Hesitation, deliberation.

That’s where I’m at now, after letting the second novel draft sit untouched for nearly two months. A couple days ago a buddy stopped over and I launched Scrivener for the first time in a while. When I showed him a section of the draft, I couldn’t recognize a word I’d written.

What the hell is this? What do I do with it now?

Questions, questions—way more than answers or certainties. For example, what’s the best course of action going forward? I’m currently at 51K words, give or take a couple hundred, and “know” I probably need another 20-30K minimum to have a decently editable draft. Edit what I have now and I’m left with the barest thread of a narrative.

Something tells me that switching to rewrite/editing mode isn’t the best thing now. Should I read through the whole thing now? Walter Moseley, in his This Year You Write Your Novel, writes that the first read-through is actually the first rewrite, the first “revision.” That makes sense to me, and I’m damn tempted to just print out what I have and read it from start to finish, before even venturing back into drafting.

However, the flip side is: “Don’t reread anything…just pick a point of entry and dive back into drafting.” But I wonder if that will create more chaos than clarity. I have the vague notion of what needs beefing up, particularly in the characters of my protagonist’s in-laws and the catalyst character, Keith Voight. Should I be using the microscope or binoculars at this stage?

I’m at a crossroads, and could sure use some advice.

And determination.

For over the last month, I’ve been a woman.

It’s been really strange, because, well, it’s totally affected my relationships with men friends. That is, I think I’ve lost my men friends. More on that in a sec.

Now, I realize it’s good to have a strong lede for a blog entry, but this one definitely needs qualification. You probably thought the usual: stolen panties and bras, cross-dressing experiments, secret mail orders from lingerie catalogs…well, ah, no. Doesn’t interest me. I’ve been trying to be a woman in the fictional story I wrote during November, for NaNoWriMo.

It was strange to get into the head of a 47-year-old mother of one daughter and wife to a husband of—wait, gotta go check the notes—oh, about 24 years. I mean, holy shit, I haven’t had a tooth that long, much less a long-term relationship, like the one my character Nicky Ruskin has.

Nicky, for the desperate few who’ve slogged through my previous novella The Crowded Room, was the latent love interest of that book’s protagonist, Jeff Dunne, after Jeff has gone through an embarrassing high school breakup with his 1977 girlfriend Julie Stafford. I know, I know. Roll over Dostoyevsky.

It started when I was stuck for a new project. Some peeps said, “Why don’t you write a screenplay adaptation of your novella?” Nah, the ’70s don’t interest me in that way anymore. And plus I was 19 when I wrote the damn thing. I’ve moved on. Then it occurred to me. Last summer, after crashing a buddy’s 30^th high school reunion: Yeah…I have moved on, and so have the characters. What if I set the story in the present day? And screw the screenplay (which no one, honestly, would care to read, much less produce)—why not go back to fiction writing, my first love?

So it began. I noodled how I’d do a sequel for, oh, about a year. My ex Amy read Room and wondered why I’d want to write a follow up of “that.” (One of the reasons we’re no longer together, among deeper things.) I don’t need naysayers. I actually don’t need well-intentioned advice. I need to write.

So that’s what I did all last month…wrote like the wind—from 4:30 in the morning until I left for work near 7, as the sky started to glow in the east through the kitchen windows. I stared down fears of writing as a woman in the first person. As I got further into the catalyst’s part of the story, told in third-person omniscient, I longed to get back to Nicky’s voice. I distrusted my “authorial” voice after getting to know Nicky and what she was going through. (This will be a huge issue in the next rewrite.) I could tell when I was veering away from what she would say, but noted that and kept going.

As I crawled away from 51,000 words into the draft (it still needs at least 20,000 to 30,000 more to the draft, of that I’m certain, in order to have editable material), I was really disoriented. I found myself completely distrusting men—all men, even my guy friends—hell, my own brother. This has never happen to me before. My sympathies have entirely shifted to all the things women put up with because of men—more than men probably ever realize. At the same time, it’s ironic. I’ve made more women friends in the last six months than I have in my entire life. Huh.

This small accomplishment hardly makes me an expert on women, and I’m still wary of what I’ve achieved in the draft. But I’m also emboldened to fight harder for Nicky in the rewrite, relive her world, her story, her struggle. Even till it hurts.

