Works in progress

When I rebooted this blog last January, along with my intent to get back into fiction writing, I had in the back of my mind the idea that I would work on a novel in November.

For many years now, I’ve had a couple of ideas for novels rolling around in my brain like loose marbles, and a few months ago I decided November would be the best time to start putting one of them down in writing. I’d written several short stories by then, had had a few published, and had gotten in the groove of thinking like a writer, so why not? Plus, November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and what better time to start than then, along with scores of other wannabe novelists who share my dreams and my pain?

Then came the NaNoWriMo controversy, which arose after the organizers said they would not ban the use of artificial intelligence in by participating writers. Call me a Luddite, but I’m not a fan of using AI in writing, so I won’t be signing up for NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo or no NaNoWriMo, I was still determined to start writing a novel in November.

Then, the more I ruminated on my two novel ideas and started fleshing out some thoughts about both, I thought, Why wait until November?

So I drafted the first chapter of one novel last Thursday, October 24.

Now I was off and running. Cooking with gas, as the old-timers say.

So excited was I, I fired up X/Twitter to share the good news.

https://twitter.com/andrewcareaga/status/1849487326038421851

Gotta admit, I died a little on the inside when I saw how little engagement this post got from my fellow writers.

But anyway, I was still stoked about my accomplishment, so I drafted the first chapter of the other novel later that same day.

Crazy, right?

A Jekyll-and-Hyde approach?

Is this a good idea, to work on two novels at the same time? Shouldn’t I focus on one single project?

I don’t know. I guess we’ll see how this approach turns out. Maybe I’m taking a Jekyll-and-Hyde approach that will end up as a disaster.

But right now I’m thinking of this approach as a competition of sorts between two ideas. I’ll work on both and see which one wins out over time. And that’s the one I’ll stick with to the finish, and set aside the other for later development. Maybe.

These two works in progress are different in some ways and similar in others. Both protagonists are college-aged men. Both books are set in the late 1970s to early 1980s (with a few flashbacks to the ’60s thrown in for good measure). One of the book is written in the first person, the other in the third person. Both are coming of age stories, in a sense. Both novels will be character driven, I think — that is, the plot will arise from the interactions of the characters — but the characters of both novels are quite different.

Characters > plot

About plot: I am embracing the messiness of creating the characters, placing them in the setting, and letting them interact with each other. As they get to know each other, the plot arch will arise. That’s my hope, anyway.

I’m hanging on to a couple of snippets of writing guidance from Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird. These are snippets from other writers Lamott thought worth sharing more broadly, and I agree so I’m sharing them here for you all, and as a reminder to myself.

1. “E.L. Doctorow once said that ‘writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice about writing, or life, I have ever heard.” That’s from page 17 of Lamott’s book, if you want to look it up. I’m with Anne and E.L. on this.
2. Alice Adams shared with Lamott and formula for writing short stories that I’ve apparently been following, albeit subconsciously. The formula is ABDCE, which stands for Action, Background, Development, Climax, and Ending. Both novel works in progress start with action, so I’ve at least got the first part of the formula down. Now I’m working on development — mainly the development of characters.

Both Doctorow and Adams are no longer with us, but their words and guidance live on to inspire today’s writers. Whether either work in progress makes it to the finish line of publication, I’ll do my damnedest to focus on characters first and drive on through the darkness and fog into the destination, with the high-beams on, white-knuckling it at times, but moving on toward whatever the destination of this road trip/joy ride of writing awaits.

AI-generated image. (This is the only way I will use AI, for artwork, not for writing.)