Word Raccoon began her day in a writing fever, and by lunch, she had almost completed the Rebecca thread and noticeably slowed, mainly, I suspect, because she doesn’t want to be finished with the (very rough still) draft of this thread. She’s enjoying the ride and keeps slowing to go, “Whoa! That happened?”
At one point she wrote new paragraphs of another thread in the middle of Rebecca’s just so she wouldn’t have to finish Rebecca’s. (To be clear, this is the plot layer; the other layers come later. Right now I haven’t even described what Rebecca looks like, but the reader would absolutely know what’s happening in the book now from this thread. Whew.)
She’s particularly proud of a bit of technology she gave to the mystery scenario that suited it. If all stays unchanged. With my and WR’s drafts, that’s hard to know.
As of this writing, which is about three hours earlier than I typically stop writing when I’m on a tear, I have “only” written 11 pages because it turns out that despite the speedy beginning of the day, these latter pages have not been.
The past couple of days I haven’t known what I was writing until I’d written it. I mean, a character would come into the room, I’m like, “Hi, what’s up now?” Often I’d be surprised.
I always hope a character will surprise me. Sometimes they do, and that just makes my day. WR does cartwheels inside when that happens.
Sometimes you’re sitting (or standing) there minding your own business and whoosh, here comes a powerhouse of an idea and Word Racoon swoons. It rattles her day, but in a good way as she grabs ahold of it.
Don’t mind me. I’m just falling asleep over my manuscript. Day 13, complete. WR and I are enjoying it, but we are worn out.
Oh, and two lines for future poems came to me today, but I forbade WR to do anything but write them down: No Nathan Fillion on an Elephant Yet, and, well, never mind about the second. It’s schmaltzy, now that I look at it.
The Rebecca thread is now officially up to page 77 from writing the past three days! (Again, still not counting those beach pages and any that might be salvaged from the former thread.)
Twenty-four pages beats my former grad school submission packet record speed of 22 pages in one day. I remember how I used to wait until the weekend and get those packets ready. It was more fun under pressure. I remember my hands hurting that day. But you’ve heard enough about the hands, and they’re not so bad today after all.
Today’s writing was fast and furious plotwise. I kept surprising myself and my characters. Word Raccoon grabbed the keyboard and she was off! I had to lure her away from it with freeze dried sweet bites, and now I’m trying to get the bag back from her before she does them serious harm.
The sneaky raccoon must have turned off my alarm this morning, because I woke up an hour and a half later than I intended to. Then I could not get myself going; it was one of those “Stanley, give me a list and a countdown” days. Once I had some caffeine and a shower, I came to.
I can’t overstate how much today’s writing session did for my novel. Major issues solved, new issues created. Nothing neat and tidy. Misunderstandings. Miscommunications.
It is full of texts two ways (text messaging and full texts, like books), letters, notes, clues, and reversals. You know, your typical campus novel/literary mystery. I’d say “All Novel, All August” is working, though WR reminded me that we rescheduled one medical appointment only to pick another up.
Furthermore, she noted that we did not go to the gym yesterday or today. But we did work out at home today, silly raccoon! That’s something. Sometimes you’re in the writing zone and nothing else exists. And that’s okay.
There was a fill-in barista at the cafe today, James, and I wondered if that was a sign from my novel, but though this thread speaks of James, he is not in it per se. I did not let WR steer us in that direction. Rebecca is speaking. Loudly. We let the dominant character have the floor. Always.
Though it was chilly on the café porch and rainy, it was worth the view. And warmer than inside the place.
I was glad to have on my scarf that I bought on my first trip to Paris. It’s très tourist, but I like it.
Eye and hand resting time now. I have left Rebecca in a very vulnerable spot today; here’s hoping tomorrow remedies that.
Drema
P.S. A literary journal said that my poem, “A Handkerchief Will Do” made it to late rounds but ultimately was not chosen due to space constraints. Dang it. But I appreciated the positive feedback. The poem is about a trip I took to England, where I struck up an hour-long conversation with someone about Sons and Lovers at the airport, only for him to later ignore me in the Jane Austen Centre. For reasons that the poem knows. (No names are named, nor titles. I don’t even know if we exchanged names, but sir…)
Word Raccoon and I heard rain, so we wrote rain into the novel.
