This past holiday weekend, we broke with our stay-cation tradition and took a little getaway to a lovely place, a re-purposed US Army base on the northern edge of the Olympic Peninsula.
But I don’t want to talk about the place, not right now. Instead, I want to share what we did while we were there. (Don’t worry, it’s SFW.)
Regular readers may have wondered what the hell is happening with my current Work-In-Progress, my dual-timeline novel set in Seattle. And you’ve had good reason to wonder. I was shocked, today, when I looked back and found that my last report on said “progress” was last summer. True, other duties took precedence during that time—deaths of loved ones, radical changes in working conditions, editing/sales of short fiction, etc.—but I’ve grown weary of my own excuses and thus decided to pull the novel out of mothballs, dust off the cobwebs (physical and mental), and get back to it.
So, prior to leaving on our little vacation, I read through what I had written so far.
My first discovery was that I had 30,000 words down on this WIP. I didn’t think I had that much, but 30k is meaningful because that’s where I usually hit my “wall.” It’s the point in my process where momentum flags, confidence falters, and I’m in danger of stopping altogether. I hit a wall every 30k words, and each time, I have to force my way past it. With this WIP, with all my insecurities about the shift in genre and the unfamiliar, character-driven territory of this new novel, that “wall” is especially high and sturdy.
My second discovery came as I read through what I’d written. Whenever I return to a project that’s lain fallow for a while, I read what I’ve written. This gets me back into the rhythm, the “voice” of the piece. Yes, there’s the very real danger of wanting to edit, and I admit, I had a red pencil in hand as I began reading, but I forced myself to put it down and read what I’d written solely to reacquaint myself with the work. What I found surprised me, because . . . at the risk of tooting my own horn . . . it was rather good.
There were a lot of good bits—both tender moments and humorous turns of phrase—that really worked well. The pacing was good. The dialogue I felt was exceptionally good, as I could hear the difference in how each character spoke (rather than everyone sounding like they’d all taken the same elocution course). There’s a lot of sensory description in the story (a facet I often overlook in first drafts). And, crucial in a character-driven novel, the internal dialogue, including complicated flashbacks and intertwining backstories, was seamless. Most importantly, the experimental technique I was using for some of the transitions was enhancing the story, adding a layer of meaning to the work, rather than just functioning as a gimmick.
However . . .
I am not the best critic of my own work. Obviously, whatever I write has power for me, but that doesn’t mean it’ll have the same power for another reader. Fortunately, I have an in-house First Reader, and as she sat across from me, watching me react positively to reading my own words, she was intrigued. And, since one of the proven methods I use to break through my 30k-wall is to let First Reader look it over and alert me to required course corrections (Iceberg ahead!), it was easy to convince her to give it a read.
Before that happened, however, we had our little getaway.
Staying in a hundred-year-old cottage in mid-winter on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound with sketchy wi-fi and no television is the perfect way to unplug, something we both desperately needed. Usually during such long quiet evenings, we turn to our books, but this time, First Reader (recovering from a head cold) didn’t want to read. She wanted to be read to.
Writers, you’ve heard this from me before: reading your work aloud is one of the best editing techniques you will ever employ. It has so many advantages and shines a harsh light on every word, limning every clunky phrase, every malformed metaphor, every dangling modifier. It’s also the best tool for editing dialogue. If it sounds stupid or wooden when you say it, it needs work.
But I’ve never read my own work aloud to First Reader before, and I’ve never even thought of reading aloud my first draft. Say it with me: All first drafts are crap.
And yet, I’d read this first draft. I didn’t think it was crap. Oh, it needs work, a lot of it, but it isn’t crap.
So, I agreed.
I’m not a trained public speaker. Being an introvert, I’m not a trained speaker, period. I only grow loquacious after the second glass of wine when surrounded by close confidantes. That said, it should be no surprise that reading the first chapters of my WIP involved a good bit of coughing and the liberal application of a nice Carménère we’d picked up in town.
One thing you do get from reading your work aloud to someone else is that you get to experience their reaction immediately, perfectly timed with your words. None of this “Where are you now?” when a reader reacts to something she’s just read. Instead, I saw the chuckles, gasps, leanings-in, and the occasional “oh no,” all right where they should have been. When we were done, the verdict was immediate: best work to date; keep going; I want more.
There is nothing more encouraging to me as a writer than when someone asks “What comes next?”
Now there is a door in my 30k-wall, and it’s time to put the P back in WIP.
Pen in hand, I walk through.
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Hooray! All good news for the project.
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