Since posting here a few weeks ago about the challenges of revising my fourth manuscript, I’ve gotten a deadline extension and a new sense of perspective. While some writers work best with clocks ticking and whips cracking, I’m not one of them. I need room to stretch out, to let the characters run wild, to let the story unfold in ways that my brain simply isn’t capable of producing on short notice.

Now that I’ve got a little bit of breathing room, I’m fascinated by the way my imagination has risen to the occasion. I can sit down at the keyboard and allow my mind to go quiet, reaching into that deep place I was afraid I’d lost access to. Sometimes the result is as simple as expanding a two-word description into a sentence or a paragraph, permitting myself to see and feel the landscape through my characters’ eyes. Sometimes it’s the ability to see the story from a whole new point of view—another narrator’s, or a different place in time. [Read more…]

I recently wrote two posts called “Finished” and “Finished, Part 2” about my feelings after submitting the manuscript of my fourth book to my publisher. As you may have surmised from the title of this week’s post, I’m back at the drawing board. Having talked to my editor on the phone on Friday and subsequently receiving her chapter notes via email, I’ve got three weeks to make revisions to my manuscript in order to meet the publisher’s goal of getting the book out next spring.

It’s a daunting task. Many of the things that are need fixing are significant, including (interestingly, in light of Jason’s post of 6/18) an unlikable protagonist—or at least one who’s motivations aren’t clear—and a pervading sense of sadness where there should be “more joy.” I’d like to write about the lack of joy I feel while sitting down to face these revisions, or how weird it is to be struggling with my fourth manuscript the week before my third book is released to modest acclaim, but I can’t. If I give in to those impulses, I’ll never get my work done, and self-indulgence is a luxury I can’t presently afford.

In The Courage to Write, Ralph Keyes says, “Fear does concentrate the mind wonderfully.” But for me, fear turns the mind blank, keeps me sleepless and clumsy. I chase after tangents like a cat chasing butterflies, trying to pin down anything bright that flits by. Regular meals and evenings out with friends are suspended, to say nothing of laundry and housekeeping. And the calendar seems to hang over everything like a ticking bomb. At this point, writing feels more like typing. You have to trust that your fingers are somehow connected, not to your traitorous brain, but to your imagination and your instincts. [Read more…]

Three weeks ago, the day before the deadline stipulated by my contract, I sent the manuscript of my fourth novel to my editor. Each time I begin a book, I set out believing that this time I’ll find the magic formula, the one that will catapult me to my rightful place among other published writers: brimming with pride and confidence in my craft, if not a single-digit Amazon ranking.

In reality, things follow a very different blueprint. The work often makes me grouchy and anxious. Moments of inspiration are few and far between. I pace, sweat, make deals with the devil, waste time prowling through bookstores envying other writers’ masterpieces. I procrastinate even as my deadline looms nearer, meting out the weeks, days, and finally the hours left with an optimism bordering on delusional. Three days left, and the epilogue’s not finished? Why not while away two days on the couch with a box of Hostess cupcakes, seeing what Oprah’s up to? Never mind that Day Three will be spent hunched in front of the computer in my pajamas tweaking commas and squeezing adverbs till they scream, till my back is cramped and my eyes are crossed.

In a way, it’s a relief knowing what to expect. Give me a deadline, and here’s how I’ll allot my time: two months avoiding the project completely (so beautiful, this not-yet-born book, unblemished and ripe with possibility!); eight months cranking out a first draft; another month letting it “age” (break out the cupcakes and the daytime television); then the last month foolishly, frantically revising the thing over and over again, sending it off with just hours to spare, watching teary-eyed as it sails into the fog like the last plane out of Casablanca. In some bizarre way, this method works for me. And I know that next time, no matter how lofty my goals for discipline and organization at the outset, I won’t do a single thing differently. [Read more…]

I’m probably just one of hundreds of bloggers this week sounding off on the topic of the Dixie Chicks’ sweep of Sunday night’s Grammy Awards, winning all five categories in which they were nominated, including Song, Record, and Album of the Year. A subdued but visibly triumphant Natalie Maines remarked that people had voted with their voices, and no doubt it was sweet vindication after country radio all but eviscerated the band and left it for dead after Maines’s much-publicized negative comment about President Bush created a firestorm four years ago. “A bunch of people just turned off their TVs,” she announced as they claimed their first trophy of the night. “Sorry about that.”

But she wasn’t sorry, and neither am I, and as a writer, you shouldn’t be, either, no matter how you may personally feel about the Chicks or country music or Iraq or the President. Why not? [Read more…]