Process, Part I: Finishing Without Hurting Yourself

[lilithsaintcrow]

So the new YA is gathering steam. I’ve reached the point of excavating the world instead of feeling my way around in the dark, and I can tell the long dark slump of picking at the book like it’s a scab is just around the corner.

I have, over the course of writing a few books, become pretty comfortable with how that process usually works for me. Familiarity, while not getting rid of the frustration factor OR the sheer amount of work necessary, does help one plan, and it does help one get through the more uncomfortable parts of writing a book with something resembling grace. (Or at least, you can stumble through without stubbing your toes too much.) Being able to say, “Oh, this is the slump part of the project, I can just keep chipping and eventually I’ll get to the dead heat phase,” is a lot easier than saying “OMFG this book is going to kill me WHY AM I DOING THIS?” Note, however, that one can say both at the same time, and the former does help to ameliorate some of the sheer ARGH of the latter.

For me, writing a book goes somewhat like this:

1. Idea/Hallucination. The inception phase, where I have a question to answer (for example, “What would happen if a paranormal heroine was not adversarial with law enforcement?” a la Jill Kismet) or this full-immersion vision of a scene from the story (like seeing Dru Anderson in her kitchen with a zombie at the back door a la Strange Angels) or the character suddenly starts speaking (hearing a throaty Necromance whisper “My working relationship with Lucifer began on a rainy Tuesday.” a la Dante Valentine.) and a furious phase of writing to find out what exactly this character has gotten into and what happens next ensues. This takes me to about 6K, usually, of new wordage.

2. Feeling Around In The Dark. The story is there. I can feel it. Unfortunately, it’s under a heavy blanket, or it’s in a dark room, and I have to stumble around with my hands out, feeling my way around the shapes of things. generally, this is about as comfortable as banging my head repeatedly against a wall. I keep getting pulled up short, the story doing everything but what I want, and each word has to be chipped out with a chisel. Fortunately, this phase doesn’t last very long–it’s usually over by the 12K point.

3. Excavation. At this point, the story has acquired enough mass and momentum that instead of being a structure I have to build, it becomes a site for me to excavate. This is a critical milestone, because the worldbuilding becomes a whole I’m witnessing instead of parts I’m putting together. An organic entity, instead of a Frankenstein monster of odds and ends. It happens which a click I can actually feel physically, inside my chest and brain. This is when things get fun.

4. White Heat. From the shift-click over into excavation to a point about halfway/two-thirds through a book, it’s white heat. I am consumed by the world and the characters, I spend a lot of time in a creative fugue state, where I sit down at the keyboard and am literally gone into another world. I have to tear myself away for appointments and Real World stuff, and I almost resent every single moment spent sleeping or taking care of the physical world because it drags me away from the story. This phase, however, is too good to last.

5. The Doldrums. The doldrums hit halfway or two-thirds through a book. Suddenly, I’m tired. I go back to chipping words out of my cerebellum with dull chisels. Wordcount drops, in some cases dramatically. I do a lot of going back and tweaking, so that my total wordcount added might only be 200, but that will be a result of adding 2K in one place and trimming elsewhere. Dream scenes and connective tissue get added, dialogue gets sharpened. And I get so sick of the characters and story I start talking about The Book That Will Not Die and making little stabbing gestures at random points. I also get cranky. The only cure is keeping one’s head down and powering through. This is the phase most aspiring or new writers commonly quit during. This is the gritty part, and it is the phase during which the habit of writing consistently is most valuable. Some days it’s only habit that pulls one’s silly ass through.

6. Dead Heat. Just when I’m about to mutter about returning the goddamn advance and never writing again because I hate this book so motherfucking much, something happens. There is another physical click, and all of a sudden, pretty reliably at the four-fifths-through mark, the book acquires incredible momentum. My wordcount spikes–it’s not at all unreasonable for me to turn in 8-10K a day of new material during this phase. The book is like that huge boulder rolling after Indiana Jones–I can barely keep just ahead of it, and it requires all my energy to keep going. I don’t sleep much during this phase, and dinners become spaghetti, pizza, pho, soup–easy things. “Mom’s finishing a book again,” the kids say, and cheer when I tell them it’s a pizza night. This goes in an eyeblink, and then I reach…the end.

The instant I finish a book–literally the instant I send off the email to my beta, agent, and editor saying “Zero draft is done, I will be able to turn a first draft in on deadline,” I open up another document–a short I have due, or a trunk novel, or the next book I’m scheduled for. I don’t do much, I just sit and stare at it. Maybe I’ll type five words. But I’ll spend at least a half-hour looking at this new problem. Then I’ll close it down and start the recovery process, which is a whole ‘nother blog post. (One that is, incidentally, probably coming tomorrow.) It is way easier to shift into recovery if I’ve taken a look at something other than the massive thing I’ve just finished. I never walk away from the computer after the finish. I think I need the idea of the next project to soak up all the leftover momentum–there’s a huge flywheel in my head, and while it’s spooling down from the dead heat part of the process I need to be careful not to let it spin too freely. Nasty stuff happens to me, emotionally and mentally, if I don’t brake that flywheel gently.

Your process may be different, and that’s okay. But I encourage writers to finish things, so that you understand what your process is. Generally, all creative projects involve a doldrums phase, and getting through it is a lot easier when you understand that it’s just temporary. The way to teach yourself that it’s just temporary is to go through it a few times and teach your doubting self that you will, indeed, finish the damn thing.

And so ends part I of the Process of Writing A Book-Length Thing Without Hurting Myself. Tune in later for Part II, where I detail the recovery process and why it’s important to let yourself recover.

Over and out.

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