Is the Right Writer Writing?

(This post was originally published on the blog Live to Write, Write to Live.)

I tell people it took me between two and fifty years to write my first book, Her Sister's Shadow. The manuscript itself took two years, but I’d been gathering stories and getting to know my characters (the book was inspired by my mother and her sisters) for most of my life. What might it take to drive sisters apart, I mused, as I listened for years my mother talk about her childhood on the South Shore of Boston, in a weather-shingled house overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. And what might it take to bring them back together? Her Sister’s Shadow was published in 2011.

Then it was time to write another manuscript. What, I wondered, as I sat, fingers tensed, staring at a blank computer screen, could I write about? “You’ve used up every one of your good stories,” I heard myself say. “You’ve exploited every single foible a character could possibly possess and exhausted every topic of interest to anyone. (And all the good lines, too.) And, by the way, you don’t have another fifty years to come up with more.”

                         

My fingers began to cramp; the page remained blank. “It was all a big mistake, that first novel. Eventually someone will figure that out. Not a chance you can write another one.”                                                                                          

Who Asked You, Anyway?

This wasn’t writer’s b--ck (that which must not be named). It was that the wrong writer was trying to write the first draft. Every author needs an internal editor. This persona is as important to subsequent drafts as a copy editor is to the final one. Just don’t let her “help” with the first draft. They say that writing is revising. But first you’ve got to get something down on paper. It’s a bitch to revise a blank page.

Have Fun for Heaven’s Sake

For the first draft, you need to employ your generative side. Invite your kid-self to climb up on your lap and bang away at the keys. Give her plain white paper and colored markers and watch her mind-map her way to a plot. Supply her with colored index cards and see how quickly scenes present themselves. (Pink for romance, green for adventure, blue for drama. Why not?)

                 

Strew your desktop and office with toys, open the windows and listen to birds, take her for a walk down a city street or out into nature (maybe in the rain, why not!) and see what she sees, take her out for ice cream or to a movie, and listen to what she hears. Let her mind roam free. Start transcribing.

Later you will be grateful when that voice says, “That “fabulous” metaphor that you forced into a sentence on page 212, and then shaped into that really awkward scene? Take it out. It doesn’t work. Yes, the whole thing. Out. It. Doesn’t. Work. (Any more than Aunt Betty’s old armoire belongs in the dining room, where it’s blocking half of one window, by the way. Get rid of that, too, while you’re at it.”)

But for now, ignore her. Instead, sail blissfully through your first draft, your mind as open as a summer day. Be a kid, have fun. There’ll be plenty of time to grow up later.

Katharine Britton’s second novel, Little Island, came out in 2013. She is having fun with her third. Visit her website www.katharinebritton.com

That Second Manuscript

My first novel was published in June of 2011. I tell people it took between two and fifty years to write. The manuscript itself took two years, but I had been gestating the story for most of my life, as I listened to stories my mother told of growing up in a large family on the South Shore of Boston, in a weathered-shingled house overlooking a cove. I imagined what it would be like to have sisters, and then, what it might take to drive them apart and what might bring them back together. 

"Her Sister's Shadow" had deep roots and many branches: a mature tree, you might say, before it was reduced to pulp and sandwiched between two covers. I carried the story around with me for years, while I attempted to write it first as a novel (unsuccessfully, as I had characters but no plot) and then as a screenplay for a graduate program. (Screenplays are perfect vehicles for characters in search of a plot.) I loved my story, my characters, the setting... When it was being turned from a manuscript into novel, I loved the cover art and the revision process, and I have loved doing readings at bookstores and discussing my book with book clubs. 

And then it was time to start that second manuscript. 

What, I wondered, as I sat, pen in hand, staring at a blank sheet of paper, was left for me to write about? I had used up every one of the stories, character foibles, and interesting conversations I had heard or dreamed up over my lifetime, and I didn't have another fifty years to capture more. I have an agent and an editor who, while perhaps not begging for another novel, are hoping to see one. 

It turns out that writing a second novel is a bit like applying for your first real job. Not the job that your parents or friends helped you get, but the one you got all by yourself. 

My first job, which my father got for me, was as a collator at a printing company. Everyone in the office joked that I should have been paid by the mile, as my job often required me to walk around and around a table, collating pads of numbered invoices. I was thirteen. (Very Dickensian, no?) At fifteen, I took myself down to a local diner and applied to be a waitress. I was apprehensive, but knew (because I'd done it before) that I could show-up on time and do the work required. They hired me. 

I took the same approach with my second manuscript: I showed-up, on time, every day, and did the work required. I figured out where the story was set, who was involved, what they wanted, and what or who was standing in their way. It took most of a year, but I now have a second manuscript. It's still in draft form, but I think it just might take root. 

So, be bold, show up on time, and do what's required.