Over the past two days we have written 53 Rebecca pages. Fifty-three! That does not count what we wrote this weekend.
If our hands and eyes weren’t wearing out, we’d keep going.
As I write, I am wondering WHAT IS IN THE ENVELOPE? And, is this a clue?
Rebecca has had thoughts I had no idea she was thinking. She has had some adventures, made some very cool discoveries. I know where everything is (pretty much) going, though I don’t know how any of it happens, not yet.
I hate having to not say more, and if I hadn’t written so much today, I’m sure I could say it more eloquently.
However, two things to share on the publication front.
The first is a poem published by Half and One. They created original artwork to go with my poem, “Squirreling.” The artwork is just adorable, and that’s a first for me, having that done for my poetry. Many thanks to them.
“Squirreling” is based on something I saw at a café, when someone kept looking up every time a car pulled in and only ate half her sandwich and left; I added a fictional touch to imagine the rest of the circumstances. No potato chips were harmed in the making of this poem.
Half and One also chose the poem for their Volume Six print publication which includes their favorite 15-20 pieces they have accepted for the quarter. I’m thrilled.
The second is that I have a poem newly published over on The Closed Eye Open. Thanks to them for publishing Control: The Language. (You have seen it over here before, but they like to give previously shared work a wider audience.) This one means something to me. Well, don’t they all? BTW, you will need to scroll and scroll down the page if you’d like to see it. But do check out the other work there, too, if you have a chance.
Okay, Word Raccoon says that she can’t wait to go to sleep so she can wake up fresh to get back to writing the novel. She’s a fan now. Poetry who? She asks.
This morning was so overcast that I had to plug a lamp in on the sun porch! Don’t mind the messy bessy-ness of it all. August, you know.
Dear Reader,
I began this morning’s writing time not knowing which direction to head. Should I incorporate the new pages into the existing draft, such as it is? Should I look over the printed pages and do the indicated revisions?
Rebecca’s section was particularly difficult because, as you know, I changed her pages from third person to first. Because the book said so. Because Word Raccoon demanded it.
They were right. Today, I glanced at my notes on the printed, third person section. I had identified a scene I needed to write, which meant I needed to either change the rest of the draft I already had or write new pages. By the time Rebecca was buying a new wastepaper basket from Etsy, I knew she needed a fresh start, so I gave it to her.
(And I must say, she has marvelous taste in wastepaper baskets.)
Reader, WR and I wrote 19 pages today, 5K words! No wonder our wrist aches. (It’s fine. We’ll be fine.)
For the first time, this section flows. I know who each person is and what they want. I have a handle on the mystery, and the first puzzle piece has been revealed.
I have given them the means to immediately find some information, and too many places to look for the next bit, which is what they need: some frustration.
The clue revealed a bit of humor in James that I did not know lurked.
Rebecca and Eric are hunting for any traces of Ernest, and WR wants to giggle because she knows who he is and where they can find information about him.
Anyway, I think WR and I wrote a poem this morning. If it’s any good, I’ll include it below. If not, just imagine I wrote a beautiful poem for you.
(This one is definitely barely revised. But sometimes those are the most fun.)
Untitled
There are TV series that have
built-in spoilers
because they’re based on books.
Like A Gentleman in Moscow.
You can watch it slowly
because you already know
where it goes.
Then there are the “don’t tell me, don’t tell me, don’t…”
As I mentioned before, I wrote fourteen pages of my novel while Word Raccoon and I were away at the dunes this weekend.
By hand. (Great shades of Great Expectations, am I right? By hand. Get it?) In my journal. (Remember, it’s All Novel, All August. Again, do we like that? Does the punctuation work? IDK, but I guess at over a week into August I’m committed to the bit.)
It seemed like a good idea at the time, writing by hand.
Yes, she’s blurred on purpose. But that’s the sloppy copy for real, for real.
