Dear Reader,
Just a quick howdy tonight because Word Raccoon and I have worn ourselves out. In a good way.
Yesterday, if you recall, when I asked her if she wanted to spend more time with the novel, she said, “Novel? Ugh.”
Apparently she recovered. Whew! Might have something to do with letting her replenish her snack supply today. Today was apparently muffin day: strawberry muffins. Chocolate muffins filled with chocolate…chocoloate chip muffins. I lectured her about all of that sugar, but she just stuck her tongue out, which by that point was already covered in strawberry.
What are you going to do?
Today we dug through all four threads of the novel, making notes about what still needs to be written, researched, moved, reconsidered, expanded, cut, checked against the timeline, and generally dealt with before I begin weaving the threads together.
There is a lot. And WR is more than a little suspicious of being so organized because she’s seen me write novels before. She knows I’m a hot mess writer, and that it’s only after I’ve written in circles that I see the way out.
But I feel less overwhelmed, not more, now because the cleaner the story becomes, the more I see what it needs, the more certain I am that it’s not as difficult as I think.
Don’t laugh, but I credit these ADHD hacks I’ve been learning. For me, I hear “write a whole novel,” when really the hack to the task in front of me might be, “Read five pages and see if they make sense,” or, “As a reader, what would you like to know here?” And stop.
I can see the book now. I can imagine it in my hands. Not yet. Not for quite a while. Dear God, it’s not ready for anyone to read it yet. But it’s becoming.
Which is funny, because every thread is shorter by far than it was earlier in the week. I now have a list of items for each thread that I KNOW they need, much less the gaps I will discover as I fill the current ones. But that’s okay. Remember, WR has the hacks!
And good news on the publication front: Kent State’s The Listening Eye is out with my poem “To My Grown Children,” page 27. It’s dedicated to everyone who has had to take a deep breath when writing something, imagining their children, even if grown, reading it. Take a look at the whole publication if you get a chance; it’s well done.
Out in the world today, as well: Unfinished Conversations from Quillkeepers Press; here’s a purchase link to the anthology with my poems “All In” and “Some Said It Thundered” in it. I’m grateful that they’ve given these poems, which you’ve seen over here, a wider audience. (Sorry, there’s no online version.)
I am tired tonight, Dear Reader. But I am so much closer to having this very rough draft of the novel together than I was even yesterday. I can see how I could spin out over so many aspects of this, and I likely will at various points, but also, I’ve got this. Maybe?
Drema