Plant Butt in Chair

Even  with good intentions, it may be hard to concentrate.  Observe cat on desk.

How do you motivate yourself to write and finish that novel?
It isn't easy.  I have a friend with  five (!) 50,000 word unfinished novels from NaNoWriMo.  Maybe one of these days she will finish one.  Maybe not.
It takes a lot of time to get your plot laid out (no matter how rudimentary) and get to know your characters and nail your the salient details of your setting.  But, as Mary Poppins said, "well begun is half-done."
Perhaps.  We all start off like gangbusters and after a few chapters maybe you see how anemic the plot is, or your characters stop speaking to you, or you realize you need to take a little (or a long trip) to bring your setting to life.  It happens to every writer, but it's what you do after you reach this impasse that distinguishes the pros from the amateurs.
Plant butt in chair.  The truth is, we learn to know our characters by writing about them.  Develop.  Develop.  They'll surprise you.  Everyone has heard of a character taking over a book.  It does happen.  But not unless you are actively writing the book.
Plotting can be done in the shower, behind the wheel of your car, making dinner, falling asleep at night.  But you better get those great ideas on paper as soon as possible, or they'll disappear into the ether.  Sit down and write notes to yourself: ideas for a scene, fragments of dialogue.
Spend an evening researching your setting online.   I've "been" to both Cuba and Panama via online visits.  What you can ferret out and the great believable details you can discover are there for the taking.  You can find photos, blogs, discussion groups--I tapped into some sailors' listserve about sailing in Cuban waters and the Florida straights.  I found out about Hemingway Marina and the dos and don'ts on how to behave.  Saw photos of the taxis.  Found lists of gifts to take.  Googled the airport and imagined  how it would look just after take off.  Pretty soon, I felt like I had been there, walking along the Malecon and taking a carriage ride through the old city.  Same thing for Panama.  But remember:  my butt was right here in the chair.
The only rule is:  there are no rules.  If so, no one knows what they are.  Really.  There is no rule that you must write the book in sequence.  You can do the BIG scenes and then string them together.  You can write the ending and keep going back in time, always asking yourself, "what would have to happen to make this happen?"  You can write a  400 page outline and spend more time on it than the book.
Sometimes, the ending and the beginning will confound you and require a skidload of rewrites and much thought.  That's okay.  The book takes five years?  Thaat's okay, too.  You WROTE and FINISHED it.
Remember, it isn't easy.  Just don't stop after 50,000 words.  You're over half way there.  And the best advice I had as a beginning writer was:  almost anything can be fixed.  In mystery writing, there's a saying that if the plot bogs down, have a man with a gun come through the door.  This can be literal or it is can be figurative.  Make something happen.
Writers are always writing, whether in their heads on in their chairs, but to get the book written and finished you are going to have to PLANT BUTT IN CHAIR!
Good Luck!   


These fine writers will have plenty of good advice on the subject.  Take a look at what they have to say.


Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Heather Haven http://heatherhavenstories.com/blog/
Dr. Bob Rich http://wp.me/p3Xihq-SK
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/  Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

The 9th Draft

Last night I finished the 9th and final (maybe) draft of Festival Madness. The oldest date in the folder is from 2002, and I believe I actually began the writing of the book in 2004 after returning from Burning Man. Two and a half years is no time at all for me and a book.

At the time, I was still working mega hours per week. I must have had a story in mind, because I began smack in the middle of the book and wrote the Burning Man scenes while the desert was still fresh in my mind. That was a good but weird idea. After the characters returned from Burning Man, I wrote the beginning, which also started at a festival. Of course this week I rewrote the beginning about 16 times. Those beginnings are hell.

Once the beginning had joined up with the Burning Man section, I wrote the last (what turned out to be half) of the novel. I don't recommend such an odd progression, but it worked for me. Somewhat more work involved that beginning at the beginning.

I know someone who at least plots from the ending, and works his way backword, asking, what would have to happen to make this happen? Writers do it whichever way they can, the most important part being "Plant Butt in Chair."

It's always a little sad to finish. The writer has lived with the book so long, obsessing over all the details. The other problem, is "on to the next," which in my case has been fraught with wheel-spinning and indecision.

Now I have three books for sale, and although I haven't flogged Festival Madness yet, the idea of promoting one book and trying to sell three others while writing a 5th is somewhat overwhelming. And depressing.

There are two books I want to write, neither calculated to be easy to sell. "They" say"write what you love," but that hasn't been a stellar idea to date.

So I don't know what I'm doing. I thought: maybe take a writing class, but a novel class expects you to at least have a novel started.

Write short stories? Maybe. Lots of ideas.

The longer one is away from writing, the harder it becomes. There's nothing worse than picking up something that's been lying fallow for six months. Unless it's been fallow for evening longer. Is "fallow" a word anyone uses?

So "que faire?" as we used to say in French class. Come January, I'll have to decide. Not to decide is, after all, to decide.

I'm finished with crime fiction for a while. Unless, of course, I get a wonderful awful idea.

Toujours,

Grapeshot