Last Friday, I went outside to clean the moss off my basement steps. There are four steps leading from the yard down to the square of cement in front of my basement door. I can’t recall the last time I cleaned them off. Quite possibly never, if I’m honest. Since I’ve lived here for 26 years, that’s a whole lot of not-cleaning, but they’re just a few steps in my backyard. I’m not even certain whether they’re stone or cement, although they’re perfectly squared off, leading me to suspect they were poured.
A few weeks ago, as I was walking down the steps, I slipped. Just a little, and I didn’t fall. The thought flashed through my brain that I should clean off the moss that covered the steps, but then I moved onto the next thing and forgot all about them. Then, last week, I slipped again. Again, it was just a little bit of slippage, and I didn’t fall, but it occurred to me that if I actually did fall and sustained injury, I’d be on my own. Only a person standing in a certain part of my backyard would ever see me. My neighbors might hear me if I could manage to be loud enough, but if I were to hit my head and be knocked out—more likely that I’d be a late-night snack for one of the bears that is frequenting our neighborhood.
I nearly had a break today. I came thisclose to taking off the most beautiful day in ages, the kind the weather people call a “top ten weather day.” The heat wave broke, the sky was vivid blue with feathery white clouds, the temperatures were mild, and I had no deadlines looming.
Or so I thought.
Turns out, I’d forgotten about one. I only remembered because the client called around noon to ask about the project. And just like that, my day off was shot to hell.
I’ve lost track of the count. While I’ve been making notes and thinking over the past two days, the only writing I’ve done (other than legal work) has been a couple scribbled notes. (I nearly wrote “a few,” but the truth is there are only two, one yesterday and one today. If I’m going to confess, I may as well be honest.)
At first, if I missed a day, I circled it on the calendar. Then, I found I was forgetting to cross off days, and I had to try to remember whether it was because I’d written and not noted it or if I’d simply not written. Either way, it wasn’t terrific. At this point, I could make a decent guess about how many days I’ve missed—ten, maybe. Not brilliant, but at least I’ve plodded along.
The upside is that by pushing myself in the past two months, I’ve made very good progress on the section of the book that really, really needed work—as in, it wasn’t there. All I had was a note that I had to add a climax and a conclusion. Those are pretty big things to need to add.
My problem was that I hadn’t figured out what they were going to be, apart from a vague notion about something at the very end. I’d also forgotten the most important thing about my process, which is that I write to discover the story. When I started following the characters instead of dictating to them, the final ascent to the climax began to unfold. (Yes, I’m mixing the hell out of my metaphors. Enjoy.)
Come on, admit it. You figured I threw in the towel, especially since my last blog post had nothing to do with this project.
Well, maybe. I mean, it’s been a while.
I’ll admit, I’ve missed two days (which is why this was Day 52, not Day 54). And some of my writing days have been fairly minimal—half an hour (or less), or just research, or mainly reading and editing. It’s certainly been no #1000wordsofsummer this year.
But that’s actually a good thing.
Sure, right.
No, really, I’m not making excuses. For where this book is now, a daily word goal would have been counterproductive. Word goals are good when you’re putting down the first draft and figuring out the story. That’s not where I am now. At this point, I’m fleshing out a piece of the story that I’d found wildly intimidating. By going slowly and including research, I’m making real progress, not just slap down some words and call it done progress. I’m cutting phrases and lines and paragraphs and whatever else needs to go. I’m editing what was already there to accommodate the new material. I’m seeing how the new stuff is going to impact what came before, such as where I need to drop in references so that what happens in the climactic section isn’t coming out of the blue. (I hate it when I get broadsided by critical information just at the pivotal moment. It’s like reading a murder mystery and being told on page 332 of a 335-page book that the main suspect had a twin brother nobody knew about, and the two planned the murder together, with one of them accepting an award at a black-tie event—perfect alibi—while the other committed the murder.)
The reality is that barring a flat-out miracle—including three months when I don’t have to practice law and yet money magically appears in the bank every month, as well as a brilliant (and affordable) editor who is free to drop everything and spend four weeks helping me turn this mess into a masterpiece—there is simply no way this book will be out for the holidays this year. I hate that so much. At book events last year, I kept telling people that the new book would be out this year. Now, I’m making myself a liar. The only option would be to write and publish a novella-length piece in this series, except that there isn’t time to do that because I’d have to start from scratch and it’s already the middle of June and I have no ideas for something short and self-contained. I can’t even use the first section of the present book, because there’s nothing particularly Christmasy about it, and if I’m going to publish a novella about Santa Claus at the holidays, it needs to be Christmasy. Plus, because I’m me and I require everything to fit together, it would somehow need to advance the series.
Sigh.
You’re probably wishing right now that this was another post about ecclesiastical garments. Mea maxima culpa.
Except . . . you know. . . .
No. Absolutely not. It wouldn’t work.
Well, maybe. . . .
Forget it. I’m sticking with the manuscript in progress.
But what if. . . ?
This is ridiculous. I can’t get distracted. Not now. I cannot go from start to finish on another book–especially not in time for the holidays. It is not possible. It doesn’t matter that there’s this one large, gaping hole in the narrative, and there isn’t room in this book to deal with that issue because it would make the book much longer and it doesn’t fit anywhere with any of the rest of the story anyway, so it would have to be separate anyway except that it wouldn’t be long enough to be a novel by itself, so. . . .
I’m just saying. . . .
Oh, shut up.
Photo credit: fr0ggy5 on Unsplash
Well. I certainly didn’t see this coming when I started this post. And I don’t know whether it’ll be possible anyway.
