I made it across the quagmire.

I finished my young adult novel GREEN TARA: A Space Adventure! (I'm talking New Year's Eve and not the Thanksgiving completion schedule I'd hoped for, but hey, I squeaked under the 2007 wire well before midnight.)

New Year's Day I celebrated by polishing little mechanical details in the manuscript and grooming the spacing and page breaks.

This morning I asked a handful of readers to examine my baby with their expert editorial eyes.

I feel --

MERRY MERRY HAPPY HAPPY JOYFUL JOYFUL MERRY MERRY HAPPY HAPPY JOYFUL JOYFUL MERRY MERRY HAPPY HAPPY JOYFUL JOYFUL

Skipping through a Perfection Quagmire

I'm finally half-way into my novel Green Tara. In previous posts I've confessed how much more slowly this rewrite--I hope final draft-- is going than I had hoped. It always takes longer than I hope but, shucky darn, I thought my good planning had created useful shortcuts in the l-o-n-g rewriting process. And I know better than to get stuck in a perfection quagmire. Apparently that was wishful thinking on both counts. So, in an effort to coach myself here are --

SEASONAL TIPS for skipping through a perfectionist's quagmire:

• Read the first paragraph of A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens. Treat yourself to the second paragraph.
• Kick some snow. Treat yourself to hot cocoa.
• Watch a classic film like CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT and learn how a professional woman's public persona can be most effective when it's a well-crafted piece of fiction. (Hey. It worked for Barbara Stanwyck. She got a raise and the love of her life!)
• Make paper snowflakes with someone under 12. Treat everyone in the house to hot cocoa.
• Meditate on the difference between a baby and a world-class leader. Notice which one gets the star. Now go celebrate that work in progress and know when it comes of age it just may turn the world upside down.

Writing is . . .

Writing is like polishing a mirror.

~Anon

The Three C's

I don't remember where I heard or read this story guideline, so I can't give credit. But, it's easy and important to remember.

The three C's of story:
Character
Circumstances
Choice

TIP: Though fiction rarely sticks to the facts, it will always document emotional truth.

Newton Said

He got his original ideas by standing "on the shoulders of giants." Let's follow his lead.

Or even better: Snatch raw truths fresh from eternity.

Story Alchemy

I outline my stories, because I need to know where I'm going or I get lost and lose heart and quit. But I advise my students never to mistake the outline or story map with the journey.

A story is not a sum of all its parts or a simple string of scenes. A story has emotional pull. A story creates a sense of satisfaction and completeness. This comes from forcing a character to make a moral choice: to act or not to act. The key behind the choice is the main character's internal change. It's a character who changes deep down inside who moves us emotionally.

And therein lies the magic.

Is it good enough?

I'm having a heck of a time making any progress on my full-length story GREEN TARA. It's driving me crazy. My deadline's the end of the month and I'm barely out of the starting block. The problem is, I'm writing this draft for someone else to read and evaluate. If this was my first draft, I'd be gleefully blazing through the story because my primary goal would be to simply string together the story and allow the characters some room to emerge and take charge. But in my fourth draft I'm plagued by all those devilish fears. Will it be picked up? Is it good enough?

The antidote to fear--I know from experience--is to get back to basics and trust the process. Here's how it works:

START (Getting bum into chair can be the toughest part.)
1. Plan the energetic drive of the next scene.

2. Write the scene as quickly as possible. (Or, in my case, rewrite.)

3. Keep going without going back.

ON THE NEXT DAY (Get bum into chair.)

• Reread the most recent new scene--NEVER EVER go back to scenes written more than one day before--and edit for clarity and flow and dramatic juice.
• Move on to the next scene - repeating the above process (1-3), except it's easier because we've already gotten past the most difficult part, START.

If the goal is to write one new scene per day, I'm always editing one scene from the previous day and writing one new scene. So the progress is one back, two forward: netting one new scene per day. Unfortunately, I'm really behind, so I'm in the three scenes back, six forward category.