An elusive refuge and a love list

After a strong finish to NaNoWriMo, I'm in a writing slump. Feeling discouraged, lack luster... not just with writing but can't even get myself motivated to decorate the Christmas tree - and Christmas time has always been a very special time for me, full of little traditions that this year, for some reason, just seem like more work to me instead of bringing delight.

That story that was so exciting to write in the last week of November... I'm re-reading it now and seeing all its flaws. It's about a hidden refuge, and for many years (on and off, as I've been working on this story on and off for a long, long, time) the story itself has been a refuge me, a place where I escape in my mind. But lately it hasn't been my refuge; it's been more my...nemesis. It's like this place has become too interwoven with years of dreams and imaginings that I can't capture it with words - at least not cohesively. Only bits and pieces. The spirit of the story is elusive... what I write is pale and awkward in comparison.

But I've been through enough ups and downs now with writing (and life!) that I know "this too shall pass" - inspiration will come around again. With patience and lots of word-smithing, the flaws that I can't see past right now can slowly be turned into something that lets the passion shine through.

I've learned a few tricks to help the inspiration along, thanks to other bloggers who have shared their own ups and downs. My favorite discovery this year was the story love list. I compiled a love list for my science fiction story back in September and hope if I put one together for this elusive refuge it might help my words get a little closer to the vision in my head.

It's set in Alaska because Alaska has so much remote wilderness I figured it would be a great setting for a bunch of mythical creatures trying to keep  themselves secret and hidden from the rest of the world.

Here's my list of things I love about this novel:

1. taiga - isn't that a neat word? it's a Russian word for the northern boreal forest

Nabsena road, Wrangell-St Elias National Park

2. old log cabins

3. campfires

4. picking blueberries

5. lofts you can only reach with a ladder

6. glaciers

7. eagles

8. dreamy late afternoon light slanting through a forest

9. northern lights

10. mythical creatures

11. sketchbooks

12. kerosene lanterns

13. pontoon planes

14. rainbows

15. a ghost fox

16, forget-me-not flowers

17. pieces of poems

But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning
Never sick, never old, never dead
From itself never turning

18. eighteen hours of sunshine a day

Insecure Writer: the fragile writing bubble

The first Wednesday of the month
 is time for Insecure Writers Support Group,
hosted by Alex Cavanaugh and his
excellent team. 

Usually when it comes to writing, my “fragile writing bubble” is protecting my precious time set aside for writing and trying not to let anything get in the way. Fortunately for this year’s NaNoWriMo, I was able to protect my writing time (for the most part) and even though I have become the SLOWEST writer among all the other writers I did word wars and word sprints with (I only averaged about 600 words per hour!) I did manage to get my 50,000 words – by the barest possible margin and by almost completely isolating myself after Thanksgiving dinner and the last three days of November.

When I emerged from NaNoWriMo and rejoined the real world, I was ready to get out of my writing bubble and I have a real life again. It’s good to have a social life again (though my version of a social life is probably a lot different, ahem, slimmer, than average).

I was thankful for a quiet, no-travel Thanksgiving this year so I could concentrate on my writing, but I was looking forward to having a bunch of  extended family come visit us for Christmas, but yesterday both families called and canceled. I’m so sad! Family is precious to me, and after having a really low-key Thanksgiving I really wanted to have a big family Christmas. I don’t know all the details about why they canceled and my fears are that it was a lot to do with my husband’s mom having died earlier this year. She was kind of the “glue” that held the family together, and now that she’s gone I worry that everyone is going to go their own way or maybe they want to stick together, but right now it’s still too painful with the recent loss?

I  have a new perspective on my fragile writing bubble, after having protected it so carefully this past month and now…well…sort of wishing I hadn’t been so protective…wishing maybe we’d tried to go visit our extended family for Thanksgiving or invited more to come here.

It’s so hard to find a balance with the writing life and the rest of life.

On the passionate homestretch

Last week I posted about this has been my hardest NaNoWriMo ever.  Other Novembers have been hard because of travel, or sickness, but this time around, it's the story itself that was frustrating me. I just couldn't capture the vision (or even bits and pieces) of my vision for this story.

