The list had haunted me.
Upon finishing university, I made a list of writing goals. Fifty poems, twenty short stories, one stage play, one full-length screenplay, and one novel (minimum 100,000 words). The idea was that after writing in a variety of formats I would know which I was best suited for and where I should put my writing efforts.
On my forty-second birthday, I checked my list and found eighty poems, forty short stories, three stage plays, and three full-length screenplays. And I still did not know what kind of writer I wanted to be when I grew up. Missing was the novel.
I had done plenty of writing, so my day job and family life were no excuses for not writing the novel. I simply hadn’t figured out how to do it.
The following day I visited Powell’s, my favorite bookstore. My daughter had gone to live with her mother for a few months, and in her absence I often went to the bookstore–as much to hang out in a comfortable place as to browse or buy books.
Ruminating in an overstuffed chair among the stacks, I decided it was a good place to write a short story. I bought a notebook and pen at a nearby grocery store and returned to the comfy seat.
Something strange happened. All the advice about writing fiction disappeared. No narrative arc. No plot points. No character development. Just start with a character who has a problem, and then make everything worse until it finally gets better.
“The man woke up.” I had started.
“The man woke up and opened his eyes. He closed them again and rubbed them.” I had to keep him busy while I figured out what was wrong in his world.
“The woman was not beside him.” And there was his problem. Where was the woman? An hour later I had written four pages. It was a good first session. Two sessions later the short story had turned into a first chapter. Twenty-five chapters later, that small seed had germinated, sprouted, and grown into the accomplishment of my life: the novel, BECOMES THE HAPPY MAN.
The list was complete. Those ghosts silent. But more importantly, the voices of many more ghosts began haunting my imagination. The list had fulfilled its purpose of revealing my writing specialty. More novels have followed in the years since, and now I can’t imagine ever not having one in progress.
The man woke up. He did indeed.
I like your advice on writing!
Awesome! Glad to hear it.
The simplicity of the advice refreshing. Most places make writing a complicated and analytical process and they start becoming chains that hold you back. This is very freeing.
I’m glad you feel the same way. Writing doesn’t have to be so difficult. 🙂
‘I had to keep him busy while I figured out what was wrong in his world.’ – I love this. To write is to set the wheels of everything in motion, words can never be static!
Glad this spoke to you! Thanks for letting me know and for sharing your thoughts. 😀
I have written three books, plus my autobiography is nearly complete. But, but, but, as much as I think about writing a novel, and I do think about it a great deal, I cannot get myself into the ‘writing a novel’ brain. Help!
Don’t overthink it. Forget about everything you ever heard about writing a novel. Start with one character, write four notebook pages about what that character is doing. The next day or next session, write another four pages. Don’t plan anything. Just write what you see happen next. Add another character or two. Write what they do and how they interact with the first character. After three sessions (12 pages), that’s your first chapter. Around chapter 15, see what you have and start tying up the loose ends that lead to an ending at chapter 25. Don’t worry about how good it is. It will be a novel. You will have written it. Now the 76th session, type the first chapter into the computer. Edit as you go. Add things to the first chapters that will set things up for what you discovered in the later chapters. Each session, enter another chapter into the computer. After 25 sessions (100 total), you’ll have your manuscript in the computer, and now you can work on editing deeper.
Rick, that is great advice and I do overthink! I think you may have it nailed and it is just a question of me doing it! Thank you!
Terrific! Let me know how it goes. 🙂
Thank you, again.
🙂
I’m so glad I read this!
Don’t overthink it is the story of my life but you’ve somehow managed to make the process of getting started sound less terrifying.
Thank you ☺
I like that this is more thinking aloud than giving advice. It works so much better and I’m thinking it’s what’s missing in my posts. Thank you for the creative insight.
Glad it resonated! 😀
*silently nodding head*
🙂
Awesome thanks so much 😊 This is inspiring and refreshing. I definitely would not be able to follow any rules if I wrote a novel. Do you have the link to your novel(s) posted on here?
