A Day in the Life of a Chapter
So I wrote a chapter yesterday. It went something like this.
Write one paragraph. Start with characters seeing the play Uncle Vanya.
Spend a half-hour researching Chekhov. Decide a better play will be The Cherry Orchard.
Find a copy of The Cherry Orchard in the public domain. Spend a half hour skimming through the play to decide the best quote for a seminal moment in the chapter. Decide Act III. Cut and paste into file.
Write rest of chapter, including describing the set for Act III.
Spend a half-hour doing a bunch of stuff for my dad (staying here) and Demon Baby (peel him an apple, make a peanut butter sandwich with crust cut off, tell him to stop feeding the dogs biscuits because they are all getting fat).
Re-open file. Gained some distance in the half-hour break. Layer in description. Add some dialogue. Wait. Dad fears he's lost his Rolex. Crisis in the house.
Crisis averted. He did NOT put Rolex in trash can, but in his fanny-pack. All is well in Orloff-land.
Re-open file. Go word by word by word by word tweaking and changing. Decide to make scene longer and pull them out of the theatre and back in their apartment.
Write rest of chapter.
Decide ending sucks.
Start at the beginning of the chapter word by word, still layering in word choices and adjectives and scene descriptions. Decide in 2015, the Blackberry will be dead. Therefore Aleks would carry a tablet phone.
Research Mac new secret tablet. Decide something along those lines will work. Change two spots where the phone is used and he gets an email--255 emails to be precise during the course of the play. Decide that's too many emails and pare it down into the 160s.
Rewrite ending.
Rewrite it again.
Try one more time.
Read it all the way through--whoops, no. Dad is worried about the weather. Must check Internet for forecast.
Now have to take mom to the bank and Barnes and Noble. And the grocery store.
Come home. Read it through to the end.
VERY happy with the end result. Everyone wants dinner.
Such is the life of a chapter in my house. One crazy and completely typical day. A little research. That's how I do it. How about you?
18 comments:
Thank you. It's nice to know that writing isn't: I sat down spent an hour and a half, wrote a chapter, then the rest of the day doing something other than writing.
I always wondered how you manage to squeeze in all the things you do in a day. Once I walk away I rarely go back. I can't multitask that way.
I tend to research as questions arise, like you do.
Could be Apple iSlate, could be the new Android, & have you noticed there's a smartphone out with a projector so you can throw the screen images upon a wall?
Richmond:
Nope. Nothing magical about my day . . . that "day" was eight+ hours.
E
Mark:
Yeah . . . it's fun thinking of all the possibilities. I love the idea of it on an airplane, frankly, because even my small netbook is a pain to use if the person in front of me tilts the seat back.
E
I figure the way we work has lot to do with our base personalities. I would work differently than you do, but that's because we are different people.
Have you ever wondered whether people like Dickens wrote straight through?
I love the peek inside your day. I spent the day trying to soothe my very anxious mom before a flight. I cannot write at all under those conditions. But boy can I Wii. (Cowgirl is doing Yoga on it as I type.)
It sounds like you handled the interruptions with grace, and still got the work done.
How funny. I just had to research Peak Oil last night and I'm sure today's session will be interrupted with that. I could just keep writing on, but I'm compelled to go back and get this stuff right before moving on.
Sounds like writing with a family gives us both perspective and distance.
I like to have uninterrupted time to draft, but I tend to break up my writing with research, cutting apples, taking emails, checking weather, changing laundry, vacuuming...I create interruptions for myself if the kids don't provide them. Always have.
No peanut butter sandwiches though. My kid's allergic. :)
Mark! Projecting on the wall?? How cool is that. I think the laptop will be dead as a transportable device in 5 years.
I have my complete sentences days, and my bits days. It takes major coffee to make them both in one day. Or else my pub saying that if I can turn in a chapter this afternoon, I can get an extra slot for awhile.
Research days tend to be separate, too. I'll look up bits as I go along, but if I need a foundation of research, I'll go to Borders and research for 14 hours straight and forget to eat.
Can we say multitasking? Wow. You have supreme powers of concentration.
I could never write like that when my kids were little. It's a skill!
When I was working I would take 15 minute breaks and write during the day. Now I spend my day job hunting and nights writing on the couch while the dear-sainted-wife watches her tv shows.
Joe:
I tend to think maybe he did because he was being paid by the word, but I don't know.
E
Heather:
Sometimes I feel fried. So much for grace. LOL!
Starbucks:
I like interruptions, too. I need to sort of let my mind drift a bit. I think that's why I compulsively read for research and go off on tangents.
E
Natasha:
I mostly research as I go . . . though sometimes (like Russian history stuff), I can spend a whole day doing that.
E
Aimless:
Four kids = must multi-task.
E
Brian:
Sometimes my schedule gets shifted around. Summer it looks a bit different.
E
Wow. Kudos.
Sometimes it goes like this:
Open the file. Start writing. Heavy emotional stuff. Eyes are closing. Force them open. Keep trying. Eyes are closed. Finger is pushing down the n key. Delete lines of n's. Lie down on couch. Sort of nap for 5 minutes - waking every minute because the dogs are howling.
Get back up. Write some more. Get stuck. Go take a shower. Write beautiful stuff in my head in the shower. Get out. Get dressed. Forget most of the beautiful words by the time I reach my laptop. Write anyway.
Dog jumps in lap and lies across my arm. Type one handed. Phone rings. 800 number. Don't answer.
And then sometimes:
Sit down. Open file. Start writing. Keep writing. Ignore all noise. Ignore dog wanting in lap. Push cat away from keyboard. Keep writing. Bladder says time to stop.
Sarah:
LOL! Yes . . . I can see those two sides of the writing life.
E
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