Turns out, blogging about my frustrations really helped. Even though I didn't get into the specifics. Just the act of sharing "I'm so frustrated!" (and all your kind and encouraging comments) helped me get past the frustration. Also much thanks to Julie Dao and this post of hers which reminded of the power of journaling through slumps.

The very night after blogging, ideas started to flow. I was able to isolate a few of the issues that were troubling me and some ideas about what could work, instead.

I had all these detailed character sketches for this story; so why weren't my characters working? Why did the main character feel so flat?  Part of the problem that I finally pinned down is that the character sketches were from 5 years ago (I wrote the draft of this story over 5 years ago. My plan this year was to completely rewrite it). Five years ago, I was really good at finding quirks for my characters, and I knew what their flaws were and their strengths. I even knew that all-important question: what do they want so badly that it drives everything they do? But I didn't know their passion. And, it turns out, that was a major missing factor.

So I've learned I have a really hard time writing characters that aren't passionate, and if I can't write the characters, I can't write the story.

The past week the writing has been going a lot better. I don't have the whole passion thing figured out, but I do know that it means digging deep into a character: into their past, into their fears. It also means seeing details that only they would see. Which is sort of the opposite of digging deep: this one sort of requires a light touch. But both require living in their shoes literally almost all day, every day for... well, let's say the month of November. (My family eagerly awaits the return of my attention. Most of this month I've been off in novel-land).

This post from Writer Unboxed: the Point of Writing, also really helped, especially this part:

• Writing is about finding out who you are, what you have to say that is not the same as what everyone else has to say, and how to express it in the strongest possible terms.
• The point of writing is to tell a story with your insight, the perspective that only you have.
• The point of writing is to think deeply and to inform, entertain, communicate your insight with your readers.
• The point of writing is to seek truth.  And it doesn’t matter how you do that, or whether you’re writing thrillers or detective stories or comedies, or picture books for children.  Truth is what will give your work resonance and power and make it worth reading...

I was close to giving up on this NaNoWriMo, but now I'm going for the win. Or rather, Lurching for the win.

Glad to be going into Thanksgiving tomrrow with a thankful mood regarding this story, which is my oldest and most beloved story, my "baby" but also definitely my "problem child."  Also thankful I have a clear holiday and weekend - no travel or plans (other than a yummy turkey dinner) - to compete with catching up my word count!

The writing isn't working

I'm having my worst NaNoWriMo ever. This month is usually a rush. Frustrating at times, exhausting, but oh - the ideas! the random lovely/scary things that appear and make me wonder, did I write that? where did that come from? I usually end up chopping up what I write for NaNo; a lot of it gets cut or heavily revised. But NaNo always gives me a solid diamond core.

Not so much this year. I have this vision my head that just isn't coming out in words. I don't expect the writing magic to flow every night, but the thing I've come to depend on with NaNo is that if I keep spewing the words out every night, then the drudgery momentarily turns to magic, here and there.  Into my third week now, and I'm not seeing any sparks flying yet. I'm holding onto my vision for this story, and trusting the process of visiting it every night, putting one word after another, trying not to give up.

My vision for this book (working title, Refuge) is a blend of the real world with completely magical mythical creatures. It isn't a portal into a magical world like Narnia, or a reverse portal where something magical finds itself stuck in reality; it's not a clash of two different worlds... it's sort of the real world and the magical one tentatively meeting each other, brushing edges  and sparking static electricty, but still hiding in the shadows. It's also about what the two worlds need to learn from each other. 

Plans for this story go back many, many years and includes inspiration from sources like Legend (the 1985 movie with Tom Cruise); the Island Stallion by Walter Farley and the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. More recently, the Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa, Pegasus by Robin McKinley and the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series by Laini Taylor have sparked new passion into my original vision. I have a rough draft and years of dreaming; what I had hoped to do during this NaNo was to stitch the new vision into the old but now I'm wondering if I have maybe too much "grand vision" and "dreaming" and not enough of it distilled down into concrete ideas. And yet, I have a solid outline, tons of world building and character sketches - but something is still missing to make all of the ingredients work together. 

Even if the magic doesn't kick in during this round, I love this story too much to give up.  A story like this deserves as much time as it needs to fully come together. Maybe its waiting on me to grow some more, learn some more, collect more experience and heartbreak and passion. 

There are 10 days of NaNoWriMo left and I'm going to keep plugging away.