AFDOC 22: FINISHED

The first revision of many, many to come is finished! I feel like I gave birth to triplets this past week - exhausted, exhilirated, exposed. I guess the downtime I had last week was a subsconscious time of rest for the final push. Never have I been more determined to get something to its conclusion. But least I get caught with my rose-colored glasses growing to my face, I know the REAL work is just beginning - lots to cut, polish, add, and clarify - but I have 547 pages of novel with my name on it!!!!! No one - not the most evil editor in the world - can take that away. Remind me I wrote that last sentence when I'm mired in disillusionment a year from now trying to find an agent and a publisher.


I have taken many creative classes in the university setting, on-line, in small mentoring groups, etc. but absolutely nothing prepared me for the actual work. No teacher or class or group or whatever could possibly have shown me what I was too naive to learn. You have got to do it, and as Darnell Arnoult, author of Sufficient Grace, taught in a workshop: once you finish writing your book, it's time to study writing in earnest and read as many how-to-write books as you can get your hands on. All the classes and notes and excercises come together after you've written the book. It finally begins to make sense.


Now, don't misunderstand me. You need to study the craft of writing, so you have a meaningful plot {mine came to me five years into the writing of the book which also happened to Faulkner, V. Wolfe, and R. P. Warren, so I'm in good company.} Add to that knowing POV, the King's English, grammar and punctuation, how to cast your characters, and so forth which are must knows before you start, or your revisions will take longer than writing the book. I recently read that S. King writes a 150 page or so outline before he starts a book, then just fills in the blanks. I wondered if he started that way. That would have been impossible for me this first go around.


I did some outlining, defined character traits for the main characters {thanks Tracy for a cheat sheet of an easy way to do that,} did an enormous amount of research on the fifties, and did a chronological outline since I knew the story would cover one year, but otherwise I followed my Writing Angel and wrote what she told me and always {well almost} always in Caroline's voice. That's pronounced Caro - line (as in a line of diagolue), and I wrote some days like a madwoman {cj's term.} I'm pretty sure I've graduated from Tinker Toys to an Erector Set.


So right now I'm feeling cocky on the outside and a little squeamish on the inside, but I know, absolutely know, I can do this.

Now, if someone will publish it. Have a producive week writing. Mahala

AFDOC Week 4

I am happy to report that week 4 brought quite a few changes, getting in a major contest entry submitted, completing a piece on the Greek Orthodox Church in Alabama for the Encyclopedia of Alabama, and my taxes are in the mail! Since I needed to submit a portion of a novel to the contest, I decided this week was a good time to begin a major re-write of the first chapter and that's what I accomplished, or at last half of the chapter - word limits and all that {is that the best excuse you've heard or what?} I also made numerous changes to the sequencing of scenes, deleted a few things, worked on my storyboard relentlessly - that's the paper strung around my dining room with all the stickie notes and handwritten notes all over it. I am very visual so seeing it all laid out is essential for me to decipher the flow of things. I'm also happy to report that my new through-lines are finally coming together in a way that makes sense - at least to me, and I hope to my critique pals when they see them.

If you aren't familiar with through-lines, the first time I heard the word was from Darnell Arnoult, a Southern author - check out her web site at www.darnellarnoult.com/ - when she was teaching her methodology for writing, revising, and submitting a novel. The idea intrigued me, and thanks to all the notes I took and Darnell's handouts, I started using the concept in critique groups and especially with my own work. Since that workshop, my friend and fellow author and editor, Linda Busby-Parker, www.lindabusbyparker.typepad.com/, has taught me a great deal about how to use this concept through her creative writing courses at the University of South Alabama. Through-lines are one of the important touchstones against which to measure your progress. Is this what I wanted to say, accomplish with my novel? If it isn't, it's an instant clue that your written through-lines and what your writing aren't working. Maybe you're story took another direction as you were developing it {they do tend to do that, don't they?} Or maybe you don't need to change the through-lines, but you need to re-group and write towards them, not away from them.

Now this explanation of through-lines is very much my own - it's what I'll call A Cleansing Experience and we're going to play-pretend. You remember that game don't you?

Your story is about washday back when we had one of those - now it's throw 'em in on the way out the door and switch them to the dryer on the way in. Take them directly to hangers if you catch the dryer in time or fish the wrinkled mess out of the laundry basket as you head out the door again. Anyway, I digress - story of my life.

