One day in early spring, I was struck with one of those “what if” ideas that sometimes come to writers, if they’re lucky. I talked with a friend about it and told her what I wanted to try. She immediately began throwing questions at me, pushing me to branch off in new directions and add layers to what I was thinking. My answers fell into place so easily it was more like discovering a story outline that already existed than working to create a new one; it was kind of an extraordinary ten minutes. I let the whole thing percolate for a few weeks, getting into a habit of frequently adding to a list of ideas on my phone whenever they came to me.
About a month later I spoke with Carrie, partly so we could discuss some client-agent business and so I could tell her about the new idea. She encouraged me to spend time reading books similar to what I had in mind, giving the ideas more time to develop, and then start working on it in earnest when I reached summer break. We agreed on a word count goal and a deadline for me, so I could share my progress with her.
Summer arrived and I slipped into a writing habit that was soon dominating my waking hours. I gave myself permission to put aside the list of summertime chores I had in front of me, instead investing that time into building the word count. The writing quickly jumped outside of my usual process; I wasn’t mapping things out but writing with only a vague outline, forcing me to figure out how the details came together, to learn who the characters were, and to discover the motivations and machinations that would drive everything forward.
This brought on another big change for me: Without realizing it at first, I was telling the story chronologically. This is kind of a big deal, since I usually jump around through the story then fit it all together later. So far I haven't needed to do that, because the part I've always wanted to write the most has been whatever happens next.
I reached the goal Carrie and I had set, even a few days early, which gave me time for some quick proofreading before I sent the first chunk off to her. Some of the writing was still very much first draft ugly, but some of it wasn’t. More importantly for me, the story was coming together in ways I was excited about.
It’s the last day of June as I write this. I’ve ended more days than not this month feeling physically and mentally exhausted in the best possible ways. I’ve worked on, and even completed, a handful of manuscripts in the past couple years, but those have all largely been misfires. That’s not the case with this one so far. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that I haven’t had a story fall into place as readily as this since the original draft of “Following Infinity,” which is giving me a lot of hope right now.
I don’t want to give much away, but, if you’re curious, I’ll tease you with some of the comparisons I offered Carrie back when I was first getting started. Think of it as “Ghostbusters” meets “The Sandlot” meets “IT,” with a healthy dose of the “Welcome to Night Vale” podcast thrown in the mix to weird everything up, and even a touch of Harry Potter, specifically “The Goblet of Fire,” for reasons I won’t discuss. As of today the word count sits just a little north of 27,000, which would translate into roughly one hundred double-spaced pages.
I’ll do another progress post at the end of July, both to let interested people know how things are going and to help myself stay accountable.
Until then, I’ve got some word count to build….
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