Actually, it was a good idea. I like writing in my journal when my hand lets me, and apparently Vacation Me was quite industrious because when I got home and counted the words, there were just over 2,000 of them.
The problem with writing by hand, of course, is that eventually someone has to type them up.
And I had already written them once. So, not it. WR called shotgun on that decision.
The very idea! It felt even more unfair to Word Raccoon who had watched me return home and immediately wash the dirty laundry, unpack all of the important things, open packages, and generally reset the house. (Oh, the poor tomato plant is drooping! I thought rain was forecast for the weekend. However, I’m pretty sure the skies are working overtime at the moment, so let’s hope my dear plant survives this monsoon.)
Anyway, I took photos of the pages this afternoon and asked an app to transcribe them for me.
Modern technology!
What a time to be alive!
Except…my handwriting is, ah, apparently not what it used to be. I think of handwriting I admire with sharp, confident edges, writing that says just the thing that your writing needs. WR says she could just inhale that. Well, that’s not my writing right now, though I do have a trove of that sort to gaze upon. Handwriting is a kind of art, isn’t it?
As to my handwriting at the moment? When I’m writing quickly, my handwriting can become…squiggly.
Still, the app did surprisingly well.
Mostly.
Well, except I had written:
A uni groundskeeper in coveralls.
The app transcribed:
Wini Wigginshereker in Coveralls.
Dear Reader, I cry laughed.
Who the hell is Wini Wigginshereker? And why do I love that name so much?
And why, having invented her, did the app apparently decide that in Coveralls was part of her proper name? Sounds like a take on a medieval name: Miss Wini Wigginshereker of Coveralls.
I know who she is now: Wini Wigginshereker in Coveralls, who has worked at Oakmont University (Ah, where we lay our fair scene) for thirty-seven years, owns an alarming number of keys, and knows exactly which faculty members are duds.
Unfortunately, Wini wasn’t the only unauthorized addition to my novel.
At one point Rebecca says, Lovely ring.
Or at least that’s what I wrote.
The transcription had her saying:
Grand ring.
Which sounds less like my creation and more like someone’s elderly British aunt approving an engagement over tea.
Then there was the note in which I wrote gaslighting and received qualifying on the page.
All of which meant that after escaping the task of typing fourteen handwritten pages, I still had to sit down with my journal beside my computer and check the transcription word by word.
Reader, we did not want to.
In fact, WR complained about it for longer than I care to admit. I called her a whining weenie and promised her leftover pizza. She said if I added on an episode of Hacks, I would have a deal.
Then I checked one transcribed page, which wasn’t too difficult because I knew almost immediately when I had not said something that way. (It’s the same sensation I get every effing time I read a short story I had published years ago and reach a couple of sections I KNOW weren’t the way I wrote them. I signed off on the revisions, so that’s on me. Ask me if Drema of Today would do that. SHE WOULD NOT! I’m not against revisions that make my work better. These didn’t make it worse or better, just different. And I preferred mine. Not that I feel passionately about this or anything. Right?)
And another page.
Correcting the mistakes became almost fun as WR roasted the app. Page five.
Page seven.
Another correctly transcribed uni! A shocking triumph, considering it was hit or miss on that point.
And then, somehow, I was finished.
All fourteen pages.
Two thousand odd words, now safely transferred from my journal to my computer, where I can begin figuring out what belongs in the novel and where. (The not-so-easy part. I mean, I have a general idea where most of it goes, but there’s a flow chart in the middle of it – remember the not-murder board? Yeah, that.)
Which means I have once again learned something I already knew and will almost certainly forget the next time I encounter a task I don’t want to do:
Sometimes the dread takes longer than the thing.
Although sometimes the thing also gives you Wini Wigginshereker in Coveralls.
And I think I’m keeping her. What should I do with her, dear reader?
BTW, I wrote this notebook poem this morning. It was amusing at six a.m. Let’s see how it plays during prime time. (As always, a notebook poem means it’s had very little revision, so please have mercy.)
This is a notebook poem I wrote early this morning, curled up in a chair.
Word Raccoon thought you might enjoy it.
It’s just a draft.
