Figuring Shit Out

Trashing what's done in order to move forward

I should be working on my next novel right now, but instead, I’m here on Substack. The inspiration to share what’s going on hit me harder than the need to carry on with my work in progress. The clock is sitting at 6:59am, and I’ve been at it since just after 5am. This is my normal - getting up before the sun to put words down. I love the early mornings, even in the hard darkness of winter.

I’ve been working on this new novel for a while. It feels like a few months, but it’s really been almost a year. In my notebook, the one where I handwrite the bones of a new book, I date every entry. I like to know when I started, when inspiration hit me, when I needed the slow pace of pen to paper to help me work out a problem. I often wonder if there is a pattern to my creativity - is summer more creative than fall, for example - but that is something to explore at a different time.

I started making notes about four women over the age of 50 who become a quad of unlikely friends in June of 2022. And here we are, 10 months later and I am still struggling. Some of my writer friends would say this is a sign to abandon the project, but I don’t think that’s the case. Since that first note, I’ve been working on other projects: publishing Spent, edits on my middle grade novels, and revisions on a young adult novel. So while I want to feel like a failure for not getting much farther with the novel, when I look closely, it’s clear that my brain and my hands have not been idle.

I’ve written six books in as many years. That doesn’t take into account the short stories, the newsletters, and the ideas for new books that I veered off course to explore just a little bit (because I believe Elizabeth Berg was right when she wrote in Big Magic that if you don’t take note of the glimmer of an idea and write it down, it will leave you).

Today, I decided to circle back to the basics. I pulled my copy of Save the Cat Writes a Novel (by Jessica Brody) off the shelf and revisited the beat sheets to guide me through the story. I created beat sheets for each of my four characters. I re-read the pages about The Help, where beat sheets for multiple characters are broken down.

I did not put one word into my manuscript, but I was working on the book the whole time. As writers, we tend to measure progress by word count. We often hear that staring into space is writing, too. Research, planning, pondering - all critical parts of the process. I’ve interviewed enough authors on my podcast to know that we all have different approaches, speeds, strengths and weaknesses. It takes time to figure all that out, though, and even though I’ve been writing on and off professionally for 30 years, I’m still a newbie when it comes to writing books. I am still trying to find the best approach for me.

I knew something was bothering me about this novel. Day after day, I sat at the keyboard, trying to make something happen. I passed the 10,000 word mark, but I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere. It’s frustrating feeling a story pushing at the edges of your brain and not knowing how to get it out. At 4:17 this morning, long before my alarm went off, I was wondering if going back to the basics and starting over would help.

It did. The time I spent today helped me figure out that I was starting the novel in the wrong place. Working with the beat sheets enabled me to connect all the pieces and lay out the journey of each character. The 50 pages I’ve already written will likely be mostly trash now. These steps backwards usually help me move forward faster. You can’t build a house without first laying the foundation, even though you’re ready to move in now.

PS: This email totally counts for word count, right?

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What I’m Reading

I’m in a book hangover after finishing Rebecca Makkai’s Pulitzer nominated The Great Believers. I may just spend today catching up on Ted Lasso and The Mandalorian. The next book in my queue is a mix of magical realism and tragic comedy.