I wonder if it is your experiences and training with Ulysses that allowed you to create a novel without worrying about it fitting into rigid structures or having a non-chaotic plot arc? Great work!! You’re famous on the blogosphere😊😊
I started writing my novels about 14 years ago and ended about 7. Took a hiatus on creative writing, at least published, until starting up with this latest stuff. So really I would say it was that experience writing novels in an unstructured way that opened me up to the current style/format. I’m planning to put my novels back up on my blog, but you can see info about them at my website, rickmallery.com. Thanks for the interest!
Awesome 😊😊 great to hear it. What did it feel like writing them? Do you mean you stopped writing novels 7 years ago?
I really like chaotic stuff. Or at least it is me that is chaotic. Chaos seems to me to be the source of creativity. I saw an excerpt of Joyce’s Ulysses on Wikipedia. Seems like absolute junk hehehe… sorry😅
Yes, yes, and yes! Total agreement. 🙂
Congratulations! On the waking and the writing and the finding.
Thank you!
I like this. Showing that novels not only come from planning but can start unannounced and by surprise. Thanks.
Such a similar path to mine!!! The novel was the last frontier to conquer – so funny how it looms there – a poking challenge to be conquered.
I went backwards from. I wrote a novel before anything else. Except of course for some short stories for an English class, then other stuff. I wrote the novel, without reading any advice about how to do it, so I could enter a writers program. I still don’t understand why the instructor accepted me as one of eight, he didn’t really like my story. The first few weeks I realized I had a long way to go. After a few rewrites it has languished in a file for many years. It’s waited there, haunting the back of my head, as I proceeded to create other books. Now, it’s almost more difficult for me to think about another rewrite than a new book, but somehow I still can’t ignore it. I started another book this year.
Yes! The ages old habit of setting and achieving goals is one that never ceases to astound me. To put in motion a thought in which you could calculate the many possible steps to an imagined destination and the exciting discovery of all the twist and turns one could take to get there! This life in motion; the greatest story I know. I too am novel. I too shall put my fingers to keys on the board and articulate the picture, not for the sole purpose of others to read, for my consciousness to speak to my brain. To ponder upon all the great and small lessons I have learned along the way. A journey to revisit all those other people I also consider a part of me that might seem traped in time. To all future selves that some say I will become. Truth is, I believe we are now. Past, present and future like a film reel wound in a roll waiting to be unfurled so the element within that we call free will can set the play in motion. A goal set way before flesh became whole.
I digress.
You good sir have allowed me to find some inspiration in your post. Thank you.
What a great tale about your journey into writing! I get it. Thanks a lot.
This is pretty much perfect! My first novel happened in a very similar fashion. But I don’t think I could have boiled it down as succinctly as you did with this.
I have often felt inspired at Powell’s, particularly on those days when I wandered in after another dispiriting morning stuck in an office. I always marched back, shoulders squared, back straight, for another dispiriting afternoon stuck in an office. But you got a novel out of it! Thanks for sharing this moment.
Hello fellow blogger,
Thank you for the like.
I have novels, written and safely tucked away on USB drives. I look forward to the day I’m not afraid to show them to the world.
We have the “lists” in common and the ability to sit anywhere and write. My favourite spaces though are coffee shops, spaces near running water or trees or where I can see mountains. I look forward to reading more of your blogs.
Cheers,
Dear Rick:
Thank you for your “likes” on my “bits and pieces” of fiction. My journey may have been the opposite of yours. I don’t do lists! I might even say I don’t like lists!
In college, I wrote eight short stories and eight one-act plays, and some odds and ends of poetry. Eight years later, I combined them all into a novel. My friend and “writing foil”, Michael, said I’d been cheating and actually writing a novel the whole time. My excuse to him, you, and everyone else is that I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. Since then, I’ve been more of an editor of my own work than a writer.
So, my advice would be “don’t give up on your early efforts; they may all be part of “that novel” you write some day.” Again, thanks! don paisley
p.s. Not sure, but i think I may be falling in love with Georgette. sorry! don
That was actually very cool to read. Quite an accomplishment!
Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you so much. This entry has given me more motivation to continue writing my unfinished novel. I also write in a way that’s completely creative, not following any rules or principles. It might not be great, but at least I’ve written it down. I’m grateful for your sharing.