Tourist Attraction
One location, two sights,
a brochure promises.
First of all, they still print those?
Soon I find myself enthralled,
gazing at the cherry-picked photos in the stack I snatched
from the wooden holder
by the hotel door.
No, you must Particularize, poet.
Fine.
Marengo Caves.
Shop Shipshewana.
Henry Ford Museum/
Greenfield Village.
(Those two are one.)
My childhood reopens and
this time asks to go to
the places that catch her
fancy, rather than being
shuttled by her parents’
agenda.
But that’s not this poem.
It wants to know if
You were at the
second location
and
what it was like.
Funny how you can live in
the same world
and yet
barely know it.
For instance.
(I assure you, this is all
one poem.)
Living in the same city,
same time,
merely
intersecting
sounds like
one location/two sights
to me.
And we didn’t even sign
the guest book
Today I wrote, again by hand, more novel pages. Nine pages, to be exact. Which will be a pain to transcribe, maybe. Or maybe I will use an app, read into it, if my hand rebels. Whatever. I am thrilled.
In fact, we found ourselves making notes to add other threads here and here.
WR and I think we have broken the code on the Rebecca pages by switching them to first person.
We even created a murder board in the novel except not for a murder. (Yes, we’re being mysterious.)
Maybe, just maybe, the rough draft of book three might get finished before the end of the month.
There is a pain au chocolat in the kitchen, and just like that, breakfast this morning has become unnecessarily complicated.
Word Raccoon says it’s not complicated at all to her.
It began with the scale. Now, while I no longer allow that beastly thing to measure my self-worth, I do have an appointment with the rheumatologist coming up, so I’m trying to trend downward.
No, no, the scale was a gentleman and told me exactly what I wanted to hear. (Mostly.)
But my favorite denim shorts said, “Gorl, he a lie.”
Do I know which to believe as to my progress? Not really. What I do know is that I was anticipating that pastry, and now I need to rethink it.
Dammit.
(A hummingbird just blessed the flowers just outside the sunporch. What a gorgeous sight! They like the red and purple blossoms, I think. WR wanted to ride on its back. Silly animal. )
I had planned to pair the pain au chocolat with a string cheese for protein, and we have some strawberries that need to be eaten. (Need is not the word; they’re not punishment berries.)
Add to that the fact that when I told the mister I want to cut back a smidge on the sweets for the next few weeks, he immediately brought home not one, not two, but SIX small fruit pies!
Mamma mia! How am I supposed to convince these shorts differently now?
I have added a belt to the shorts just in case they decide to say “just kidding” at a most inconvenient moment.
But I’m struggling over what to have for breakfast now.
WR says I should just let her choose.
I beg your pardon, but I already know. You’d choose a chocolate-filled poem, wouldn’t you?
To breakfast decisions and weekends, dear reader.
Drema
P.S. And now an uninvited cup of gas station rice crispy treats has entered the chat! No thank you!
But I did write four pages on my novel BY HAND (seems lefty has forgiven me for all the painting stress for now) in first person.
Yes, that’s the stuff.
Also wrote a very rough draft of a poem, “Bonnets and Suspenders on the Beach.”
I hope you find something to admire in it. 😘
Bonnets and Suspenders on the Beach
The women’s hems skim across the sand
as they tote their babies over their arms like sacks of onions,
white bonnets alerting to the slight wind.
The men roll their pants bottoms.
Another man crosses the blue boardwalk,
wearing an embroidered sombrero the height of two.
Word Raccoon is watching me with a mixture of alarm and amusement, because there should be a little spinning wheel above my head this morning: Brain Processing Error. Please Wait…
And this time, she says, it’s not her fault.
Task: Do laundry.
Simple enough.
Except… towels or my clothes?
Well, that depends.
Am I staying home today?
Or going to the café?
Because if I’m going to the café, I shouldn’t start my own laundry and leave it running. That’s irresponsible.
But wait.
I need to get dressed first.
Gym clothes?
Water-the-plants clothes?
Café clothes?
Well, if I’m going to water the plants, I definitely shouldn’t put on café clothes because I’ll probably end up with dirt on my shorts.
