The Scene of Doom

I've come to the conclusion that writing is to be done in private. We write and write, whatever is inside us. We write until we can write no more and must reemerge from our writing cave in search of sustenance (beer, pizza, ramen), only to do it again the next day. And the next. And the next.

I tend to get very grumpy when I'm writing. It's really best for everybody involved to be far, far away from me when I'm in the thick of writing a complex scene or doing a massive overhaul of a section. the littlest thing can send me storming out of the room (like, say, my roommate laughing at something on The Daily Show while I'm trying to take notes while watching old newsreels and figure out how I'm going to incorporate fact and fiction.) and I just have to remember to resist the compulsion to throw my computer out the window whenever it eats a file I worked on three days ago. And hug my roommate and let him know I'm not mad at him.

Yesterday, I wrote the ending of the heart of the novel, where four major events happen all at once.

I had always intended it to be this way, but it took approximately twelve hours longer than it should have. My computer ate the part of this section I had been working on a few days before.

But it's over.

Bobby Kennedy has given his speech at the Ambassador Hotel and everyone who has been working on the campaign (including Ben the leading man) is at Jimmy's (a real bar in the neighborhood of Hyde Park in Chicago) celebrating his likely win.

Moments after Kennedy says, "And now it's on to Chicago and let's win this." Ben's father comes into the bar and tells Ben his wife is in labor. And they go on to the hospital.

Kate the wife is in labor. Ben is pacing the waiting room (since men weren't really allowed in the delivery room) and as a nurse comes in and tells him his wife has had the baby, he happens to see on the television in the nurse's station that Bobby Kennedy has been assassinated. His father grips his shoulders and tells him to take care of her.

After he spends some time with her, he sees his brother Phil, who has been in long-term treatment in the psych ward at a VA Hospital because he was suffering from severe PTSD and tried to kill himself.

The scene (and the entire heart of the novel) ends when Phil and his girl Diane, Ben, and the professor are standing around Kate's bed talking to her and the baby.

It took forever. And now on to Part Four, which has each character in turn asking themselves "what next?". I'm excited.

RE: Goal of the Day

Okay, so it turns out I have lost all concept of time. It's Sunday. The library is closed. And we're out of printer paper.

Feck.

You know you're a crazy writer person when...

Goal of the Day

I have a tendency to write scenes out of order to see where I want to take the book at a later time when I get there.

Sometimes Lucy (my laptop) and I like to take long rides on the El to visit friends and I like to write what I see. And sometimes, I can incorporate these observations into my writing.

The problem with this is that when it comes time to squeeze them into an appropriate place, I have either obnoxiously long file names like, "Kate stood and led Brian down the stairs into the yard" or short, non descriptive file names like "Dr". Or worse, "Doc14" because I have fourteen files of the same name.

Am I the only one?

My files are a mess.

The only way I see to rectify the situation is to print these passages (which are rarely more than three pages each), delete the files, put the passages into a notebook of some kind, and use them when I need them.

This is the goal of the day: Consolidating all my random loose files into a notebook, and then delete them off my computer so my files are less cluttered and I might be motivated to write more.

I've been making slow and steady progress. I'm writing a very difficult section, so it's been especially hard to sit down and force myself to keep slogging through it, but it's coming along.

I wrote almost 4k yesterday, which is more than I ever wrote for Nanowrimo, so I'm pretty pleased with that.

My goal for next week is to have as clear a plan for this section that I'm working on right now as I do the ones that preceded it. By the end of next week, I want to have it finished, like I did last week with section two. I need it to be clear, concise, and in one file, and it is none of those things right now.

So now, it's off to the library.

Crazy Writer Desk

I mentioned this in a previous post, but I thought it deserved some kind of definition.

Do you have eleven spiral notebooks in a pile (not a stack, a pile) on your desk, and only one of them might be in any way relevant to your current project?

Do you have a cluster of empty beer bottles, a stack of plates with stale crumbs, and a flask of whiskey in the bottom drawer, just in case?

Do you find yourself unable to stand the clutter but know you can't clean it up because you will never find anything again?

You have Crazy Writer Desk.

Good. I'm glad it's not just me.

With a Saber and a Gun

I had always wanted to write a novel set against the backdrop of the 1960s. I've always been fascinated with all aspects of that time in history, and thought I had seen enough documentaries, listened to enough music, read enough books to where I thought I could do it justice.

The initial seed of the idea came from a short story idea I had, but it just wasn't working in the way I wanted and needed it to work, I didn't think there was enough I could give to it, and I abandoned the project.

I don't know what happened next, exactly, but in November of last year when I sat down to write for Nanowrimo, I decided that it was time to write the novel I had always wanted to write, the novel about the 60s. As I started planning the novel I would write, I decided I could turn that abandoned short story idea into the major hurdle my main character would have to overcome in order to get what she wants.

That's the idea that really got me going. And I began, that first day, writing a clear, concise plan that would get me through the writing process. I didn't care so much about finishing by November 30th, so much as I wanted so badly to finish a project. This project.

In the introduction to the Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams wrote, "I became a writer and worked on a lot of things that were almost incredibly successful, but, in fact, just failed to see the light of day. Other writers will know what I mean."

I think every writer knows what he means. I certainly do.

But what to call this project, the one I had always wanted to write, the one I needed to finish?

As I delved further into the protest music, the chorus of a Phil Ochs song struck a chord in me that resonated so strongly, I knew that was it. I got so excited because not only did it represent the theme of the piece, it also summerized my own personal feelings about war that I couldn't quite articulate.

This is the chorus:

It's always the old to lead us to the war
Always the young to fall
Look at all we've won with a saber and a gun
Tell me, was it worth it all?
- Phil Ochs, "I Ain't Marchin Anymore"

So in case anyone wants to know why a novel that questions the motive of going to war is called, "With a Saber and a Gun", that's why. It's from a protest song. An anti-war protest song.

And a damn good title, if I do say so myself.

Beginnings

My name is Jennifer, and I am a Crazy Writer. I have Crazy Writer Desk to prove it. I was a participant in Nanowrimo last year, and one day last month, I decided to keep on slogging through and actually finish the damn thing.

Since I only get to go to write-ins once a month with people who actually understand what it is to get in The Zone, to want to slap or hug a character, to apologize to a character for putting them through so much shit, I decided to blag my novel-related rants, raves, successes, writing goals, and character-related drama.

Expect lots of cursing and drunk posting.

My novel is about a young woman called Kate growing up in the late 60s, who wants nothing more than to go to college, but her parents think that higher education is wasted on a girl who will just get married anyway. Lucky for Kate, her older brother Andrew thinks otherwise, and so does Jack Hoffman, an old professor of his. Before he goes off to war, Andrew sends his sister to Chicago to live with Jack Hoffman and his family, which has been torn to shreds by the war. She falls in love with the professor's son Ben, a radical socialist and pacifist. Trouble starts brewing after the Summer of Love and Kate is faced with a decision she never thought she would have to make.