After a little over a month of high intensity writing,
rewriting, critiquing, and more rewriting, our summer critique boot camp has
ended. It was…challenging.
Yes, I have been known to understate things at times.
We all took our turns hearing stuff about our work that we
quite frankly didn’t want to hear. We all took our turns looking dejected and
shell shocked. More than once I witnessed fellow Stiff Martha Reed beating her
head on the table.
(Don’t feel bad, Martha. I just waited until I got home to
beat my head, but it definitely happened)
Personally, I think it was one of the best experiences of my
writing career. A game changer. One of those pivotal moments. When we look
back, I suspect we will judge our writing progress as “before boot camp” and
“after boot camp.”
One of the many, many things I took away from the experience
was the knowledge that I CAN write under pressure. I CAN tell family and
friends “no” so I can concentrate on an assignment and a deadline.
Of course, I’ve done this before, but not on such a grand
scale. Twenty-five to fifty pages PER WEEK? Daunting. But doable.
However, now that it’s over I have to figure out if I can
continue that pace. So far the answer would seem to be NO. The problem in my
household is that all the stuff I was saying “no” to during boot camp is still
there. I just pushed it aside for a while. For five weeks, the only non-writing
things I did were cooking and laundry. Doctors’ appointments, Avon
business, emails, record keeping, and other assorted tasks that I’m responsible
for all got put off. Put off. Not eliminated.
You know how you come home from vacation and have three
times more work to do to catch up? That’s me, but without the benefit of the
vacation.
So I’m facing my responsibilities this week and next, while
trying to save chunks of writing time each day. And I hope that once I catch
up, I can get back into that 25 to 50 pages a week routine.
12 comments:
I'm glad boot camp was so beneficial! And that beat your head on the table thing? Yeah, I've done that.
We all have, Joyce.
And I failed to mention one of the most important parts: we're all still friends!
Hi, Annette.
I think you're right about boot camp being a game changer. I definitely have a new strategy for my process that I can't wait to try out but first I need some index cards.
I also want to distill my notes both on the process and also for this manuscript. I see that as two different things with two different goals.
When I look back on the experience I'm still in awe of where you stand with your work. I can't wait to be able to say "I knew her when".
PS. I should also mention Nancy Martin's generosity in giving up a month of Sundays, providing detailed criticism and terrific insightful handouts. The level of commitment all the way around the table was exceptional. It was a great experience.
Yes, we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Nancy.
And, Martha, I look forward to sitting with you at a big book signing one of these days.
Work expands to fill the time alloted.
The Primary Narrative Question--get it on the page and keep it there.
Decide on a controlling idea before you leave page 50.
Use a bare minimum of characters.
Are you employing a mystery plot or a suspense plot structure?
It's all about subtext.
Throw away your first 3 chapters and move on.
Get an X-factor.
No stalling.
No dates.
Easy.
(Cue insane laughter here.)
Yep, that's it. A whole month of boot camp summarized in one blog comment.
Thanks, Nancy!
Gee, Nancy. You make it sound so easy. :-)
Annette, it sounds like an incredibly positive experience. As for all the stuff you ignored for 5 weeks clamoring for attention: I typically cave after only 2 weeks of focused writing, so hooray for you!
Good for you! You know, I read that and thought, "25-50 pages a week?! That's a lot!" But when I started counting, I realized that 25 pages a week comes to a 90K book in about three months, which is my usual pace. Sometimes I write a 90K book in two months, so I actually keep to that pace most of the time. Of course, I'm not an Avon lady. And my house is deplorably dirty. But I do write 25-50 pages a week!
Jenna, my house is deplorably dirty, too. I figure I may get around to really cleaning it sometime in October.
I think what really amazed me about that page count was how productive I could be when I kept my head in the story day after day after day. I'd wake up in the morning knowing what I needed to write and I did it. There was very little time spent sitting and staring at the monitor.
Keeping my head in the story is the only thing that keeps my pages piling up. If I take time off, productivity definitely suffers.
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