On Addictions and Lifelines

The universe sent me gifts today.

Maybe it's my bleary mind-truly bleary, for the well of words is running dry, and I find it increasingly difficult to complete verbal thoughts-or maybe it's that I feel so out of touch with the overwhelming left-brain part of me that dominates my normal day-to-day that I pick up on things not neatly constructed into expectations, but the gifts are there. Something as simple as sitting in a coffee shop this morning, digging deep for a cathartic scene and the music piped into the space, into my brain, is the perfect soundtrack for the moment...a resonance of harmony and angst and grief and all the fuel I needed for the space of the two minutes it took to purge myself through my character.

And it's not just today, it was throughout the Fastdraft process. Secondary characters walk into my life, even a brief glance and I know it is them and they walk out again. I see symbols where I'd been a thousand times and never payed attention. My fingers fly across the keys before the thought is even there..like a conditioned muscle memory inaccessible except in this vacation world of the right brain. Everywhere around me things resonate, the weather parallels my story, my mood. It's hard for someone who doesn't write to understand, but it is the stuff of addictions. The sense we are creating something larger than ourselves we cannot quite understand but something we have faith and trust is there. How many things in life can we say that about with any certainty?

I'd edit this, but it is the truest sense of where I am at the moment. Tomorrow marks the end of this novel's Fastdraft session. I have yet to figure out the exact black moment, though I know the ending. I have every confidence I've set up the perfect storm and it will come to me like the universe bestowing a gift when I least expect it. When I return from this right-brained vacation, I will return to post-it notes and lists and all the meticulous things I fill my day with which I'll need for the slow-endurance marathon that is the meditative draft, everything I'll need to get it right, but for now, I'm beyond grateful for the experience, the story that was gifted to me, and me alone. There is magic, as much for the writer as for the reader.

Many days, one in particular, I wanted to give up. I walked that dangerous precipice of self-doubt that comes around during every project where I felt like a fraud and crumbled into a crippling ball of nothingness. Some visitors asked me along the way why I bothered blogging during this time. Without the accountability I may not have come back from the edge of that island. I had to have something to put up, a magic number to justify the hours, the days, and so I pressed on. Thank you, everyone, who stopped by. You were more of a creative lifeline than you'll ever know.

Today's word count: 6421

Day Seven: 1 Week = Eternity

My hero takes my breath away. Too many Halloween Oreos. Uh. Did I brush my hair today? No, really. Did I?

Day Seven: 7044 words

Can't See the Forest For the Word Cloud

My word cloud pretty much sums up the past few days. The epiphany, mercifully, happened today.

A huge thanks to those of you checking in to see if I was still alive, sneaking away on tippy-toes. Yes, I see you and I adore you all.

Day Five word count: 112
Day Six word count: 6424

Day Four. I Take Mine Dark. Like My Plots.

Such a love-hate thing I have going on. When it happens all in one day, it feels schizophrenic.

Need. More. Chocolate.

Today's count: 6816 words

Day Three: The Smell of Progress

From the land of Am-I-Coherent?

Did someone seriously slap an author-I use the word author loosely here-at a book signing today? That degree of excitement would be a serious improvement over the guy who went on a diatribe about rattlesnakes and the pubescent boy that muttered, "I think my mom reads those things" at my signings. Bitch-slap me if it'll put my release on a top CNN headline. I can take one for the team.

Today, I steered clear of Starbucks. I think Walkingman messed with my Fast Draft mojo, so went to Coffee Shop #3. They're having a music fest Friday night. I'd SO be there *cough*unlikely*cough* if they'd fix the lone toilet in the women's restroom. Oh, and yeah, tell me it's broken AFTER my sixteen-plus ounces. What of the men's room you ask? Pshaw! Some of the male patrons were using it as their office with a capital O, if you know what I mean. No, thanks anyway. It was a battle-royale at day's end between my bladder's crippling need to go home and the sweet spot of magic that comes during Fast Draft long about day three.

Today's word count: 6754 (and I teared up twice! And it wasn't even the stench from the men's room!)
Total since Monday: 18,536

Day Two Yadda Yadda

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. A pathetic showing of words today: 4,818.

In my defense, I encountered a time-bomber this evening. We all have those in our lives right? Pure detonation of intent. Still no excuse.

