Some kind of ‘fess up Friday

not a writer:

- I got out of bed in the middle of the night this week and wrote a little flash-fiction story. That was very surprising. One minute I’m trying to sleep, the next I’m downstairs on my laptop in the dark and cranking out a little story. I’m calling it fiction even though in its beginning stages it was about 95% true, but I don’t think there is such a thing as flash-memoir. Or even if there is, after revising it’s only about 75% true, so fiction it is!

Surely there must be other writers in the world who get out of bed in the middle of the night to write, right?

- The novel continues to be written. 21% done. I don’t know how to measure it’s progress, actually. I just have this idea of a final number in my head, and I know what I have already written, officially, which is two chapters and about 23,000 words. But then I have a huge amount of notes and random scenes for the rest of the 11 chapters, but not counted officially because as the story gets written for real, who knows if they’ll actually stay or not.

I guess there are probably about a hundred ways to write a novel. I guess beginning to end isn’t really my style.

not a housewife:

- My novel seems to have eaten my housekeeping skills, and it generally looks like a disaster around here unless I’m in the mood to avoid writing for some reason. But I did discover that I can iron hubby’s work shirts during Grey’s Anatomy! That will get it done at least once a week, which is much much better than never.

Speaking of, I thought last night’s GA season finale was pretty darn lame and cheesy, and I’m pretty darn lame and cheesy myself, so that’s saying something.

totally not a YMCA member:

- But I did walk outside about 5 days of the week, so about 15 miles. I really have been meaning to get to the YMCA to workout, and Dylan loved playing there with the other kids, but I just can’t bring myself to take the car during the day with gas being so expensive like it is. It’s already a 20 mile round trip to hubby’s work and back, so to drop him off would make 40 miles in one day, and being the tree-hugging hippie that I am, I just can’t bring myself to do it. I wish I could talk him into arranging some kind of carpool once or twice a week and leaving me the car. You reading this, honey?

That, and he wont let me buy a bike to ride around town with Dylan, since you know in Detroit, cyclists are worth bonus points. Even more than old ladies with little white fluffy dogs! But I think that with gas being as expensive as it is, a lot of people will be biking more. I already see it. I’m all ready for a big fat car boycott, but *sigh* hubby puts his foot down.

Sometimes you just want to wear a pretty dress, even if you are going to the kind of club where people don’t wear dresses. You in a dress, among all the jeans and t-shirts, and one goth-girl with Wolverine claws (yes, really!), and you don’t care because even after all these years, you still blush every time your husband says that you are beautiful. Hell, maybe you even believe him. The band is decent, the music so loud you can feel it in your bones. The Cosmopolitans are two dollars until eleven, which means you drink too many of them, but that’s okay because for five hours you get to be a woman again, on a date with a charming man, wearing a dress and high heels and fantastic cleavage, and not carrying a diaper bag.

This is the part where I avoid writing a chapter because a character is too much unlike myself that it become something like work. The biggest problem is that this guy is supposed to be really, really smart. Much smarter than I am. I have been able to dig up this conversation on the subject, but I’m welcoming any more advice anyone might have. Exactly what I don’t want to do is give this guy a bunch of degrees, since his is more of an inherent brilliance anyway. He’s supposed to be some kind of entrepreneurial genius. And it’s totally doing him no justice at all by having all the other characters talk about how brilliant he is. I am well aware of that.

The extent of my own working expertise is bank telling, waitressing, and pizza making. But then, I’m not even sure people really want to read about characters working anyway, do they? I’m not sure how to go about this exactly. Because I also don’t want to limit myself to forever writing about college students, stay-at-home-moms, waitresses and bank tellers.

‘Fess Up Friday:

Not a novelist: Not too much accomplished on the novel this week, netting only about 1300 words since the beginning of the week, though there was some cutting and rewriting in that. I’ve been kind of avoiding my first chapter because of the above-mentioned problem. Chapter two is done, done, done, for now, and needs to be left the hell alone! (I’m telling myself this) I have about five single-spaced pages of notes to start chapter three, which I will once I get over this issue with my super-smart-entrepreneur-dude.

Not a musician: I am in love with Kate Nash this week, a spunky British songwriter, and her Made of Bricks. Gorgeous music, and witty lyrics about fucked up and hilarious relationships. I have a quote from “Birds” in my sidebar, and you just have to read “Foundations.” So funny, so clever, I love it! Have a quick listen for free on Songza

Not a reader: Still working on finishing up Tooth and Claw, which is absolutely one of the best story collections ever! Also reading Bee Season, by recommendation for its writing of family dynamics and alternating POV.

Meet Dylan’s train. He is in love with this wooden Melissa and Doug stacking train. We have to bring it up and down the stairs, along with all of its pieces, anywhere he goes. He sleeps with it every night, lol. I’m totally serious. He needs this train, or else he will cry! It’s amusing. Even more amusing is his tongue. Look at the concentration on that child!

I missed ‘Fess up Friday last week, which I had every intention of participating in. And I actually had progress to ‘fess up on, so…

I think I’ve pretty much ironed out the kinks in the third revision of my second chapter, which I know I’m not supposed to be revising again. I’m supposed to be writing straight through to the end. It’s the advice I’ve always heard, and given myself even. But as my very first written chapter of my very first novel, I feel like this is a kind of foundation for me, and I can’t really move on until it makes sense. I’m not talking about line editing or anything, but I had some pretty gaping holes in my characters, and how do you really build a novel off of that?

I read this somewhere, (who knows where) - that you can’t really learn how to write a novel until you’re actually trying to write one, and I’m finding this to be so true! No amount of reading how-to books can equate to actually just jumping into the mess and trying to figure it out. Which leads me to the errors made while figuring things out…

My favorite lesson this week is about letting go of things when they’re not working. I kept running into this trap where I’d written scenes that I loved, but based on incomplete characters, so that when I’d filled out those characters and I saw how they really would have handled the situation, it made my beloved scenes obsolete. Ugh, it’s so hard. But I’m telling myself this: words are free. You can have as many as you want. You can have them all back again, but not in the same order.

So there is my little bit of wisdom for the world.

Hubby is building me a facebook application to track my novel progress. I’ll share it with you all when he’s finished. It will have a neat little progress bar and everything My first chapter is pretty well fleshed out now (reminding you that I wrote the second before the first), and my total word-count is at about 20,000 words. Yay, about 18% done. I am estimating the finished project at about 110,000 words now.

I’m so happy that it just keeps being written. I was completely expecting this to be yet another idea flop that wouldn’t ever become anything. I’ve written first chapters of novels before, but that’s where they always stopped. Most exciting of all! I think I may finally have a working title. This feels very exciting for some reason. It seems to make it all more valid. I’m keeping the title a secret for now - I may possibly run it by my writer friends first, and maybe then I’ll spill the beans. Yay for working titles!

The title, by the way, I think makes the book sound really chick-lit-y. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Chick-lit sells. We’ll see.

Oh, and I suppose if I’m going to be doing ‘Fess up Fridays, I need some weekly goals to aspire to. This week: chapter 1, I have the meat and bones of it, so this week we’ll finish up with the skin and a nice fashionable outfit. That’s digustingly gruesome, isn’t it? I would also like to finish some spot editing on chapter 2. If all of that goes well, then I already have notes and can jump straight into chapter 3 next week.