Writing Habits

I’m not a desk writer.

A corner writer, a comfy chair writer, a couch writer, even a floor writer – yes. But I can’t sit in a hard chair at a desk or table and write. I hate it. I hate having my back exposed while I’m typing. Wherever I sit, the furniture must be pressed up against a wall.
I keep pillows in my car, and when I write at the local public library, I sit on the floor in *my* corner (in 600s section, against the wall and the New York Times microfilm cabinet, with each draw labeled, “Do not open more than one drawer at a time. The cabinet may tip over!”), one pillow under me, one behind me, a blanket over my legs. At least once a week, the security guard comes over and asks if he can bring me a chair.

At home, it’s the couch or the chair and ottoman in the family room, sometimes in front of the fireplace in the living room, occasionally in bed (though I do tend to fall asleep there).

I also wear my scarf and winter hat when I write in the winter. Sometimes my bathrobe, too, if I’m at home. It’s cold here in upstate NY, and sitting in one place just makes me colder. I drink my tea or hot honey lemonade and type with my iBook plopped in my lap. And I wear earplugs. Even when the house is quiet and I’m alone, I put in my earplugs; with them in, I feel as if I have a barrier between my mind and the outside world. And I have a favorite brand – PELTOR Skull Screws. Yes, you screw them into your ears. They have the snuggest fit I’ve found, not like those gummy fluorescent ones that always feel gappy and loose.

Odd? Perhaps. But it works for me.

In the Groove

This is the best part of writing, when the story consumes me, and all I want to do is sit, tucked away in a corner with my computer on my lap and type away. When all I want to think about are my characters – what they’re doing, who they are, where they’re traveling to, and if getting there will take up 300 or so pages. Of course, with homeschooling, teaching, cooking, cleaning, running my son around here and there, church responsibilities, meetings, and general “life stuff,” I can’t hole up in a room for months and just write. Too bad, huh? (Yes, I am a terrible introvert!)

But, I am praising God that my words are flowing. I changed my location, tweaked my character relationships, mushed two plot ideas together, took some pointers from Cormac McCarthy, dumped some so-called “relevant” ideas I’d been clinging to, and took a few deep breaths. I am capable of writing a second book.

My writing goal is 20 pages a week. I know that doesn’t seem like very much, but when you’re homeschooling, teaching, cooking, cleaning, running your son around here and there, going to meetings, fulfilling church responsibilities, and doing general “life stuff,” time is difficult to come by. But, my 20 pages will add up, and if I stick to my schedule, I’ll be ready to edit in five months – around the end of June – and I’ll have three months to polish before my September 30 deadline.

Last week I *almost* made my quota. Fifteen pages. But, because of my venue change, I had a ton of research to do. Upstate New York to south central South Dakota (there’s a reason for this, I promise). And, as one of my Novel Buds (my online writers’ group) reminded me, research is writing, too. Even better yet, another of my Buds writes, “You know, I’m from South Dakota, don’t you?” No, I didn’t know that. What part, I wanted to know, since – I learned from my research – one area of South Dakota is quite different than another. Turns out, her grandfather grew up in Lyman County, and she spent much of her childhood there. Where’s my novel set? Lyman County! (Well, it’s set in a fictional county modeled after Lyman, of course, in the same general geographic location.)

How’s that for providence?

Thank You, Cormac McCarthy

I don’t see movies in the theater very often. So, I was thrilled when, for a just-after-Christmas gift, my parents treated me to No Country for Old Men at out local “dinner and a movie” theater. Yes, I though it was brilliant (and no, it’s not for everyone). But I hadn’t read the novel before I went, so when I was at the library earlier this week, I grabbed the paperback off the shelf, a gold sticker declaring “Now a Major Motion Picture” on the front cover.

I thought the book was brilliant, too. And it made me like the movie all the more, because Ethan and Joel Coen flawlessly took Cormac McCarthy’s words and put them on the screen, following the novel nearly scene-for-scene. Some critics have gone so far as to say the movie is better than the novel; I only wish I would have read the book first, so I could have judged that more objectively (I will be reading Blood Meridian before Ridley Scott’s movie version comes to theaters, though I will admit to being a bit skeptical he could do it any better than – or even close to as well as – the Coen brothers).

But, more importantly (for me!), McCarthy’s book gave me direction for my own work-in-progress. I tend to get hung up in details and intricate plot contortions to explain away any perceived holes. My stories can also – for the sake of making things more “interesting” – get a bit convoluted. But, as I read No Country for Old Men, I was again reminded of the elements that make great novels. Immediacy. Relationships. And, most importantly, letting the words stand by themselves. Things I know, but had somehow lost in my desire to write something “relevant” and “meaningful.” McCarthy’s writing helped me to dump the whole “this is the important thing I’m trying to tell you” attitude. I’m just writing people now. People dealing with the world around them. What that means, I’ll let the reader decide.

Home Another Way Theme Verse

I’ve decided, for each novel, to have an overarching theme verse, one that keeps me focused on what the Lord would have me write for him.  This is the verse for Home Another Way:

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose.  Romans 8:28