Oh, and lest anyone think these are golden words-4,818 of them-to that I say, "Ha!" Fast draft is about spewing the subconscious. Sometimes they come out in a flash of blinding brilliance *cough* never *cough* and sometimes they'll look more like this gem:

GREAT DESCRIPTION HERE OF THE SEA, YADDA, YADDA.

or

LOVE SCENE HERE

Because who can enjoy a love scene written at the speed I can wolf down a granola bar? No thanks.

Tomorrow is Starbucks, incentive to make up for today's deficit. Thanks for the well-wishes, everyone!

Seriously? His Hair? And Day One Progress

Today's word count: 7,024.

And lo and behold, I pop out of my hole to find this newsy tidbit about Elvis's hair. I love me some Elvis as much as the next too-young-generation-girl-who-should-have-been-front-and-center-at-the-Classic-Comeback-'68, but purchasing his hair is just wicked creepy.

The Perfect Pair of Slippers

I'm fascinated by the processes other writers use to produce pages. Not so much the planning or research phase, but the arse-in-chair, blinking cursor phase. Creativity is like a fingerprint-no two persons are alike-but I'd be willing to bet other writers have rituals they talk themselves through when it's time.

Ten years ago, when I began writing in earnest, I modeled other writers' processes. Some begin the writing day reading literature they adore, akin to getting their toes wet in a sacred literary pool. I tried it and found my writing took on the cadence of what I'd read, it had been too fresh, too familiar. Some writers journal-slop pages to get the hand and brain juiced then erase and begin on their project. Mostly, I found my slop filled with self-deprecation. Not the best launch to a writing day. I've tried re-reading the previous day's work, re-reading much more than that, deep visualization/meditation, shoving the cats out the door, checking my emails, nursing that sacred first cup of my favorite beverage in the morning (different, depending on the season), lighting a candle, playing music; and sometimes, when the writing still didn't come, I'd hug my knees and rock back and forth in the corner spouting in tongues.

Okay, that never happened. Almost never. Seriously, it took years to groom myself to a ritual that works. And it didn't follow any paved path of well-intended writers who had offered me advice along the way. It came from me like a gift I'd possessed all along but didn't know how to unwrap it.

Starting Monday, I unwrap that gift again. It's been awhile, this creating new text, as I've been saturated with revisions of two manuscripts for the better part of this year. I have no doubt I'll find those well-worn comfortable slippers of creation inside the box. I would share the magic if I could, but we all know my slippers wouldn't fit you-especially the breezy hole near the big toe where unexpected ideas slip through.

For these two Fast Draft weeks, you'll find my posts simple, daily and accountable. I hope you'll stop by occasionally to say hello and toss me some chocolate for sustenance if I slip into tongues. I also hope you'll forgive me for not visiting elsewhere, but I look forward to catching up with everyone on the back end.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Tell us about the best pair of slippers you've ever received.

Magnetic Center

Fast Draft has officially come to an end, for me anyway. Some of my compadres want to harness the momentum and continue. Me? Catch up on life that happened around me for two weeks while I was in a turn-of-the-century house in a fictitious Colorado mining town with a tortured hero and a wounded spirit.

Fast Draft was more to me this time than just completing a first draft in two weeks. During those fourteen days, I celebrated a first booksigning with one of my CPs--a vicarious joy hard to put to words--and said goodbye to a feline love of eighteen years. Writing became more to me than just hitting a page count each day. Writing became my compass, my magnetic center, through the highs and lows. Several times I hit a wall, thinking the worst possible luck had struck me during this window of time I was supposed to be performing at maximum potential. Why couldn't life, and death, have waited just a few more days?

When I hit that wall, I'd take everything I was in the moment--the grief, the hope, the uncertainty and the love I felt so acutely--and pour it into my characters. My joy and darkness became their own. More than anything I've written to date, this novel is a labor of love in the purest sense.

To learn more about Fast Draft, visit Candy Haven's website.

Tomorrow, time travel markets...

Day Ten

FastDraft: Day Ten

"One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half a hundred half-finished tasks." ~B.C. Forbes

Today, this is me, but still I write. Three more days to go to a completed first draft. The fatigue I feel now--the same shared by the entire group I'm on this journey with for these two weeks--is nothing compared to the fatigue of a draft that lingers month after month, waning in enthusiasm and spark.

Write on. . .