Writing the First Draft: Don't Look Back

Yesterday I completed the 250th page of a my projected 350-page novel. This had a sort of milestone feel to it, so this morning, instead of working on page 251 as I knew I should, I decided to reward myself by flipping through the pages completed thus far. Result?

Artist's rendering of my expression after perusing the pages of my work-in-progress

Allow me to share with you some of the thoughts of my inner critic.

"Wow. That opening sentence will grab approximately no one."
"Excellent scene! If only you had written it in English."
"You do understand the concept of a timeline, right?"
"This is a novel, not a run-on sentence competition."
"The logic flow in this chapter is impeccably flawed."
"Is there a cliched expression you haven't used yet?"

Fellow writers, if you're in the middle (or beginning or near the end) of your first draft, do yourself a favor: Do not look back. Keep going until it's finished. There will be plenty of time afterward to make whatever changes are needed to silence the inner critic. But if you let that critic get to work too soon, it becomes all the more difficult to carry on.

I Can Not Not Write. Not.

I enjoy reading articles and interviews with writers about the writing process. Inevitably, the writer is asked, "What would you do if you couldn't write?"

The answer that knocks me out of my chair, ROFLMA-style, is, "I can't imagine not writing."

Really? As a full-time writer, I can most definitely imagine not writing. In fact, I spend a good deal of my writing time not writing. I believe it's a Newtonian Law of Physics: the more time available for the written word, the fewer words written.

Why the seeming contradiction? In my case, the explanations are as logical as they are numerous. For example, I have bookshelves. These bookshelves hold many books. These books are of varying height and width. How can one write when yesterday's arrangement is no longer satisfactorily aligned with the creative pathways?

I also have a desk. Pens, notepads, coffee mugs (see pic), more books, aspirin bottles, and a variety of other items must be rearranged, put away, or used to sharpen my stacking-items-of-different-shapes skills before I can focus properly. I also have a dog who pretends to sleep contentedly at my feet when I know she is just dying to go on a four-mile walk. I have a Facebook page that needs face time; a twitter account that needs tweeting. Have I mentioned that I have fast-growing fingernails? Before you know it, it's the cocktail hour. And it is very bad karma indeed for a writer to ignore the cocktail hour.

And, oh yeah, there's the fact (for me, anyway) that the writing process itself tends be a wee bit painful.

So why do I do it? Beats the hell out of me. All I know is, when I'm finished not writing, I just can't help myself.

What about you? Can you not not write? If not, why not? (Extra points if you can figure out that question. I can... not.)

New Cover Part II

The new cover was developed by the talented artist and illustrator Jim Tierney. I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the other covers he submitted.

In this first one, I like the road leading... perilously but eventually... to a new day. (Or is it setting?)

 

 "Walking Bill" below will grace the back cover of the new paperback.

 

 I like April in the one below, but not nearly as much as the April on the final.

 

Here's another sun that raises the question: rising or setting?

 

And because I love it so much, here's the final again:

New Cover for Bill... and April

I'm very pleased to announce that the paperback version of Bill Warrington's Last Chance will be out in October. And it has a completely new cover. Whaddya think?

Letter to a First Love

Dear SC:

Surprise! I know it's probably weird hearing from me after all these years. But the other day I was on the internet and your picture came up on a Google search and all of these memories overwhelmed me and, well, I just had to write.

Remember the day we met? High school graduation, June1973. I knew from the moment I opened that big, black Smith Corona carrying case and saw you for the first time--sleek, blue, and ready to qwerty--that  you and I were going to do great things together.

Sure, you were a bit heavy and, true, a lot of writers would have preferred an electric. But you seemed to know, somehow, that I wasn't like other writers--probably because you found out, first hand, that my writing sucked. LOL!

But you stuck with me through college, waited patiently for me to return from overseas, and then came all the way out from Ohio to join me in San Francisco. I couldn't wait to get my hands on you. The Great American Novel awaited our combined talents.

You were so kind not to tell me how truly awful that first novel was. Supportive, too, through all those query letters to agents and all the follow-up letters thanking them for their consideration of my manuscript and apologizing that it did not meet their needs at this time. So many of those letters! I tried not to let it bother me, but I admit I sometimes took out my frustration on you. I still cringe when I think of the night I  picked you up and nearly threw through the window at a passing cable car. That must have been terrifying for you. I'm sorry.

Actually, SC, the real reason I'm writing is to explain why there came that awful day when I couldn't bring myself to open your case, place you gently on the rickety table next to the bay window, and stare at you for hours. I let you think that I was working late, building my career. Oh, I was at work all right. But the fact is that I was staying late to write my novel... on the office IBM Selectric. It was wrong of me, I know. And I know I was in way over my head: Those suckers cost about $600, which was a ton of money back then. But I simply couldn't resist the auto-correct, the limited memory, the magical font ball. An office fling. It was cliche. It was shameful. I'm sorry.

I guess you could say I've had problems with commitment. After Selectric, I had a fling with Kaypro until the operating system went obsolete about five minutes after we'd met. There was Apple II, until I thought I'd discovered my lifelong writing partner in Macintosh. But then I met Toshiba, a laptop with the siren song of writing in the Great Outdoors. I fell hard. It's a sickness, I know. With each new partner, each new bell and whistle, I was convinced that novel would simply take shape, practically write itself. It didn't.

I've been with Dell for quite a few years now, and finally realized the dream that you and I worked toward all those many years ago. But here's the thing: Dell tends to get a bit restless and insists on taking me me places that working writers should best avoid: Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, LinkedIn. (And I keep hearing about this place called Farmville.)

Will you feel terribly awkward if I say that I miss you? But I do. I miss your nonelectric ways. I miss the sound of your tiny hammers against paper--so much more satisfying than the geeky clacking of a computer keyboard. I miss the ritual and promise of rolling in a blank sheet of paper, of resting my fingers on your keys, of gently returning your carriage at the end of each sentence. Pure writing. No distractions.

Would you mind terribly if I tried to find you? I think it's worth another shot together. Please don't say no. I'm going to do my best to track you down... right after I check out this new MacBook Air I keep hearing so much about.

Until then,
Jim