But wasn’t it supposed to rain?
Should I even water the plants?
I should check the weather before getting dressed because the weather decides the clothes, which decide the schedule, which decides the laundry.
Obviously.
And wait… am I even going to the café today?
Didn’t I decide to stay home because I have too much to do?
Except…
Didn’t I do most of those things last night?
Printer upstairs.
House tidied.
Dinner made.
Dishwasher run.
So maybe I am going to the café.
No.
Laundry first.
Towels and workout clothes.
If I wear one set of gym clothes today, the world will somehow continue rotating even if they don’t get washed until tomorrow, won’t they? So it’s fine to wash a load now, worry about today’s gym clothes later.
Excellent.
Decision made.
Except…
No.
Focus.
Towels.
But lifting the laundry basket made my arm complain.
I should take a pain pill.
Later.
Laundry first.
I carry the towels downstairs.
Victory.
I start the washer.
Success.
Wait.
Was that enough detergent?
Should this load get one pod?
Or two?
It’s a fairly large load…
No.
Too late.
And suddenly, with absolutely no logical bridge whatsoever, it becomes critically important that I sanitize the laundry basket.
Why?
I have no idea.
Apparently headquarters issued a memo.
While I’m holding disinfectant…
I should sanitize my phone.
I find an alcohol wipe for doing that.
Then.
Breakfast.
I want peanut butter and a banana.
Is that enough protein?
The bananas need to be used anyway.
There’s also a peach.
The peach should probably be definitely used for or before lunch because otherwise it’ll become one of those peaches that goes from “perfect” to “archaeological specimen” while you’re looking at it.
It’s close.
But later.
Coke Zero.
Which cup? A Red Solo, one of my pink lidded ones, or, gasp, a regular glass?
Which reminds me…didn’t I wash dishes? I need to unload the dishwasher.
I could use a disposable bowl for breakfast and then I won’t have to wash another load right away.
Why is choosing a bowl suddenly a life philosophy? Just eat.
Breakfast accomplished.
Except now I’m watching a SpaceMaker Method video. Oh no, will I be able to make myself turn it off? Those are long and even though I got up early, it won’t be if I keep messing around.
Now it’s warm.
Why is it warm?
It’s cool outside.
Should I open the door and let porch air in?
No, because the porch windows are closed.
That won’t accomplish anything except making me stand there wondering why nothing changed.
Fine.
Ceiling fan.
Perfect.
Actually…
Now I’m cold.
Wasn’t I going to take a pain pill?
I think I have a poem coming out today.
Wait.
Did it already come out?
Did I miss it?
Did they postpone it?
Should I check?
No.
Yes.
Maybe.
Friends, that was only a sampling of what was going on in the brain. I am happy to report, though, that caffeine and some writing cleared the musty old thing and allowed the thoughts to roll after all.
P.S. Earlier I went out to the sunporch to write and schedule this post. While sitting there, I videoed a “suspicious” cat lurking nearby. At first, I thought he was stalking wildlife, but he was actually just visiting the neighbor’s cat!
It took that gentleman over three minutes of slow, careful maneuvering just to get within ten feet of her. He acted like he was hunting in the jungle: carefully approaching, backing up, and then extending his paws.
Now, they are both just sitting there. She is refusing to look at him, and they’ve been frozen like that ever since. It is so sweet.
They look almost like friends. So cute. I wish I could get WordPress to post the video so you could see his dramatic approach! I suppose Ms. Cat was just happy to have the company.
Maybe I can get a screenshot of the video to upload?
One of the things writers must learn to do is observe. If only we could see ourselves as clearly as others do, Word Raccoon says, holding a magnifying glass in her left hand.
I remember riding in a van on the way to an art museum with a college class when another student began talking about philosophy.
At one point he said “The eye cannot see itself.”
“Wait,” I said. “Wait. Let me get my notebook.”
I wrote it down immediately into the tiny tablet I had shoved into my pocket along with a short pen for the trip.
Later that year, it became the first line of the first short story I ever had published.
I’ve been thinking about that sentence again lately.
