The Practice Novel

Fewer adventures, fewer complaints, fewer hey-isn't-this-weird fun facts = fewer blog posts.  I have been writing other things--stories, poems--and the blog has taken a lower priority.  Sorry, fans.

One thing I've been trying to do is to write a (possibly) novel.  I started it from a Word doc scrap I'd saved from June 2009, wrote 8 pages in one mad stint last week.  After that, I read this, which made we want to continue writing, even if it's garbage.  As Winkler stresses in that guide, the first draft is the "Shitty Draft," and overemphasis on perfection doesn't help anybody finish a Shitty Draft.  One piece in the MFA thesis I finished last spring seemed to suggest itself as a first chapter of a novel, vs. a short story, and my thesis advisers encouraged me to pursue it (everyone being aware that short stories make zero [0] money).  I couldn't.  I've been too worried about fucking it up.  I like the idea of the story too much, and I can't let loose and allow myself to make any mistakes continuing.  I can't let even the first draft be a Shitty Draft.

Enter New Project: fun, fantasy-based, and possibly stupid.  It has already established a somewhat archetypal storyline (The Journey) and introduced a triangulation of character relationships and a bunch of other shit that could lead to novel-length storylines.  But it's also silly enough not to put the pressure on.  Call it my Practice Novel.  If something happens with it, if it's worthy of human eyes someday, that's cool, whatever.  More important is figuring out the How of actually writing something that stretches past the 15th page.  How do you shift points of view.  How do you introduce new characters.  How do you place obstacles between Character A and Desire B without them seeming completely artificial and/or ridiculous.  Once I realized I would be returning to the States in March and that my time here would be more of a "Writers' Holiday," I began to feel like I would have to actually have a hefty volume of writing completed by March to prove that I hadn't just been fucking around and drinking wine.

Still some time before March.  In my daily planner, I've cut the scheduled Fucking Around and Drinking Wine times down by half and added a whole new section of Time to Write or Think About Writing in the morning.  This is sometimes after Fucking Around, but usually before Drinking Wine.  My goal: to have 100 pages in this story by March.  That's in addition to other stories, poems, and revisions.  My schedule might get pinched a little in the coming weeks---looks like I might get a job or two (finally)---but that will mostly cut into Fucking Around, though I hope not too much.  P.S. Don't ask to see the Practice Novel.  It is, by nature, a Shitty Draft, and may possibly never be seen by anyone other than me.

P.P.S. I love you.