cold eye to cut out everything that can be cut without loss." Thomas E. Kennedy

"I polish as I go along. My habit is to perfect individual sentences, individual paragraphs, and individual pages, and when I think they're as good as I can make them, I feel free to go on to the next part. So when I write the last sentence of the last paragraph, I'm done with the book." Kent Haruf

"I do a great many drafts, no matter what it is. This means letting it sit for a few days before looking at it again, then doing it again, then letting it sit and doing it again. I let my friends read drafts after the first ten or twelve. My early drafts are sketchy in the most important ways - everything vital is left out - and they're wordy in other ways - there's all this extraneous material that doesn't matter. So the revisions are in both directions." Andrea Barrett "I do a lot of revisions in fits and starts. When I write, I barrel through from beginning to end, and then back up, and if the beginning isn't working, start over. Once it works, I write through to the end, and start revising, and, if necessary, trash the whole thing, and start over." Myla Goldberg

Writer Bug posted some great revision advice which she picked up at her last residency. She talks about picking 15 areas you want to work on in your manuscript, and then going through it 15 times, focusing on one area each time. Some things to work with include: verbs, redundancy, verbosity, vagueness. She also advises reading the story aloud, which is a great idea.

As I've begun revising my own short story, I've been taking one paragraph at a time, revising each sentence, looking for better words, paring down wordiness, then going on to the next paragraph until I've finished the page. Then I re-read the page and see how it flows. Once I've done each page, I'll go back and re-read the whole thing to see if I need to make structural changes.

So, how about you? Anyone else out there in the process of revisions? If so, how's it going?

Write on Wednesday-In the Moment

In the past year, I've become addicted to morning pages. There is something so freeing about sitting down to write three pages every morning and knowing it doesn't matter what I write about, whether the words that end up on the page are sensible, beautiful, logical, or even legible. Knowing that spiral notebook and ballpoint pen are sitting on the table where I left them yesterday morning, waiting patiently to hear all my sleepy headed, good morning thoughts, is like knowing a patient and trusted friend has been sitting up all night just to hear what I have to say. Admittedly, sometimes the words don't come so easily. Those are the times when I'm the slightest bit fearful of the page, because the reluctance sometimes means there are disturbing thoughts or issues I don't want to face, and they're liable to come rushing to the forefront if I start writing, opening the floodgates in my mind and my heart. I've worked some things out on the page~feelings about relationships, hopes for the future. I've allowed myself to dream "out loud," and also to release my anger in those words I spill onto paper first thing in the morning.

And, because morning pages are all "in the moment," meaning they're not thought out or planned, sometimes all that appears is drivel - what I made for dinner, what movie I plan to see, the new dress I'm shopping for. Whatever flows from my brain through the pen and onto the page is what goes into the mix for the day.

"Daily writing, writing simply for the sake of writing, is like keeping a pot of soup on the back of the stove," writes Julia Cameron. "It is always there, always ready to be tasted, always ready to be added to, always nourishing, savory, life-sustaining. Like soup, your daily writing doesn't have to be fancy. A few simple ingredients are enough."

Cameron's basic recipe for the "stock" of our writer's soup consists of these three "ingredients":

• Honesty~look at "where you are" in your life, both physically and emotionally;
• Observation~what's going on in your world, immediately, and in the larger sphere;
• Imagination~what can you imagine doing, or being that would bring you the greatest happiness?

As I put my morning thoughts on paper, I try to be mindful of these ingredients. Even when the pages seem to be nothing more than a litany of complaints, or a string of worries knotted together like beads, they are reflective of my honest observations about life at the moment. As I write, I feel the soup begin to stir in my brain, simmering slowly as the flavors mix and mingle together. Where am I and what is going on around me? How can I change things? What shall I do next?

Each morning, my writer's soup nourishes me for the day ahead and forms a record of my life "in this moment." The broth only grows richer with each entry.

How about you? Do you keep a writer's soup simmering on the back burner of you mind? What are your basic ingredients?

Write on Wednesday-Character Study

Once upon a time, I wanted to be a psychologist ~ believe it or not, my first major at the University of Michigan was psychology. Seems strange for a girl who grew up playing the piano and writing stories, doesn't it? I think this compulsion sprang from my fascination with people - why they act (and react) the way they do, how their emotions effect their behavior. This same fascination is why I love literature so much - where else can you meet so many fascinating and complex characters? I recently read an article by Gail Godwin (an author whose characters I greatly admire), who has this to say about "Creating Characters With Depth" (The Writer, June 2007):

"Use yourself. Go deeply into your own feelings and look for the hidden truths, motives, and perspectives. For we all have more in common than you think."

Godwin relates that she was once working on a story with a character who had recently become widowed. Trying to convey a sense of what this woman was feeling, without being trite, Godwin reflected on the way she herself felt when she was alone. She realized that she always felt a need to leave a light burning at night. So by having her character compelled to leave a light on, she was able to convey a sense of vulnerability without being maudlin.

"Observe others, observe yourself," Godwin advises. "Practice putting gestures, habits, facial expressions into words." My son was once quite interested in animation, and took some classes at the Disney animation studios. The artists talked about the way they imitated their characters antics in the mirror, and then drew what they saw. As writers, we can do the same thing with our characters - observe ourselves not only physically, but emotionally, to gain insight into the way people might react in a given situation. Godwin assures us that "you have enough self knowledge to take an imaginative leap from what you don't understand about a character you're trying to create to what you do understand about yourself."