The eye cannot see itself.
Not without a mirror, WR says.
Human beings possess two curious traits that are equally odd, equally frustrating, and, in their own way, oddly endearing. We can think far more highly of ourselves than we ought to. Or we can despise ourselves for imagined shortcomings, or for faults that are nowhere near as important as we believe.
We cannot see ourselves, sometimes.
WR says that’s evident, by the way some people dress. That’s rude, my furry friend! I assure you, she’s affectionately joking.
Anyway, that’s where generous observers become invaluable.
Sometimes someone notices a strength in us that we had never even imagined was there. Sometimes they laugh affectionately at a flaw we’ve worried over for years, revealing that it isn’t nearly as defining as we’d thought.
And when that happens, something changes. We change.
It becomes easier to notice the hidden strengths in others, too, when we have received that grace.
We begin seeing qualities they may not recognize in themselves.
Not flattering people. Not seeing them as perfect.
But seeing them whole. Caring about them flaws and all.
I like nothing better than to tell people the things I observe and enjoy about them. (The positive things, I mean.)
The eye cannot see itself.
Perhaps that’s as it should be.
Wait, I have strayed from my premise. Forgive me. It is late and WR is tired.
Being a curious, careful observer is crucial for writers. We need to remember that our characters can’t see themselves, either. Remember how in most novels we need our characters to change? (In real life, we accept people, but in novels, an author must, in most instances, bring about change or why is there a novel?) We need our characters to change, and that is by helping them see themselves.
I think Word Raccoon is getting into writing the novel now.
I say this because this morning, after I insisted she needed to do a recyclables run (we had a carful of cardboard!) and wash the car, she insisted we were going to the café to work on the novel because, get this, she wasn’t happy with how much we didn’t get to do yesterday.
“But I squeezed a couple of hours out of yesterday after my hair appointment to take you to the café and revise.”
“Yes,” she said, “but we didn’t go to the gym at all, and we didn’t write much and you know we go to the gym.”
“We couldn’t do both.”
She raised an eyebrow.
I had planned to go to the gym after the musical we saw last night, Anything Goes. It was a stunning production. This morning, while watering the flowers, we halloed our neighbor to tell him how much we enjoyed his performance.
WR wants to learn how to dance like those dancers! And she was thoroughly entertained by Cole Porter’s music, especially You’re the Top.
By the time we got home, though, I was no longer feeling the gym, and WR scolded me.
What is happening to this raccoon? Caring about the novel and the gym? My, my…
(She has been writing a bit of poetry in strawberry jam on her breakfast plate lately. I suspect she’ll continue.)
Yesterday we made it through the novel thread we’d expected to be the knotty one. It turned out not to be so bad, though it still needs work, and we cut some pages.
Today, though, we tackled the dreaded Rebecca Pages™.
We made it through all 149 of them.
We read every page, made light revisions, and, perhaps most importantly, cut thirty pages devoted to a plot point we finally admitted we didn’t like.
Cutting those pages will help us find the novel underneath their weight.
I’m pretty sure I’m going to change Rebecca’s sections from close third person to first. I know, I know, but third person feels prophylactic somehow. It keeps me at arm’s length from her, and I don’t think that’s where this story wants me to stand.
(A fly is crawling around the outside of my water glass. I briefly considered pouring a little water onto the table for it. Is that ridiculous?)
Later today, I’m hoping to spend some time simply mulling the novel. Having seen all of it again, I’ve seen the good, the bad, and everything in between. Tomorrow I’ll figure out my next steps. I assume that will include deciding how to replace the plot point I removed because…well…it included the ending, and now I don’t have one.
We’re not skeered.
Dear Reader, surprise, I think these surprise lilies are making me sneeze.
If time allows (tomorrow’s to-do list is looking rather ambitious), I’d like to spend some of that mulling time on the café porch again. ‘Tis the season, and it won’t last forever. But we’ll see…
Word Raccoon enjoys watching the traffic and speculating about the lives of those who pass by. Stories are everywhere.
And now let’s see if I can do some of tomorrow’s tasks now.
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