Okay, I've got a story called A Cleansing Experience.
Getting my clothes clean is the theme. {Go with me on this.}
Laundry room is the setting, and this is pre-dryers. {You know the ancient times before I-pods.}

1. I ground the reader by sorting my laundry into piles - white, lights, darks, etc. which explains what I'm doing and why {introduces my hook - I don't want that dreaded tie-dye look when I'm finished.}

2. I set the dials on the washing machine - hot, cold, warm {crises of different temps} - add detergent, bluing, bleach, whatever {characters} and let the washer (ideas} swirl - do it's thing {characters react off of each other.} If you want to go pre-ancient times, I "put them through the wringer," but once again I digress.

3. Now I pile the wet clothes in my clothes' basket {a pile of plots, sub-plots, crises} and head for the clothes line. {If you're too young to remember clotheslines, please don't send me questions, it will make feel ancient - look it up on the net.}

4. For you novices, when you get to the clothesline, you hang the clothes in an organized fashion to conserve space and clothespins {look it up.} These are your through-lines. This is what makes my story smooth. It ensures I get all the sheets lined up, the undies together, shirts down the lines, etc. {Primarily, it ensures the pieces of your story flow from end to end in an orderly manner, relaying your theme effectively.}

5. Taking clothes off the line when they were dried was an orderly affair. You folded the sheets and pillowcases ready to go in the ironing basket {yes, we ironed our sheets,} undies were all together and ready to go in the drawers {no pun intended.} If you can sort your story into clear through-lines in advance, writing is much more efficient. You compare your through-lines to your theme as you go. It adds a clarity to the writing process. {I didn't say easy, I said clarity.}
Mine have changed in AFDOC because as I wrote and listened to feedback, I realized what I thought I wanted to convery and what I really wanted to convery were different - gotta love that subconscious mind of ours - so mine are under revision.

I hope your laundry does you proud.

Mahala

Time is the Great Thief

This summer I put on a bathing suit to take my granddaughter swimming. When I looked in the mirror I was astonished at what a few months had done to my body. First, if you look at my picture, you know I like to eat, but what you don't know is I have a few metal parts and am working on being the next bionic woman. The scar from my hip replacement has healed nicely, but what I hadn't figured on was the cleavage the replacement left. It took about a second last May with a hand mirror to realize that my left and right sides no longer matched, and my bathing suit from the year before was hanging loosely where my derriere had filled it in the year before. So here's the dilemma - do I have the other hip done or figure out some way to fill in the space on the other side? In my aggravation I also noticed that my buttocks, which have never been very large compared to other parts of me, had shifted in a most distinctive way to the top of my thighs and now looked exactly like my mother's the last twenty years or so of her life. I wasn't sure whether to cry or laugh, but being an Erma Bombeck fan, I opted for laughter. My granddaughter came to find out why I was laughing hysterically, and, of course, at ten, she thought I was totally crazy. "But why is that funny?" she kept asking. "Well, just take a look," I giggled. And finally we were both cracking up. The moral of this story is don't wait too long to go swimming between operations or your body parts may shift and leave your bathing suit limp in places.

No seriously, the reason I tell this compelling story {I'm sure you agree} is that life and your buttocks will get away from you if you don't stay on top of it. I'm supposed to be revising my novel, and yet, I've been so busy assisting to edit a new Christmas anthology and editing several mss for others, making holiday gifts, and doing yard work, painting the house, etc. etc. etc. that I've almost stayed away from my novel too long. But as it turned out in this case, I think that's been a truly good thing. As I'm re-reading it now, I'm amazed at how I can see the bulging spots and the gaping holes. I'm amazed at what I wrote in places. Amazed at how well some of the words flowed to the page, amazed at how MANY adjectives I used to try and make a point, and amazed at how many empty spaces I now see. Sometimes, a break is just what we need to spur us onward and develop our creativity. I've spent these few months reading books on writing, which is what Darnell Arnoult, a good Southern author, and my friend, Linda Busby-Parker, also a good Southern author and editor, keep telling me and other writers to do after we finish our masterpiece and before we start to dissect it. And guess what, Darnell and Linda, I think it's working!

A few suggestions on books of craft that I've found especially helpful are:
Writing Fiction: the touchstone for MFA programs around the country and dreadfully boring in some sections, but on how-to-structure basics, can't be beat

Creating Fiction: with insights from a large number of writers that I admire, including Richard Russo, Jane Smiley, John Barth (whose article on incremental perturbations perturbed the h- e- double hockey sticks out of me at first, but now I get it!, Alyce Miller on first person narrative which is what my novel is.

How I write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author: straight forward and simple to understand. While I adore literary style and read it often, I absolutely! absolutely! want to sell my book.

I wonder if I could use one of those baster kits you can buy at the grocery store for turkeys to stuff my hip? Nah! I like my whopsided look. It gives me that eclectic character I've always admired in others.

Never commit to memory what you can find in a book. Albert Einstein