The HEA Cafe

For the past few years I’ve looked forward to November and to participating in the NaNo (National Novel Writing Month ) experience, but something always transpires to stop me registering – day job commitments, online workshop participation, submission deadlines, visitors.  Regardless, I always battle with myself whether or not to register anyway. I’m one of those people who take on too much, never happier than when I’m overwhelmed with things to do - excessive is my middle name.

I’ve just suffered through one of my husband’s regular “you can’t take anymore on right now” speeches (affectionately known in our house as the “talk-downs”). He’s absolutely forbidden me to register for NaNo, which, of course, makes me want to do it even more.

Why do I want to put myself through the NaNo experience anyway? Because I want to try writing a first draft in a month – no editing, no layering, no perfect prose, just a basic first draft of the whole story in a month. I’ve tried doing it on my own but, while I start off with all these wonderful intentions of just writing, it’s not long before the old internal editor jumps on my shoulder and starts cracking her whip.

My internal editor is an old crone – a wise old girl who doesn’t let me get away with much.  She tells me I’ve started the story in the wrong place, that the POV is all wrong, that I can’t get away with passive sentence structure and I really should change it right now. This minute. Ignoring her doesn’t work, she just gets more persistent, nastier. She’ll start on the “you can’t write anyway” or “you really haven’t learned a thing in all the years you’ve been writing, have you?”  She’ll keep going until I eventually give in and start the editing process just to shut her up - then bang goes all my good intentions.

I figure if I had the support of fellow writers doing the same thing, at the same time, under the banner of NaNo, I’d have some ammunition to use against the old crone when she starts with the “let’s improve this load of junk right now, shall we?” speech.  I’d just tell her I’m officially registered to write a load of junk for one month, and she can go take a hike until December. 

Ah, well … maybe next year.

During a recent lunch with a group of writer friends, I mentioned I was having problems finishing my latest WIP. I’ve tried not to think of it as writer’s block, as I think such terms can quickly turn into a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, but I was most definitely jammed.

See, I’d gotten about a third of the way through the story - I had my outline, my character sheets, my vision board (all very brief and basic, because I’m at heart a pantser) - and things were going a-okay, thank you very much. Until my hero went and did something that was most definitely not on my outline plan. Okay, usually I love when this happens, but on this particular occasion, with this particular story, it threw me for a loop. Which is where I remained for far too long, stalled and not sure where to go with the “book from hell”. My hero, bless his alpha-to-hide-the-gooey-centre heart, insisted I keep his unexpected reaction to something the heroine told him and he wouldn’t back down. I’d threatened to walk away from his story, to spend my time with another slightly less arrogant male who would be only too happy I was pounding away at the keyboard to get his story told. But nothing would budge my broad-shouldered veterinarian. He wanted his own way.

Which is why I found myself bemoaning my fate to my writer girlfriends. “Do you know how the story ends?” one asked. “Well, yes.” I replied. “Then write the ending,” came the reply, “and then work backwards.”  This was not exactly pleasurable fodder to my ears. ”I’m a sequential writer,” I cried. “I can’t possibly do that, it’s just not my way.” Even the thought made my stomach roil. “Try it,” came the canny reply.

Back home I sat staring at the screen, just in case a revelation came from above and I suddenly knew how to fix the story, but nothing happened. I fought and I struggled against my friend’s advice until, hesitantly, reluctantly, I wrote the final scene. It felt bad. It felt wrong. I even had a sense of my characters shaking their heads demanding to know just what the heck I was playing at. They weren’t ready for their HEA. Too bad. They were having it. I continued to ignore their screams of protest and worked backward (in outline) to that stalled scene. Guess what?  It worked. My fingers are flying over the keyboard again, my head is full of excitement and anticipation. I know where I’m going.

Writing out of sequence still feels weird, it still feels wrong somehow, and I can’t say I’ll adopt it as my normal modus operandi. Yet as an emergency measure it worked amazingly well.  The whole experience made me realise how easy it is to get stuck in a rigid way of thinking, so that we simply can’t see the wood for the trees. Just Try It has become my new mantra.

Tricia

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