Creating characters gives the writer a chance to play God - to take bits and pieces from ourselves, from people we know, and put them together to create a unique individual. It takes lots of practice to be precise and compelling enough with words to get a person "down on paper" well enough so that he can "walk off the page" and into the reader's imagination. As writers we have to be able to "reproduce with clarity" the looks, gestures, objects, and environments of people, because these are the things that make them who they are. "You have the power of observation and compassion necessary to penetrate to the depths of people and realize they are just as complicated as you are," Godwin assures us. "The really great writer is on everybody's side," having empathy and understanding of their emotional needs and motivations.

Since my career in psychology didn't quite pan out, I'll have to be content with studying human nature with an eye to creating complex and entertaining characters. And isn't that what makes reading, writing - and life itself!- so fascinating?

So how about you? Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? If you write fiction, how do you create believable and interesting characters? More of what I'm learning about character development can be found at Moving Write Along - A Matter of Character, Part, I, II, and III By the way - I could have written a really good description of myself having a complete meltdown about 30 minutes ago after I finished the first draft of this post (complete with links) and Blogger somehow mysteriously ate it! So much for the "automatically saves your draft" feature.

Write on Wednesday-Avoidance

There are a couple of things I'm avoiding in my personal life right now- you know the kinds of things I mean. Phone calls that are difficult to make, because you're afraid of the answers you might get, matters that need to be discussed, but seem too fraught with emotional baggage to bring up. The things that keep getting passed on to tomorrow's "to do" list, and somehow end up never getting done at all. I suspect that most of us have a secret cache of things we avoid in our lives. Now that I've developed this regular writing practice, I'm discovering there are some things I avoid there as well.

Like re-writing. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I was considering revising Dear Samantha, the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo last fall. And though I talked about not knowing where to begin with that process, my feelings are really more about not wanting to begin that process at all- I'm avoiding it big-time. So I put those pages back in their bright yellow folder, and conveniently lose them in the pile of other things demanding attention on my desk- my morning pages notebook, my daily lists of things to do, a pile of correspondence from my day job. I see them there, right now, staring balefully at me, yet I persist in writing this post, continuing my pattern of avoidance.

Something else I avoid in my writing is research. The narrator of Dear Samantha is in treatment for ovarian cancer, and I know a good part of any serious revision on this novel is going to require research into treatment protocols for this disease. This same narrator is also a musician, but since she's in a chamber group, and I'm not terrible familiar with chamber music repertoire, again I know I'll need to do some research, find and study some examples so I can provide the kind of details that bring the musical scenes in the book to life.

No matter how much we love our creative endeavors, they all have aspects we tend to avoid. I'm very familiar with areas of avoidance in my musical life...fingering and tempo. I clearly remember my first lesson with my college piano teacher. I complained bitterly about the way she made me revise all my fingering on a Mozart Sonata. "I could play this perfectly if she'd let me use my old fingering!" I whined. At first, these new fingerings were clumsy and slow. Grudgingly, I came to accept they did indeed work better and make my playing more efficient. And it took me years before I came to accept the metronome as my friend. (I'm a speed demon at the keyboard as well as on the road!)

This morning, I finally made one of those difficult phone calls that I'd been avoiding so assiduously, and things worked out better than I might have hoped. In the spirit of that success, maybe I'll be inspired to tackle something I've been avoiding on my writing "to do" list as well.

So, how about you? What do you avoid in your writing life or in your other creative endeavors?

Write on Wednesday-Revision and Retreat

Last November, I participated in the madness that is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and completed a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. In all honesty, I was quite surprised to have finished. I fully expected this project to end up on the cutting room floor, as they say in the movies, as so many of my other ill-fated bright ideas have a way of doing. But I did finish the novel, and it was a coherent story all the way through - in other words, I didn't cheat and start writing gibberish just to make my word count. As a matter of fact, the last 10 pages are, to me, the best part of the whole book. Anyway, after I uploaded the final draft on November 30, I promptly hit Ctrl-S and I haven't given it a thought since. That it, until I ran into a friend from church who told me she was in the process of revising her first novel, while beginning to write her second. She happened to have "won" the services of a writing mentor for one year, and was utilizing this to help her with revisions. She meets with her mentor, a novelist and professor of creative writing, who advises her on ways to make the characters stronger, advance the plot line, and generally help decide what works and what doesn't.

I started thinking about pulling out my little book to see what I've got. So, I printed it all out (88 pages, Arial 11, single spaced) and put it in a bright yellow folder. Yesterday morning, while enjoying my morning coffee, I gathered my courage and started reading.

It was a really interesting experience for me, because I had written it all in such a frenzy last November, that I had completely forgotten most of what I'd written about. Of course, I recalled the basic plot, but I had totally forgotten most of the details and how I had moved the story along from point A to B. I found myself getting quite interested in this story, simply because I had forgotten so much of it in the whirlwind to get it done.

Having re-read most of it, I'm now thinking it might be worth revising. Trouble is, I have no idea where to start, and unlike my friend, I don't have a professional mentor to help me along. Revisions are always a problem for me - I have a hard time seeing where things are wrong and thinking of ways to fix them. It's part of my personality I think ~ in general, I'm quite easy going, and tend to be happy with the status quo. So it's hard for me to read with a critical eye - even my own stuff. I mean, I know it's not perfect, I just don't know what's wrong with it!

In the coming weeks, I'll be perusing my writing library for some advice on how to go about this business of revision. In the meantime, I'll be on a little retreat, starting tomorrow, as we're traveling to Miami to attend my daughter-in-law's "swearing-in" as an official American citizen :)

So, how about you? Do you have a revision process that works for you? Have you read any good "how to" advice about revising?