C is for Course - The Things We Do For Love

The Things We Do For Love. This is an old theme, and rather a hackneyed one, and many second-rate movies have been made about it. 

But there are more kinds of love than the merely romantic. There is family, animals, causes, even, for some people, cruelty. Let's not even go there in today's political climate.

The kind of love I'm thinking of today, though, is our love for our friends. It's a low-key, everyday sort of love. It's not glamorous; it's more like your comfortable old slippers than your Manolos. But it's very powerful, and that's why I enrolled in a course this year about how to write a novel.

Of course I already know how to write a novel. I've several published, and another one almost ready to go, and another one on the drawing board, and two in progress. But this course is run by an old and valued friend, and she has asked me to take the course in order to write a review of it.

So back in March I blithely said yes, enrolled, and I've read all the materials and done all the assignments, just like a real student, because that's the only way I'll be able to write an honest and legitimate review. But, as I already had projects on the go this year, I didn't do more than was explicitly instructed. I have not Gone The Extra Mile.

Because the course has, as its practical component, actually writing an actual novel, I didn't want to use the one I was already writing for its purposes. Instead, I chose to start one that I've had kicking around in my head for some time and never got around to. This was because part of the course naturally deals with preparatory things such as outlining, and I felt it would be a bit useless if I took as my practical component a book where all that's already been done. And, because it wasn't my main focus for the year, most of my work effort has gone on the children's book I'm writing, which is being rather difficult and slow. As far as the course went, I've checked regularly for input, read everything, done all the set work, but I have done nothing else.

Today, we got an email instructing us to be writing at least 750 words a day on our draft and reporting progress every Friday. Shit just got real! Therefore, it now behoves me to pull up my socks and take a more rigorous approach to the new book, to which I affectionately refer as BFT.

My usual process for starting a project is as follows:

1. Clear my desk, because I work better without a mess.

2. Setup - this is creating folders, setting up a physical file, and creating a spreadsheet to track progress, chart the outline if it gets difficult, store names of people who have helped with information or are likely beta readers, etc.

3. Write a detailed outline. (Mind you, what I call detailed is probably pretty sketchy to some people.)

4. Start writing.

So today, although my instincts are screaming at me to dive into my already-started draft and pound away furiously, I'm starting the slow, precise, plodding way, by clearing my desk.

Here it is. My secret shame. It's nearly always like this.

This is not a full-on declutter and clean - it's just clearing the decks for action, so it doesn't really take very long. I always feel the time spent on doing this pays for itself many times over.

Now I can hear myself think.

By this time it's 10:43. Don't judge me; I was late getting started today. I overslept, and then there were various things demanding my attention, so that I didn't really start planning my day until about 1000. 

The next thing is setup. This is already partly done, because I've actually written the beginning of the book, so there is a folder on my computer and so on, but it needs some work - one thing, for example, is that I'm sure I remember writing an outline in point form, and yet I can't find what I've done with it. Part of the trouble is probably that I had one folder in Education, for the course, and one in Standalone Books, for the novel, and there are no doubt things saved in both places. Virtual setup will mean finding everything and getting it stored in a sensible way, so that I know what I've got to work with.

The book's official folder contains a progress spreadsheet, the draft I've done so far, and a document called 'Story Arc', which I did for the course. It does not have the detailed outline that I'm sure I remember writing. However, neither does the other folder, the one under Education that is for all the course materials. The Story Arc one does constitute a rough outline, so I print that off, and I also print off my draft so far, which is shorter than my optimistic memory suggested at about 1700 words. 

These documents, together with a fresh spiral notebook, go into a manilla folder, which has Barefoot Tango written on the front in big black letters. Doing this comforts me in some perverse way.

It's now coming up to 1100, and I've still written nothing, yet I feel much better equipped. It's like getting on your horse with the comfortable awareness that he's been brushed, bridled, saddled and the girths are tight and the shoes checked. Everything is in good order. I've found over the years that this approach makes a huge difference to my productivity, and I count the time as well spent.

The physical part of my setup. This can all be easily transported.
I've used a purple folder in honour of Flylady.

Now for the outline. The Story Arc document is alright as far as it goes, but I do like my outline to be in point form. I read it over and I'm fairly satisfied with it as it stands, because I'm a pantser at heart and only really want the bare bones, so that also gets printed off for the physical file.

Now just a slow and careful read over what I've already written, and I'm good to continue with it. I'm only shooting for 750 words, as instructed. Now this is where the procrastination starts to rear its head. I give in to it to the extent of making a fresh cup of coffee, because that's legitimate self-care, but I don't allow myself to pander to it any further.

It's always hard getting started - that Blank Page Syndrome - and this is where Flylady comes into her own. I may have mentioned the Flylady system before. It's primarily designed for housework, but actually it can be applied to any large endeavour. It was the Flylady techniques that got me through law school. So what I do here is I set my timer, and in order that it won't seem too daunting, I set it for 15 minutes.

As Flylady says, you can do anything for 15 minutes!

When the timer goes off the first time, I've got 181 words and finished a section. This brings with it its own problems, though; as I've finished a section, I have come to a point where my protagonist is being brought into the Emergency Room after an overdose, a situation of which I have no experience. It's time to go to Facebook, to see if any of my medical friends can help out. I put out a call for nurses, doctors and ambos. I also request that anyone who's overdosed and been taken to the ER contact me privately in strict confidence. I only hope I'll get a response, because this whole part is totally necessary to the plot, and although I don't really, I suppose, need to talk about the actual arrival and the ER, I think it will be a very dramatic scene and I want to have it in.

So while I wait for nibbles on that, I'll work on something else for a bit; I have several administrative tasks, so I attend to those, and that brings me up to 1235. Checking back on Facebook, I find one kind soul has shared an ER experience, and hopefully this will be enough to get me started on the new bit. The important thing is that I didn't have to waste any time waiting for stuff - I had other things that also needed to be done, and in that small hiatus I've taken care of them, and so now both the other items that were on today's plan are now completed. That takes me till 1330, by which time I'm starting to get responses from my research appeal. I need to give my attention to the confidential chat session with my informant, and I'm getting really good material, so I don't regret the time spent not writing; this is all part of the process, and often I don't know what I need to know until I'm trying to write that bit.

By the time five o'clock rolls around I've squeezed out a painful 659 words, but I'm not satisfied with what I've written; I don't think I'm quite there with the authenticity yet. Once I get a real feeling for what it's like in there, it will flow easily. So I start trawling on youtube. This stuff is not comfortable watching, but I find one that shows an actual stomach-pumping, and although it's in German, I can get a sense of the kind of dialogue that's needed.

I eventually get the wordcount I've been aiming for; it all flows more easily once I have an  idea of what I'm writing about. Nevertheless, it's taken all day including all the research, and I'm dreading what my life is going to be like for the next few months. I have got not one word done on the book I'm officially writing, and nor have I done any of the many things I needed to do, beyond dealing with the mail, and stripping a bit of fur from my dog's ears.

This is Emily. She has to have long fur stripped from her ears for shows.

The thing I take away from today is that preparation is everything. Sure, I worked all day and only got 750 words (well, 781). But without the research, without the setup, without the comfort of having my ducks in a row, I wouldn't have got any. Perhaps 10 words or so that I would make up in desperation and later delete. So the motto, as always, is RELY ON THE SYSTEM.