A Writer’s Journal: Plot v Pants
Word count: ALL NEW 1780 ~ Time spent: 90 minutes
The new project continues to evolve.
And I’m continuing to follow along like a poor private detective — not know how or what I’m supposed to react, but watching from the sidelines nonetheless.
At this point, I’m not sure if this is a short story or a short novel.
I feel that it has the potential to be an extended metaphor, but I will wait to see what develops.
(And I really don’t even know if that’s a thing — extended metaphor. More it seems to be a story about a story — or rather my real life — where I feel this calling to write this story based on a house and at the moment this old woman is living there and the young man happens by. I will look into metaphorical novels and see if that’s a thing. Feels like it is? Question mark!!!)
I feel I need to be open to this story.
The story may have elements of magical realism.
Again, I’m open.
Today, the man heard voices and I’m not sure if it was the squirrel talking to him, or if he was hallucinating. Or if somehow the woman is communicating to him from a distance.
We’ll see what happens next.
I was really hoping to top another 2,500 words today, but I’m okay with the 1,780 that I did write because all of these words belong in the story… for the moment… as opposed to the other day when a majority of the words were me just writing… waiting for the story to present itself.
Writing is process.
Writing is discovery.
Writing is mystical!
No, it’s not really.
Writing requires exercise like any good activity.
The more that you do, the better you are.
When I was analyzing the qualitative data (for my dissertation) that I had collected through extensive interviews with writers, one element that emerged as a commonality was that writer ‘find’ and ‘discover’ and ‘understand’ rather than forcing plot or a particular character.
I knew this was true, but with so many books on the writing process it does seem that there are particular recipes for writing and some of those suggest outlining, drafting, revising.
Without a doubt, there is no ONE way to write.
There are multiple, if not millions, or examples that represent both ‘plotters’ and ‘pantsers,’ as Jessica Brody write in “Save the cat writes a novel.”
I agree that starting with an outline is easier in so many ways.
I mean, before you dive in and write thousands of words, you have an idea of the end product.
But sometimes the outline prescribes the plot, the characters.
In this case, the author then has to go back and rework all the elements when a new character walks onto the set — so to speak.
I know that I will have to go back and revise this story.
I’m okay with that.
Actually, I kind of enjoy the revision process.
Revising is more technical. It is more finicky. And with my process, the idea to pick apart and work on just one element at a time feels more doable.
To that end, I am dying to get back to my revision on The Weather Book. I had started the reverse outline, but this story kept pestering me to such an extent that I finally relented.
I don’t feel like I’ve quit on the other book.
Far from the truth.
Books keep bubbling away even when you walk away.
What is the quote? A book is never finished until it is published? Something like that.
But I also feel that a book that is calling to you, circling your mind like a hungry vulture, you have to accept the words and embrace the idea or it could fritter away into the ether.
(Is that where the idea of Ethernet came from? That amorphous place where randomness lives and breathes? And makes your commuter work?)
I am writing a book.
I am open to what the story wants to be.
I am writing to discover and to understand.
I am trusting that I already know the story in some dimension.
I am the book. I am the writer. I am a writer.