Sorry, guys … can’t go out. Got the cramps. Again.

Critical NaNoWriMo weekend ahead. The past week has been a struggle—as previous writmos presaged it would be.

But even when you steel yourself against a challenge, things always have a way of blindsiding you. This experience is going right for the jugular and the juggler, as I stay on top of a daily minimum word count of 1,667 words, hold down two jobs, and deal with the interrupted sleep pattern.

I will say this. It’s AMAZING how much you can get done with just an hour or two a day. But that’s writing every day. If I get nothing more out of the experience than this, I’ve learned that it’s less painful to spend time with your work than to avoid it altogether.

A short recap and I’m off to early sleep for the regular 4-5 a.m. wakeup.

The first, oh, one or two thousand word was painful as hell to write. Throat-clearing, awkward, chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug…slow slow slow…

Then, about middle of last week, I hit a stride. Some surprising things came out, but it’s all a blur. I haven’t gone back to edit much, if anything. What’s saving me, I think, is Scrivener. If I’d attempted this in Microsoft Word, I’d have a mess of documents, all titled something different and all scattered in folder of God-knows-what. With Scrivener, the time I took setting up my folders according to my basic outline (I didn’t do a step outline, just sketched in where certain story points would turn, and foldered accordingly).

Rewrite will be interesting, but we’ll worry about that once NaNo is over. For my story, there’ve been two challenges, the protagonist’s first-person narrative, and the catalyst character’s third-person omniscient narrative. Don’t know what will survive rewrite, but I’m finding it way easier to breeze through the former over the latter in draft mode.

Now, some sweet sweet sleep!

One house needs to be emptied, the other is empty, the next a graveyard:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

—Philip Larkin

If you have a friend on whom you think you can rely

—You are a lucky man!

If you’ve found the reason to live on and not to die

—You are a lucky man!

Preachers and poets and scholars don’t know it,

Temples and statues and steeples won’t show it,

If you’ve got the secret just try not to blow it

—Stay a lucky man!

If you’ve found the meaning of the truth in this old world

—You are a lucky man!

If knowledge hangs around your neck like pearls instead of chains

—You are a lucky man!

Takers and fakers and talkers won’t tell you,

Teachers and preachers will just buy and sell you,

When no one can tempt you with heaven or hell

—You’ll be a lucky man!”

Alan Price

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling
Flowing into the night
People so busy, make me feel dizzy
Taxi light shines so bright
But I don’t need no friends
As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise.

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset’s fine

Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station
Every Friday night
But I am so lazy, don’t want to wander
I stay at home at night.
But I don’t feel afraid
As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise.

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset’s fine

Millions of people swarming like flies ‘round Waterloo underground
But Terry and Julie cross over the river
Where they feel safe and sound.
And they don’t need no friends
As long as they gaze on Waterloo sunset
They are in paradise.

Waterloo sunset’s fine…

Keith Reid, who sez:

Your multilingual business friend 
has packed her bags and fled 
Leaving only ash-filled ashtrays 
and the lipsticked unmade bed 
The mirror on reflection 
has climbed back upon the wall 
for the floor she found descended 
and the ceiling was too tall

Your trouser cuffs are dirty
and your shoes are laced up wrong
you’d better take off your homburg
‘cos your overcoat is too long

The town clock in the market square 
stands waiting for the hour 
when its hands they both turn backwards 
and on meeting will devour 
both themselves and also any fool 
who dares to tell the time 
And the sun and moon will shatter 
and the signposts cease to sign

Probably no more than a half hour ago I was staring, probably jaw agape, at a wall. Head was humming; found myself mumbling like an idiot, completely disoriented.

That’s because at 10 a.m. this morning, I started the draft of my followup novel to my previously published novella, The Crowded Room. Outside of lunch and 1-hr. nap around 2 p.m., I wrote until about 4:30 p.m. Would have liked to have dashed past 3K words, but came just short of that. Anything more would’ve led to complete incapcitation.

See, I’d forgotten how fucking aerobic it is to be a writer, hunched over a word processor for hours at a time, aching through conflicting feelings about the words plopping like shit on the virtual page. I’d written two and a half screenplays, a number of stories and short pieces, a novella, and sketches for two other “things”—novel, long-form fiction, midlife crisis, I don’t know. But this pounding out words thing is not for sissies.

