Technical Difficulties

Last night I was discussing with Sailor Boy possible drawbacks to my participation in NaNoWriMo next month. His main argument is that I have not had adequate preparation time for the book I intend to write. As I have shared before, I am a devoted planner, and though I have worked out the beginning of the plot arc and even have some scenes all played out in my head (like the “movie” that Marley and PBW talk about), I still have some major plot hole issues to work through, and I’m not yet sure what the climax and denouement are going to be.

SB, frankly, thinks the whole endeavor is a Bad Idea, because, as he astutely notes: 1) I don’t ususally write very fast and 2) this book would be a lot better if it wasn’t rushed.

He has a point. Back in the dark days of 2004, before my agent was my agent, my agent and I were having a conversation at a cocktail party at a writing conference and she said that one of the main problems she sees in submissions is writers rushing. I gotta back her up on this one. I have some friends who adhere to the concept of the “$h!tty first draft,” but never actually do the work that turns said draft from $h!tty to $pect@cul@r. (Alternately, I have a friend who has developed such a death grip on her manuscript that lines have been conceived, been launched, and been canceled in the time it takes for her to proofread.) So the “don’t get it right, get it written” approach actually only works if you later spend the time getting it right. Right?

Sailor Boy went on to argue that he fears that if my very promising premise gets bogged down in pages of prose that haven’t been appropriate forethought according to my usual method, I’ll find it tough to backtrack and start over fresh when I finally do have it all worked out in my head. In other words, doing it wrong will sink the possibility of my later doing it right. I never have done that thing yet where you sit down with a blank piece of paper and rewrite the book from scratch (like my friend Susan Kearney did with THE CHALLENGE, her first Tor release that was a complete rewrite of the first book she ever wrote). My process has , for the last five books that I’ve written (yeah, baby! Five books!), developed into the following steps:

1. Think up a story idea. For me, this usually starts with a premise. The characters, which are going to end up being paramount to the plot, come later. ::shrug:: That’s just me.
2. Think about the story idea. A lot. This takes the form of: showers, staring off into space, not paying attention to conversations, and napping. (Ask Sailor Boy about the napping one.) After a while, I start getting a good idea about the characters that would exploit the premise to its fullest dramatic potential (e.g., what kind of girl would really shake things up at a heretofore all-male Ivy League Secret Society?). This is when the “movie” scenes start happening in my head, though they never happen to the extent (i.e., the whole story) that they seem to for Marley.
3. Write a chapter or two to make the characters start talking to me.
4. Write an outline/rough synopsis in which I figure out the plot arc and try to project where the trouble spots might come up, or where the plot holes are going to smack me around like a bitch.
5. Read the opening and the outline again. Write a synopsis.
6. Dive in. Write the first draft very slowly, going back to compare the tone to the “pure” tone in the first chapters on a regular basis.
7. Hit the wall about 2/3 through. Push through.
8. Finish the book at breakneck pace.
9. Put it aside for a while.
10. Rewrite.

Judging by that schedule, I’m only on step 2, whereas I should be a bit farther along (step six maybe?) to be fully prepared for the rigors of NaNoWriMo. Of course, NaNo is not a fan of my “write a few chapters first.”

But more importantly, Sailor Boy’s words keep haunting me, taking on the tones of my agent’s warning: Don’t rush. Don’t rush. Don’t rush. If you rush, it won’t be as good.

And that would be bad. In my more smug moments, I think to myself that I can’t be a one-book-wonder, because, well, my contract is for two. But then I get scared that maybe two will be it, and then I start freaking out a little (“So what else is new, Di?” I hear you all thinking).

So why try a whole new process when the one I’ve got doesn’t seem to be broken? The point of NaNo, is, after all, not necessarily to write a book that is saleable, but to actually write a novel. It’s for people who wouldn’t do it to just… do it. Prove they can.

Well, I’ve proven that I can. Five times. So is a speedwriting excercise really the best option for me at the moment? Especially if it inadvertantly sinks this book? Hmmmm…

Also (and this might be the dealbreaker here, folks), PRETTIES is out on November 1st. UGLIES is the book that turned me on to Scott Westerfeld in the first place, and though I thought maybe I overdosed on him in the Great Scott Westerfeld Lost Weekend of September 2005 (at least, that’s what SB called it, as I plowed through SO YESTERDAY, MIDNIGHTERS #2, and PEEPS) , I apparently haven’t gotten my fill, because I am so excited about this book!

But if I do NaNo, I won’t be able to read it until December. And I don’t know if I want to live in a world like that. 😉

Addendum: Ricocheting off the subject of SW, fantasy writer Justine Larbalestier mentioned my work-overload-Star-Wars blog on her blog. I think the whole subject of writerly “whingeing” as she so Aussiely puts it might devolve into a large case of “cry me a river.” However, to be fair to poor Justine (I don’t know her either, but thus it is with reading blogs, and besides, Ms. Larbalestier-Westerfeld takes an AWFUL long time to type) one peep at that phenomenal pomegranate rice concoction she was fed daily while on her writing sojourn in Mexico makes me feel bad that she’s back in New York as well. Maybe not to the extent of “Why oh why did I let Sailor Boy convince me to move to this godforsaken frozen swampland of D.C.” bad, but in more of, “Yes things do look better in your red-sunseted, hummingbird-flecked Mexican writing bower” way.