Letter From The Front - Feb. 6, 2005

Hi, Mom. Me again. How's things at home? Has Dad fixed the threshing machine yet?

Things are long and tough-going here. Just slogging through day by day. The blinking cursors continue to rain down around my writing desk, and it's all I can do to muster enough words to fire back and keep up with the daily assault.

Here's a quick replay of what's been going on the last few days:

Feb 2nd - Feel good, but really stymied about where to go. Think I'm trying too hard to "make it good," rather than just crank words out. It's taking me a really long time to write.

Feb 3rd - I feel awful. Have no idea what to write next. Don't even want to try. It felt so bad I didn't even write today.

Feb 4th - Ecstatic! I decided to give up trying to write a good novel and instead to be a really good amateur writer. And then I got the idea to put my writing agony in my character's hands to deal with. Which is to say, the scene I wrote today introduced my next major character, just as she's writing a story that just isn't coming together; she hates it and doesn't want to continue. Hey, I know that! (She did what I want to do -- she gave up. Well, for the day, at least.) Anyway, my decision to be a really good amateur writer, and the scene idea that came with it, broke my deadlock wide open. I feel great!

Feb 5th - Struggling to keep up with writing; put it off today til the last minute, but I got a good, solid writing session in: 2500 words! I also stumbled on some research stuff that gave me a bunch of new material to work into the story.

Feb 6th - Still struggling to write, because I don't have a good enough handle on the story or characters to know what scenes to write. But I did a very productive brainstorm on the character arcs, and most of those notes account for the day's quota.

So far, writing this book has been an odd experience. I have no idea where to go, and I don't have a clear sense of my characters. So when I sit down to write, I really don't know what to write about, and what I do write doesn't seem to have any overall purpose. If this were a movie, the whole thing would be on the cutting room floor.

And yet, with each scene I write, the overall story starts looking really good. It's like I have no idea what I'm painting, but every time I paint, the more exciting and compelling the whole picture becomes.

It almost seems like I'm going to have to write the whole book, just so I can sit down, read it, and go, "Oh, ok. Now I get it. Hey, that's a cool story!" And then I'll have to sit down and start over, having finally understood what my story is about!

The big treat this week: Watching the Super Bowl, uninterrupted (a rare luxury for this father and husband).

Total word count so far: 12,892 (25%). I'm 2,178 words ahead of schedule, and the intelligence reports tell me that the war will end on February 23rd if I can maintain this pace. (FYI, I'm also deducting 2,350 words that I wrote before FebNoWriMo started, so the overall victory will be even greater than the Administration has been advertising.)

Reflecting on the battle I fought in November, the whole thing was such a trip. I was like any rookie, panicked and juiced for action all at the same time. This time, I feel more circumspect. In November it felt crazy exciting. This time, it just feels plain crazy. Guess that's a sign of maturity. Well, ok, not maturity, maybe, but experience.

Well, give my love to everyone. I know that somehow, some way, I'm going to come out of this war alive and live long enough to tell about it. (Do you think a publisher would be interested in my dramatic story about writing dramatic stories?)

Love,
Your boy

P.S. Sorry for the extraneous sentences in this letter, Mom. I was trying to up my word count.

P.P.S. Did you order those extra words from EBay yet?