Flailing in the porridge pool
When I speak to book clubs, people often ask about my writing process.
Do I use outlines? Do I write every day or to a certain word count? Do I know how the story is going to end before it starts? I share their curiosity. I’m fascinated by what writers say about managing the actual practical application of writing. The struggle of a single person alone at a keyboard manifesting into the physical reality of a book is a strange and wonderful thing. I’m completing a manuscript right now, so I’ve been considering these questions anew.
I don’t use outlines. My Writing has always come from following the characters who appear at their own will.
In November, I heard Anthony Doerr speak at Portland’s Literary Arts about his novel Cloud Cuckoo Land. Though I have yet to read this highly regarded novel, I know it concerns five characters spanning time periods from fifteenth century Constantinople to present day Idaho to a spaceship in the near future—an admittedly complex plot. During his talk, Doerr displayed this impressive graphic he’d sketched to capture the story and all its interconnections before he began writing. The idea of an outline appeals to me because I find it difficult to hold the entire story in my head as I go.
I wish I could outline a book. I’d like to lay it all out and then write one chapter at time before moving on.
That sounds so calm and reasonable. Starting a new project does not make me feel calm. It makes me feel like I’m on the edge of the pool trying to work up the nerve to jump in. This is the worst moment because I know I’m going to flail epically. I will feel like I’m swimming across an Olympic-sized pool full of porridge. That’s the worst of it—this moment right before. Because once I’ve jumped, once I’m in the pool, I have no choice but to swim. I know I’ll stop occasionally to hang onto the side, wishing I had water wings or flippers or a kickboard or had taken lessons or at least worn goggles. And then I’ll carry on, knowing that I probably won’t drown—unlikely in metaphorical porridge.
I’ve discovered that writing gets going by NOT writing.
I always forget this when I’m starting something new, even a short blog post like this. Perhaps recording it here will help me remember, but probably not. I trip myself every time. I think, I’ll just sit down and bang that out this morning. Writing says, LOL. The harder I try the more impossible it becomes until I give up. I do other things that need doing. I sweep the kitchen floor, brush the dog, pull some weeds, feed the chickens. Maybe even nap. It’s when my mind is on nothing in particular that I’ll get the word, the phrase, or the image that I need to begin a first draft. Ocean Vuong writes beautifully about allowing writing to emerge in this essay. He says, “You can’t just sit down and wing it. Those ideas have to be developed through time, and the best way is to just live your life but tend to the work mentally. Tend to it while you’re doing your dishes, while you’re showering, taking a dog for a walk.”
how many drafts does it takes to finish a book, some ask.
This question makes me think of novelist Laurie Frankel, who when talking about her latest book One Two Three, referenced the first eighty-two drafts. Some might have thought she was joking, but I took her seriously because I share her opinion that writing is revision. The two are inextricable. It’s not like there’s a static first draft followed by many others leading to and a completely revised final draft. At a certain point, the story emerges as well as it can (and hopefully by your deadline). Through what Anne Lamott calls “shitty first drafts” to better drafts to conceptual edits, line edits, copy edits, and proofs, revision never ends. It only ceases because your editor pulls the thing out of your hands. There’s always room for improvement or change. Things could be better or good in a different way. And that leaves room for freedom to make a mess. In an interview, Frankel explains it like this: “Because I know I will fix it later, I’m free to draft as messily as I will. I’m free to edit as messily as I will as well for the same reason. It doesn’t have to be good now. It has to be good eventually. Editing is how I know I’ll get there someday.”
So how do I describe my writing/revision process?
In truth, it goes something like this: I write the blog post or essay or book, one paragraph after another, all the way to the end. Then I go back through the whole thing and read, trimming, shaping and making changes, until it is hanging together. This takes a couple of passes. Sometimes I have cut as much as one third and rewrite the story entirely (Yes, even with a whole book!). Once the shape seems firm, I hold it up and look at it from a bit of a distance. Are the word counts about the same from chapter to chapter or paragraph to paragraph? Does it matter? Where can I cut or add? What seems boring or repetitive? What’s the balance of different POVs? Then I go through the whole thing again. Then I might employ an outline. What is happening in each chapter, just factually speaking? Where are there loose ends? How could things be better ordered? After doing this a couple of times, then I might start line-editing, fine tuning language, tweaking, polishing. Then I’ll go through the whole thing again—this time printing out the document and reading it aloud to myself (and the dog, who is a very good listener) while pacing my house. I’ll do this at least twice. For my most recent project, I employed some techniques suggested by Matt Bell in his book Refuse to Be Done. For example, hunting weasel words, which he writes about here. Shocking! Exhausting! Pervasive are the weasel words! But they encouraged the question, “How can I say this better?” At the very end of a complete draft, I’ll look back at chapter openings and endings to see how those waypoints feel in relationship to each other. At this point, it feels ready for someone else to read (my writing group—whose name is Nancy—my agent, or editor)—which, to be clear, is still a far cry from a published book.
Writing that paragraph made me feel nauseated.
It just doesn’t sound like a plan. It sounds about as useful and interesting as explaining how I go about brushing my teeth one tooth at a time. It sounds like a big mess, and in fact it is a big mess. But I’ve made my peace with not having the answers, rejecting neat outlines, and flailing in the porridge pool. I’ll chalk it up to maturity or at least middle age, which makes me care less about things that used to worry me. I spent so much of my childhood and young adult life trying to color in the lines and be tidy because I wanted to avoid conflict. But conflict is as unavoidable in life as getting wet if you’re going to swim. The way I approach writing now is how I approach my life. And, as it turns out, I’m not a tidy person. I am not type A. I have no five-year plan. I have no efficient systems. These are all illusions about myself that I’ve had to surrender. To be most myself, I have to make a mess and clean it up as I go along. The older I get, the more right it feels. As revision is inextricable from writing, discovering who we are is part of becoming who we are meant to be as humans.
Clementine overseeing my revision process with a fine eye.