I learned a couple things if I’m gonna make it through NaNoWriMo this month:

1. Take care of yourself. Eat as best you can, go easy on the stimulants and depressants, sleep and, probably most important in my case, don’t let the world distract too much from the dreamworld you’ll need to inhabit every flippin’ day for one month.

2. After today’s long-run, don’t feel bad about daily word count failure. It’s bound to happen. Tomorrow’s another day. And if you’re feeling pain after writing: stop and do something physical: a walk, run, whatever it takes to put the mind in another place.

3. The story is always being written, even when you’re not writing. For example, after hitting the gym and easing slowly out of today’s scenes, I was still struck by an image that I’ve noted to use for tomorrow’s writing. Didn’t even need to lift a finger for that one. And whether it makes final cut or not doesn’t matter. The subconscious is always working away.

4. Seek support when needed, but don’t lean too heavily on others; don’t “talk” the writing out, but seek answers to niggling questions within the writing. Another example from the story is an office setup entirely unfamiliar to me. However, I know where I can learn more about that environment and have footnoted it for later revision.

5. Praise God for Scrivener, the word processing software from Literature & Latte. I no longer need to write in linear fashion. I can put the bones of the novel on their corkboard feature, slap down some note cards with titles and scene possibilities (did this as last-thing-of-the-day today, so I have scenes to pick and choose from tomorrow, and the day after that, etc.). If you’re frustrated with writing in MSWord, give Scrivener a try. And no, I don’t get a kickback.

This story has been kicking around in my head for over a year now, so it’s time for it (whatever it is) to come out. By remaining open, planting the butt in chair for a minimum of an hour and a half, and maybe—just maybe—I’ll be smiling on November 30.

This is one of the reasons I’m glad I have a job to go to in the mornings.

At the bus stop, 7:15 a.m., a mini-drama unfolded. When the 46 bus pulled up, there were four of us at the stop, and three were getting off. It was raining, so of course we were eager to board. Of the three getting off the bus, the second person, a short, older woman, was in a snit.

“Pressure, pressure, pressure! I can’t go any faster!!”

Everyone patiently backed away to allow her to get off. Another guy, just behind her, was giving her plenty of room, but the woman wasn’t having any of it. “Judas Priest! I can’t deal with this much pressure!” The woman in front tried to calm her down as she got off the bus. The rest of us boarded. Out on the sidewalk, the woman flew into a rage. The guy and other woman tried to restrain her.

But that’s not what interested me the most.

First thing I see going to my seat: grins on everyone’s faces. Even the bus driver is chuckling. I couldn’t find anything funny about it. Since I, too, suffer from mental illness, I knew exactly how I felt: complete empathy.

See, we’re all a knife’s edge away from such raw emotions. If you’re lucky, you’ve got a well-stocked brain chemistry to keep them in check. If not, you’re raving on the street in the hours before dawn.

Since medication is doing wonders for me, I was able to dissect the woman’s statement: “I can’t deal with this much pressure.” Negative self-talk such as “I can’t deal” feeds the fire already smoldering under a thicket of previous negativity. At some point, inside comes out and—boom. You gotta public spectacle.

But more than that, mental illness destroys families, relationships, careers—lives. It took my mother’s life, a great aunt, my best friend’s brother. It has entirely wrecked many of my own relationships.

So, I’m proud to be supporting actor Joe Pantoliano’s efforts to remove the stigma of mental illness. Joey will be having a benefit for the cause on Dec. 2 at the MOA. For more info, check it out.

As for the rest of you on the bus, enjoy smiling through that honey-sweet, beautifully balanced brain juice you have.

For some of us it just ain’t that easy.

“There were those starry, moon-glowing and windy nights where I would sit out in the hammock and think into the night. There were those bright sunny days where the sun reflected off the clear, blue water.

“I would step onto the deck when I’m there at night and feel the summer’s breeze flow to my face.

“And now summer has come to an end. I’m back in those halls of hustling, bustling kids. Run to this class, run to that class. Test here, assignment there. But in the midst of all that up and down hassle I have one hope and promise—

“That summer will come again.”