Day two of the retreat is finished, at least as far as writing goes. Here’s a recap and a link below to a poem I recorded earlier today.

For reasons she refuses to explain, even though I’ve asked, Word Raccoon was up at 2:30 this morning reading. Two hours of page-turning later, she fell back asleep for about an hour. Then she insisted I get out of bed and hand her a Coke Zero immediately.

“The keyboard is calling, Word Mama. This will give us bonus writing time before breakfast.”

I wanted to argue, but I feared she’d demand the peppermint bark I had laid out for her snack. And dear god, do not give the raccoon caffeine and sweets at the same time.

So I quietly retrieved my laptop, set up by the heater, opened the document with the newest scenes of my novel, and wrote. We crossed the 10K mark on the new section. Now comes the harder part: slowing down enough to decide whether it makes sense to keep going with her current thread.

WR did not get waffles for breakfast because the iron was taking too long to heat, so she made do with oatmeal. In retaliation, she demanded many snacks while writing.

Our writing sun room overlooks the Little Calumet River and offers far too much distraction for WR.

She saw squirrels playing, including one tiny acrobat with more energy than she has after her half-night vigil. She was jealous of her. We spotted a gorgeous young deer across the water, and a parade of birds and waterfowl:

Ducks
Mallards
Some water bird that might have been a merganser (?), or possibly a snow goose
A blue jay
A couple of sparrows (I think)
A woodpecker

To keep WR functioning, I had to provide Coke Zero (three bottles), coffee, and now a mug of tea. Which probably means she will not sleep.

We wrote for about seven hours today, all told. Maybe more after dinner, we’ll see. I keep trying to convince her to hit the gym. She insists on going outdoors instead, but we can’t find a safe path down to the river.

She’s threatening to make her own. She just might.

We also recorded one of our poems early this morning and shared it here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/325601/episodes/18393747

WR is embarrassed by how it came out, but I’m reminding her we can always re-record later if it sounds overly earnest or unrehearsed. It wasn’t rehearsed. Sometimes art is earnest and off the cuff. And it was early. ART DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PERFECT, HERBERT!

What did we do with our writing today?

The early session went into the newest strand, a different timeline, which means I am now tracking four of them. Why, Drema, why?

Ambitious? Yes.
Too ambitious?
We’ll see. I don’t think so.

That new strand carried us past 10K, if I haven’t already mentioned that. Yay.

The rest of the day went to revising the larger novel. I am proud to admit we…lost 5K words.

Five. Thousand. Words.

This is why we don’t cling to word counts. If you don’t have the courage to remove what doesn’t belong, maybe you shouldn’t be writing, or so I tell myself.

Soon I’ll get to add those 10,000 new words back in. Even though it hurts to cut the results of hours of work (yes, we save the best bits in another file just in case), it’s worth it if it makes the novel better.

I worked on the most difficult section today, Rebecca’s, though I didn’t make it through the whole thing. That timeline is shifting, so that’s one of the reasons what I mostly did was get rid of stuff that doesn’t follow the new storyline. 

Wouldn’t it be nice if real life worked like that? 

It was either wise or dumb to start the retreat with the most difficult task. I tell myself that it can only get easier. If I could manage to revise that whole section before the retreat’s end, I will have triumphed. 

I’m not sure why Rebecca’s sections are so difficult to write, though I think it’s because here is someone who is not the star of the book. That is, she has to share. And I have to write her in a way so that she doesn’t take over the whole thing. Her voice is not coming as naturally to me as the other characters, not yet, though I think I’m beginning to hear her. 

Also, she’s not as fiery as my previous protagonists. I’m reserving that fire for someone else in my novel, and while Rebecca has her share of fire, I have to keep her pared back.

The sections are not yet interwoven properly. That will prove tricky when it’s time (probably not during this retreat) but not impossible. It will mean deciding on chapters or using the main character’s names to guide the reader. Years at the beginning of sections will be crucial to acclimate. Transitions will be necessary. Deciding story order will be the most difficult bit: when to reveal what? My latest section is the most ready on that score. Now-me knew I would have to break the section up, so I wrote it in beats, naturally stopping where I thought the reader would feel satisfied but also curious. 

Or that was my intent. Fingers crossed.

WR reports that the ducks are back, swimming near the tangle of fallen trees that seem to attract the most wildlife. She wants to go out and explore before dinner. 

I think I’d better let her.

She’s earned it.