First Blog of 2023: a Writing Process

 I made no New Year's resolutions for 2023, except for maybe to clear out the clutter—physically and mentally. We are continuing to work towards trying to move to Oregon, although that still seems a long way in the future. We have our bay house for sale, and there hasn't been much action on that. Wayne is putting his land on the market next week, fingers crossed on that. I know it's been a tough decision for him, and not an easy slog to try to get it ready. He keeps coming across personal momentos from his life that make it more difficult for him. It's always been his home base, and was given to him by his parents. But there comes a time to move on. I think I've heard something like that before.

The plan is for one (or preferably both) to sell quickly, take the proceeds to Florence Oregon and find a house so we know where we're going and can downsize accordingly. Then we get our primary house listed and start selling off—for real—furniture and other overage we no longer want or need. No matter how you plan it, though, things don't always fall so neatly into place. We're aware of that, and also aware of time creep—meaning "we're not getting any younger." We're going to make another trip to Florence in three weeks. We have never been there during the winter and it's time to see what that's like, although we do keep daily tabs on the forecast and temperatures. It's a mild climate for Oregon. The real estate agent said Florence lies in the Pacific Temperate Rainforest zone, and judging by the slight variation in day and night temps, I think she must be correct. The only other place I can think of where there is only a few degrees of change during a 24-hour period is Ireland. Anyway, it's where we believe we want to spend our Golden Years. The weather isn't perfect anywhere, least of all where we live in Texas. As shown in the picture below—our backyard last summer, Ugh!

Meanwhile, I am in the middle of a (what—10th, 12th, or 100th) read-through edit of my next novel. My agent submitted it to a couple of publishers last Spring, got kind rejections but rejections nevertheless, and so I hired an editor to give it a look. She gave me a really thoughtful analysis and now, with her suggestions in mind, I'm going through and tweaking parts that need tweaking. Not all her suggestions rang valid to me, and those I'm leaving unchanged. It's alway smart to have another set of eyes on something. This novel is such a departure from anything I have written before that I wanted someone who was totally unfamiliar with my work. This novel is so different I have, in fact, been kicking around using a pseudonym. One minute I feel that yes, doing that would free the story; the next minute, I'm like—well, I wrote it so I should take the credit or the criticism that comes. I'm not a big-name writer anyway so what the heck—although I do have a small circle of loyal fans who have stuck with me for 30 years. Thank you to all of you if you are reading this. It gives me great joy to hear from you from time to time.

So back to working on this novel. I'm at the place where I always have doubts. Writer-friends of mine will know exactly what I mean. The sentences are smooth, images pretty clear, but does it sound a little smarmy? Too predictable? Overly melodramatic, or maybe it's too understated? As I read through this millionth draft I am still mortified that I actually let anybody read it in this condition. Some of the scenes are less than dynamic, some seem even a little sophomoric. I know, deep down, that this is a normal reaction for me at this stage, and that I have to slap away that naggedy little editor whispering in my ear, telling me I'm a washed-up writer, that this is a piece of crap and I should just stick it in a drawer and forget about it. 

However, this particular novel has already done a lot of drawer-time. I actually started writing it way back, even before LILY. Dashed off a quick, sloppy, first draft, dusted my hands and stuck it away. I might have thought about it once or twice in the ensuing years but didn't really linger on it until I started trying to clean up my office during the pandemic: all the boxes and bins of old correspondence, contracts, scraps of notes, etc. There were several unfinished manuscripts in that clutter, but this was the only one that inspired me to give another go, to try to untangle plot-lines that went nowhere, to flesh out the characters, brighten up the settings. After I worked on that a while, it seemed to be getting better. Several more walk-throughs continued to help, especially with the addition of sensory details. And then, after several months of this, a lightbulb went off in my brain, and I finally FINALLY figured out what the hell it's about. A whole new spin began there. Once I had that, I was going full speed, writing those million drafts. 

I'm blogging about this here because I have been asked to do more writing blogs so I thought I would share my process. Everybody has their own, and this scattered one I've described is mine. I'm not a naturally gifted writer who can put down fabulous words from the outset. I have to write several drafts, each one a little less terrible than the previous, agonizing over works like "the, or should it be an" until it starts gelling for me. If I knew from the first minute I put pen to paper, or word to computer screen, what was going to happen in my novels, I would probably never write at all. I like discovering where it's going as I write it, just like I enjoy discovering a story as a reader. Guess that's why I can never be a mystery writer. I don't know how to plot. 

Onward....