Brain sorting

Try this: remove the top of your skull. Using a scooping instrument--an ice cream scoop, large wooden spoon, or garden spade works well--remove a portion of your brain, and splat it on a piece of paper. It will be messy, but do your best to examine it objectively. If it isn't what you want, rearrange, remove, or otherwise modify the parts until it takes the shape you desire.

Yes, you got me: it's a metaphor for writing! Tricky, tricky me. I tell my students that writing the first draft is a process of seeing what you think; putting your brains on the page, and then looking at them to see what you think. This may not be true for everyone, but even if I have a pretty good idea what I'm going to write, it amounts to nothing until I've actually stared down the blank page and started.

As I am fond of saying, "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly," and it is never more true than with writing. If I have what I think is a good idea, I can think about it to an extent, but until I've written it, I don't really know the dimensions of it. I think it's generally a bad idea to talk about what you PLAN to write, because it removes the element of discovery. The story has been told, and nothing has been written.

People can attach all sorts of mystery and misery to writing, of course, and I have done my share of both. Back in the day, I had the now embarrassing and very romantic belief that I just had to write with a fountain pen. That lovely flow of ink onto paper felt like, well, it probably felt like blood; metaphorically, I was pouring my essence onto the page.

Being a newspaper reporter disabused me of this notion. The real trick was not connecting to the paper. It was connecting my butt to the chair, my fingers to the keyboard, and my thoughts to the page. Only then did I REALLY know what those thoughts were.

The mechanism translates the amorphous, non-linear thoughts in one's mind and the inchoate emotions in his heart to the linear and two-dimensional medium of the page or the computer screen remains a mystery to me, and a wonderful one at that. Maybe the physical process of typing, or of writing with a fountain pen, slows thought and feeling enough to grasp hold of them just a little. Once they're on the page, they're different, and I suppose that the process of rewriting is a matter of bringing those two-dimensional representations of thought and feeling into closer harmony, but I don't think it's entirely that.

The funny thing is, when I conceive of a project, and then go through the many revisions until it (hopefully) reaches a point that is satisfying to me and communicates what I want to communicate, it is often quite different from the way I imagined it at first. So, rewriting is in its own way thinking in its own right: an interplay between imagination and reality, in which both are stimulated, and both grow.

And the above is an example of exactly what I'm saying. I really had no idea I thought this until I wrote it down. Hmmmm. Well, for those of you who didn't read the whole thing and understand the metaphor, I suppose it's time to call 911 or fetch the sewing kit.

Writing is rewriting

Since last I posted here,  Inhuman has continued to sell sporadically. It is an unusual book, I know. Maybe people can't handle the gore or the weirdness of getting into a killer's head. At this point, I'll consider publishing it as a public service, await its viral sweep through the publishing universe and try not to take it personally if said infection doesn't occur. Haven't heard word one from Joel Bernstein, and I'm tempted to stick my thumbs in my ears and wiggle my fingers at him, saying "neener neener neener." But that would be immature.

Instead of obsessing about Bernstein & Co., I have done the mature thing: written a new novel! After all, I am heart a humor writer, so this new book is for me a return to familiar territory. My first published novel was Echo Valley, a comedy. After that, there was the sequel, Huttle the Hero. The novel Deadlines, though a detective story set in the Pacific Northwest, is also, well, not a comedy, but breezy and funny. All are available for Kindle and Nook.

In any event, my new book, Secret Spy (working title) is a prequel (hate that word) to Echo Valley. Set in 1982 Los Angeles, Secret Spy is based very loosely on the case of an FBI agent who fell in love with a KGB agent, and to win her affection passed along to her some classified information.
Tom Huttle, the hero of Echo Valley is swept into the plot when he gets a job writing feature stories for the corporate magazine of  a big insurance company. But, though TransCom Insurance is a legitimate insurance company, it is also a front company for the CIA, which uses it to re-introduce its compromised field agents to the real world of commerce and business. Tom has no idea that the people he's writing about are former spooks.

I won't spoil the plot, but before long the subjects of Tom's articles start being murdered, and Tom is believed to be the culprit. Meanwhile, the FBI agent becomes more and more deeply ensnared with the seductive KGB agent, both of whom suspect that Tom Huttle--completely oblivious to what is going around him--is a Master Spy.

So far, I've completed a first draft, 64,000 words and change.

I won't delve too deeply into the process of writing quite yet, but I started the book June 16, and I wrote almost every day. Weekly, with a break at Thanksgiving and Christmas, I presented a new chapter to a small group of writer friends, including the incomparable Deb Norton (www.debnortonwriting.com) who provided invaluable feedback. I incorporated all of their notes before proceeding to the next chapter.

Now is the fun part: rewriting. Secret Spy is my seventh novel. Though all of them are not published, I did learn a lot in writing them. Through the process of writing the novels, as well as many screenplays, teleplays, and short stories, I've developed a scheme for rewriting that I thought I'd share, in hopes others can benefit from what I've learned.

I didn't outline Secret Spy at all. Periodically, I'd write down some possible plot developments and such, but generally speaking I winged it and trusted--to employ a cliche--"the process." Not everyone is comfortable doing this, but I thought I had a strong enough premise, and strong enough characters, to let them take over the story. In fact, I love working this way because as the narrative develops, things start to occur that I never would have anticipated, and that keeps me interested.

The farther I got in the book, the clearer the characters and conflicts became. It was a wonderful experience.

And that leads to my first "Writing is Rewriting" Tip: Rewriting begins with the first draft.

How? Because, as you move along in the narrative, ideas will occur to you. Maybe you'll want to set your story in Dallas rather than Phoenix. But, if you go back and start changing the thousand and one references you made to Phoenix and environs, you might lose steam. It's best to simply make a note to yourself, and write it in ALL CAPS in the manuscript: "From now on, the story is set in Dallas." That helps you keep your momentum going.

Moving ahead helps you refine and develop your characters and your plot. Going back and fixing everything in the earlier portions of the work can get discouraging.

The best argument I can present for continuing to move forward is this: even if you have outlined your story to within an inch of its life, as you write, you learn more. Characters and conflicts become clearer. New ones arise. The plot unfolds. The theme emerges. Going back and revising too early is like living a life of regret. I've known too many people who wrote the first thirty pages of their book over. And over. And over. And over. They never finished because they were determined to get it right.

As the saying goes, "Don't get it right. Get it written."

Unlike in real life, fiction permits a "do-over." That's called rewriting. My step-by-step strategy in posts to follow.