But it would address that gaping hole, which is nice because the book I’m currently working on is the final book of the series, so this would take care of that issue before I get to the finale. Not that anybody has ever mentioned the hole. Maybe I’m the only one who sees it. Maybe it’s not really a hole at all.
I hate moving away from the book in progress now, just when I’m finally getting a firm handle on it. After all, do I really have to have a new book this year? Of course not. Nobody’s going to cry if I tell them it’s not happening this year. Most of the people from last year’s events probably won’t remember anyway. It’s not as if they’re sitting around saying, “Oh, I can’t wait for [fill in the event], because P. Jo Anne Burgh said she’s going to have a new book this year!”
Danny is very excited that there’s finally a printed draft.
It’s been two weeks since I posted an update.
(You thought I quit, didn’t you?)
I wasn’t going to quit, but I did come perilously close to a . . . hiatus . . . over the past several days. It’s the kind of thing that can happen when the Day Job takes over your days (and nights) for weeks on end, including weekends. I know work will slow as we move into summer because after 28 years, I recognize that this is how things roll, so I know to be grateful for the current hectic pace. Still, I’m exhausted, and there comes a point where too many things demand your attention, and you say, “Fine, whatever. I’ll get back to the book when I get a chance.”
Caveat for all the writers who really want to write someday, but who believe can’t write unless they feel inspired: you may not want to read this post.
(If you’re still reading, don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
Working on this book for thirteen days straight has reminded me of a truth I’d forgotten: a proven* way to become inspired to write is to start writing, and then keep writing.
You read that correctly. Instead of waiting for the inspiration before you start writing, take whatever weird little nugget of a thought you have, and start writing about that. If the weird little nugget is, “I forgot to buy mustard,” start writing about a person who goes to the supermarket or the corner bodega or the general store or the gourmet shop or Costco—in other words, anywhere you can go to purchase mustard—and follow them around the store to find out why they forgot the mustard. Did they leave the list at home? If so, why? Were they distracted when they were getting ready to leave the house and they left the list on the kitchen counter? Or are they accustomed to chatting on the phone with their spouse or significant other or parent while shopping and that person tells them what to get, only this time, that person is unavailable for a specific reason—out of town, had a fight, died, just separated, is working and can’t be disturbed, is trying to get the baby to sleep, is running a marathon—so the shopper is on their own. Or maybe there’s some hostility attached to the mustard, such as how they only need it because Rachel is bringing her new boyfriend Kyle when the group goes on a beach picnic and the shopper is in charge of the sandwiches, and nobody likes Kyle because he’s so judgy, and he claims he can only eat this certain brand of mustard, so the shopper subconsciously doesn’t want to buy it, especially since with any luck, Rachel will dump him before the next picnic and nobody else likes that brand.
All those possibilities out of something as mundane as “I forgot to buy mustard.”
That’s it. That’s my logic. That’s why last Wednesday, I started another 100-day project. Because I’ve been stalled on my novel for way too long, and I’m hoping this will work.
I’ve already given myself permission to fail, sort of. After telling people last year that the new Claus book would be out for the holidays, I’ve given myself permission not to be done on time. I’ll be apologizing all over the place, and sales will likely be in the toilet, but I’m not going to push just to get a book out the door by an arbitrary, self-imposed deadline and have the book be lousy.
Reading at Raymond Library, Oakdale, Connecticut—November, 2023
Even though October has several days left, the Season is officially under way. Opportunities to join events where I can sell books, whether exclusively for authors or with broader appeal, are coming thick and fast. On Tuxedo Cat Press’s website, the upcoming events page is being updated at least once a week.
This is now my third holiday bookselling season, and so I’d like to share with you a few more things I’ve learned—and continue to learn—about managing some specific aspects of the Season:
Last weekend, Tuxedo Cat Press had a tent at the South Windsor Apple Fest. I had no idea how popular the event would be, but I hadn’t done an event in two months, so when another author had to bow out and offered me her spot, I signed up. I figured I’d hang around, talk to some people, and maybe sell a couple of books.
It was a long day, to be sure. I arrived at 7:15 a.m. to set up, and I didn’t get home until nearly 7:00 p.m. But it was a good, fun, and productive day, complete with perfect New England autumn weather and a visit from Chuckles, the official mascot of the Lutz Children’s Museum (and my neighbor). Best of all, sales were excellent, which always makes for a good event.
In two weeks, the Season begins in earnest. This weekend and next are my last unbooked ones until after Christmas. I recently confessed to someone that one of the main reasons I keep my Upcoming Events page on Tuxedo Cat Press’s website up to date is that otherwise, I’m likely to forget where I’m supposed to be, much less when.
Some authors don’t like to do fairs, holiday markets, and other types of events that aren’t “literary.” It’s all a matter of what you like, I suppose. That, and whatever works.
Back in the spring, as I approached the end of my 100-day challenge, I wrote this:
There’s a part of me that’s scared that if I stop writing every day, I’ll lose my momentum and the story will fade from my imagination. I want to believe that a hundred consecutive days of writing will protect it, but I’m not certain. . . . I’m afraid to take my hands off the wheel for fear the story will stall out.
Turns out, I was right.
I kept writing 1,000 words each day for nearly two weeks past my challenge date. Then one night, I gave myself a break. I was entitled, I thought. I was tired. I needed to pause the writing, to organize what I had so I could figure out what I still needed. I’d been writing in chunks, and I took some time to move the chunks to Scrivener so I could arrange and rearrange them in some sort of order.
This was good and helpful work, or at least it felt productive at the time. Shifting from creating to organizing helped me to discern what existed and where the gaps were. Next, I would sit down and explore the existing work to figure out how to fill those gaps.
P. Jo Anne Burgh 