So I started writing a book
I’ve been planning a book series for the past 15 years, since I was 14. It’s Just Another Set of Trashy Fiction Novels. I mean, I don’t expect it to change the world or even to make a blip on The New York Times’ Bestseller List. But it’s something I’ve been wanting, waiting to do.
Now, I never talk about this, so typing this entry feels really strange. I have identified my major challenges to writing this series, and topping the list is my lifelong mistake of talking about something while it’s in development. My problem is that, once I’ve talked about something, it’s as good as having done whatever was on my agenda. And so I drop the subject and, ultimately, the project. But I’ll be vague enough so that I can’t use my typical excuses. 🙂
So yesterday, I wrote my first 15 pages. What stuns me is that they’re not great. But that’s what rounds of editing are for.
At times, it seemed like the writing muse guided my fingers, and I was pleased at how easily I cranked out the words. Of course, I have no fewer than a thousand pages of handwritten and typed notes scattered about the apartment (and I’ve rejected about 70 percent of the ideas in them), so I at least knew the general direction in which I wanted to go.
I view it like writing a news article (something with which I’m altogether too painfully familiar). The secret to any good article is getting the lead graf just right. It’s possible, but not ideal, to write the rest of the article and go back and write the lead. And that’s what I’ve been doing all these years with this series — I’ve written the ending, and I’ve written vignettes throughout the course of the characters’ lives. And they have hit the trash because I never found the main character’s voice until yesterday.
The writing was therapeutic, even if it did point me toward some massive holes and weaknesses in the storyline. I stopped when I got writer’s block — Chapter Five has a notation: Figure this part out later. Skip to next chapter and write from there. Don’t lose the momentum.
It’s hard to be original — everything has been done before. So I did come up with something, if not outrageous, then just a little bit over the top. But that is presenting its own problems in that I really don’t know what I’m talking about, but what else is new? 🙂 So I’ve attempted to make it as much a journey for me as for the main character in figuring out how to react to said situations at hand. Write what you know. Sit back and think about it. The rest will follow.
One of my unresolved struggles is whether to set it in the present or put it back in 1991, when I wanted the story to begin (although the ideas evolved circa 1988). I want to reflect some pop culture and politics here and there, but another part of me doesn’t want to date the story. My favorite novels are not too dated — they could have happened in the 1980s or in the year 2024 — and I can read them again and again and still identify with the narrator, no matter where I am in my life. I like that and wish to emulate that.
At this point, I’m babbling. But I really do feel like something’s missing in the character’s development. At this point, she is embroiled in so much drama and chaos created by other characters that I feel like I’m neglecting her, much like the other characters are. I have her giving a lot of historical information at this point, which of course is needed (it is the exposition, after all). But I struggle with the fact that nothing’s really happening to her. I boil this down to the fact that there is already so much going on that I don’t want the reader to have to pull out a scorecard to keep up. But on the other hand, she is the one who is going to survive this storyline, and I need to get a subplot going to ensure that she does have some distractions. But that’s where I’m getting stuck — she needs to have something really good happen for her, and I don’t know what, because her life is about to take a turn for the worse and she’s going to become an emancipated minor.
Drat.
I was hoping that by typing out loud, some fabulous revelation would hit me. It hasn’t. *kicks computer* I guess I have to take her age into account (16) and remember what was important to me back then (um, sitting in my room, listening to heavy metal cassettes, writing in my journal, planning this book series, sneaking a smoke and a drink here and there, doing well in school, avoiding ridicule and heartache in school, putting up with all the assholes my mom was dating). Hmm. Maybe I can get her mom out of her hair for awhile by introducing yet another character. It’s like both of these ladies are searching for their identities after their lives go into upheaval, and all they want is a little bit of comfort, understanding and acceptance. And isn’t that what we all want?
In any event, the lesson I’ve learned is that I have to use my voice in order for this to work. I can create all the fictional characters I want, but I have to truly fall in love with each and every one of them (and I have). But I feel like I have to understand one more so than the rest — I’m not saying the main character is me, but she is everything I want to be, yet also everything I love and even hate about myself. In a word, she’s irreverent. She’s going to make an impact on her world, but it will be accidental. She’s going to make some bad choices and have to live through the consequences. But she is going to be loved, even if she never fully realizes it. And she’s going to earn every last ounce of success that can possibly come her way. It’s just getting the story to that point that I am struggling with. 🙂