Line-less Outlining

Authors are easy to please for Christmas gifts. Usually, all they want are notebooks, fancy pens, or cute or inspiring pictures to place on their desks.

Not too long ago, a really good friend of mine didn't give me any ordinary notebook. This one had a groovy, peace-lovin' theme.

At that time, I'd beaten to death a composition book, outlining every last detail of my most recent novel . I still wasn't done with it, though, and was tempted to immediately use this new one. It was a sketchbook. On some of the pages, it had this and other like phrases:

I've almost reached the end of my eleventh book, Kill the Locust, and have been outlining the story. Not unlike any of my other novels I've outlined, I've made several attempts, and each one is better than the last. 

The past two early mornings, I've noticed I need to fill in the holes of what I believe is missing. In the small spaces I have between short descriptions of each chapter, I jotted some more things. Then, a phrase I'd never used before:

CHAPTER CHALLENGES

How will I weave in such things as how Amy and Jeremy's love grows and is tested, the fun she and her best friend Monica have, and the challenges in the career path she wants to take...all in spite of worsening endometriosis symptoms.

For the rest of this week, I'll be mostly away from social media and my laptop for Thanksgiving. When I'm alone, like in my much-cherished early mornings, I'm going to open my Woodstock sketchbook and see not only how I can meet these self-imposed challenges, but also find new ones.

To that end, peace, outlining & turkey.

Thoughts on a Rainy Saturday Morning

What I thought last night as I got ready for bed: I'm getting up early tomorrow to tweak Kill the Locust, no interruptions.

What I thought when I woke up this morning: Do I have to get up? Today would be a good day to lie in bed. After all, I've worked hard (mostly on other than writing) this week. At that time, it was a little after 5:30 AM. Two and a half hours till Cultivate opens. I ate, washed my hair, wrote four pages in my journal, and packed my bag--in spite of feeling worn out. 

Why was I so tired?

Usually, for the first few hours of early mornings, I'm mostly oblivious to everything else. Therefore, when I walked out to my car, I noticed it had rained. Oh! No wonder I'd poured my heart out in four pages, front and back, of my journal--and felt like going back to bed.

Do I give in to my tiredness or take full advantage of this rainy Saturday morning? 

THE LATTER. 

Soon after I made my beeline to my usual spot at Cultivate and started unpacking, I realized I'd forgotten my smartphone. Not wanting to be without it--who can't and won't in this day and age?--I drove home and got it.

Surprisingly, I wasn't too upset. I knew I'd still have time to write. Plus, it allowed me to think about writing this as my blog post for the month.

The two biggest takeaways for this early rainy Saturday morning (before 10:00):

(1) If you don't sweat the small stuff, something good will come out of it. Be open to it.

(2) Write anyway, even when you're feeling tired and are sacrificing rest. We talked about this before last month's Word Weavers Page 48 meeting, about writing at odd hours, especially at 2 or 3 AM. I thought about this a lot over the past few weeks. Thanks for the healthy, encouraging conversation, J. D. Wininger .

I'm now settled here and in a writing groove. With this wet morning and the brief interruption, let me see how much better I can give Amy, my main character, hope and strength in all her physical and emotional pain.

Dedicated, Steadfast...& Shameless

Two pieces of advice I practice every time I start writing a novel: (1) Start somewhere in the middle and (2) Move the story forward, increasing tension.

Let me make a confession: I haven't been consistent with what I've told you about Kill the Locust, my current novel in progress. As main character Amy's endometriosis symptoms intensify, so does her relationship with Jeremy. Initially, I had Amy doubled over in stabbing, excruciating pain in chapter two. Although my writing buddies loved how well I'd written that scenario, after rereading it dozens of times, most recently while sipping some wild strawberry juice , this was too tense, too soon.

What was it like for me in 2000, when I first felt endometriosis symptoms? I can't remember much.

What I remember was Garth Brooks was a hot country singer.

Photo credit to owner

While we all heard about him showing up in boots and ruining a black-tie affair and wanting two pina coladas, I had a mad cycle of ultrasounds, pelvic exams, and blood tests, and frequently got poked, prodded, and palpated. Every time I went to or came from a doctor's appointment, I'd hear any one of his hits. 

"Shameless" stands out to me (yes, I know that's a cover of a Billy Joel song). Twenty-three years later, I still remember hearing that song after leaving a doctor's office one late morning.

I've played that song a few times over the past week. It's working. Amy's life is so ideal--and that sharp pain is all in her head.

Now more than any other time, I enjoy listening to songs I knew in my teens and twenties. However, I'd like to have a better memory with "Shameless"--like all the early mornings I sweated every detail of Kill the Locust.

Drink Wild Strawberry Juice

In the days leading up to publishing The Unknown Missing Piece , I thought of what I wanted to do in my much-needed two-month hiatus from writing fiction: spring cleaning, arrange travel plans, and watch movies.

I also wanted to eliminate caffeinate. After all, I hadn't planned on writing for a while.

Around 2020, I replaced my morning Diet Coke with an energy juice. In using them, I learned I needed only a small amount of the mix with a small amount of water and strawberry was my favorite flavor. Yet even this super-conservative amount got me wired. I couldn't always easily concentrate on my writing. Am I one of few authors who doesn't need caffeine?

Although I didn't write any fiction during those two months, I still wrote voraciously in my journal between 4am and 6am. This time, however, I drank Gatorade or something similar.

Thirty days passed. I was on a roll. I'd gotten past that challenging 21-day habit-breaking phase and reached a higher level of discipline. It was easier than I thought to grab another drink instead of the usual.

Around the 60-day mark, I resumed writing novels. I reveled in writing Kill the Locust without drinking one drop of caffeine and how much better focused I was.  That kept me planted in my seat, my laptop booted up and my file of my novel in progress open.

It takes 90 days for something to become a lifestyle. I'd gotten used to the caffeine-free life and was proud of myself for resisting all the urges to drink some energy juice. If this was going to be my new way of living, I was on the right track.

But my concentration derailed. I would either write senseless things or blankly stare at the screen. Although I do both from time to time, this concerned me. I kept falling asleep a lot, too.

For the past three mornings, I drank the energy juice. And I'm not jittery. Instead, I feel a little more alert, more focused. On Fridays, I spend more time writing. I've had an excellent morning making Kill the Locust more structured. Best of all, for the first time in nearly a year, I've written a blog post.

With apologies to Dr. Seuss, oh, the thinks I can think, oh the places my mind will go when I have that little bit of early-morning wild strawberry juice.