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I have a confession to make: I never outline. Or, rather, I never outline successfully. I’ll try every so often to jot down some notes for future scenes and, in one case, I actually plotted out an entire book, but it never works. Oh, I wrote the book to the outline successfully (during National Novel Writing Month back in 2006, I think the year was), but every time I outline, I run into the same problem.

Melodrama.

In the aforementioned novel, I had a wedding, a lottery winner, a little old lady who found a cat and gave it to her granddaughter without parental permission, a girl drowning in a pool because her mother was on the phone, and then that same mother running away (and her husband chasing her, of course) because she couldn’t face her guilt—all in 50,000 words. And trust me, it was much more melodramatic than the above list makes it sound.

You see, I tend to like subtle tension in my writing, the small moments that open up into larger ones, but when I try to write that down in an outline, it looks like there is no tension in the story, and so I add more.

For my current book, I haven’t done any outlining. I just finished part one, and I don’t know yet what the first scene of part two will be. Instead of planning, I’m going to go back to what I’ve already written and decide what seems natural based on what I already have.

This reminds me of a quote by Nabokov about how his characters are galley slaves—he doesn’t let them take over the book, as many other authors will tell you their characters do (and that that’s how they know a story has life). And despite what I said above, I think I fall in the middle—if I let my characters do whatever they wanted I’m sure I’d end up with a boring book. Instead, I focus on character motivation but always remember that I have the power to to change that motivation to fit what I want.

For instance, I was writing one of the early scenes in my book and decided that it would amp up the tension if one of my characters could potentially be pregnant. However, the way I’d written her, she was a very sexually-conscious woman, well-versed in contraception, and I didn’t want the maybe-I’m-pregnant tension to come from that 1% chance of failure; THAT felt like melodramatic manipulation. So I spent weeks brainstorming reasons this very forward-thinking woman would make a decision that was very likely to end up with an unwanted pregnancy. Had I let the character take over, I would have had to cut that thread and lost that tension. But had I been set on getting her pregnant from the beginning, I probably would have created a different character, a more soap-opera worthy one.

It’s been an insanely crazy week! There were a few hours on Monday when I thought I might have to turn in my thesis next week (when I was expecting late-May), and, as you can imagine, this triggered a sizable panic attack. But luckily for me my thesis advisor has my back and I’m now scheduled to defend June 9 (instead of May 20). Commence sigh of relief.

My novel (!) is now just over 75 pages and I’ve got the entire narrative arc of section one written. It feels incredible to be able to say that. That means I’ll spend the next three weeks revising, revising, revising. I want to tighten this first section as much as possible. For the first pass I think that will mean continuing to drop little seeds for me to grow later in parts two and three of the book. For instance, one subplot that is going to become pretty big in part two had fallen away by page 35 so I went and dropped a few more small details around page sixty, just so the reader doesn’t forget (and so the eventual importance of that move seems believable). Now I know why it took me twenty-five years to learn how to revise: It’s hard!

In short story news, I wrote my first one today in about a year. It felt good, but those particular writing muscles are a bit rusty. I’m looking forward to being able to spend at least one day a week on short stories once I graduate. (I’m supposed to be breathing thesis right now, but I didn’t really cheat because the short story featured characters from my book.) I’m hoping that will mean I can start sending off more short stories again, for publication. I decided to stop (with Sam’s advice) because if an editor likes my story but it isn’t quite right, and he or she asks to see more work, I don’t have anything to send. Oh, I have other short stories, but none are ready to be sent off, and I don’t have the time right now to devote the tens of hours it would take to get them in shape. So I’m waiting.

Other than that, I’m just pushing my way through my thesis reading list. Right now I’m working on The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. It’s fantastic. Now I just want to find one (or preferably two) more male writers to add to my list; it’s decidedly female-friendly right now with only two men.

Oh, and I need some sort of working title for my book (other than Working Title of Thesis the Awesome). I hate titles.

I recently read The Gathering Storm, the 12th volume of The Wheel of Time fantasy series. For those who don’t know, the author, Robert Jordan, died after completing book 11, but he left behind about a gazillion notes and so now another author, Brandon Sanderson, is finishing the series. And at one point while reading the book I noticed that a character was in a completely different country than where she’d been in the previous scene. And I thought, if I noticed it, why didn’t Sanderson!?

Well, I can now tell you: It’s really frickin’ hard.

Some mixups from my last few days of writing (and I have only part of one book and nowhere near the thousands of characters in the WoT):

• a five minute scene started in the morning and ended at night…the day  before
• I sent my characters to play miniature golf…in November…inMichigan…while wearing church clothes
• a guy working a 9 to 5 job was home showering at 3:30 on a weekday
• a bottle of white wine mysteriously changed to red

You get the picture.

So what silly mixups have you found in your own writing?

Since coming back from AWP, I’ve been in a heightened state of thesis panic. My defense date (which hasn’t actually been set yet since the grad office is dragging their feet apparently—but that’s another story) is looming ever closer, and for some reason, coming back from the conference really threw that into sharp focus for me, resulting in a minor (or not so minor) panic attack in the office last week. (Though I’m not the only one; I hear other of my fellow conference attendees have had similar mental breakdowns since returning to Washington.)

So now I’m churning out pages, and for the first time in my life, I find I’m able to keep to a strict writing regimen of at least two pages, six days a week.

I know that won’t seem like a lot to everyone—maybe to most people—but it’s been a big change for me, who, in the past, has participated in more of a binge-writing lifestyle. But I’m nearing the end, and for a few months, I was stalled; it seemed that every time I sat down to write that I had fewer pages than the last time. So for now my concern has to be getting raw pages down. I’m still focusing on the writing, of course—it seems that I’m incapable of doing the 5,000 words a day I could sometimes manage back when I wrote for NaNoWriMo—but my biggest concern is churning out new material every day.

It’s a new way of writing this thesis for me, but I think it’s ultimately good and I wonder why it took me so many months to get to this spot. How do you handle when circumstances mandate a change in your writing? Are there certain times in the first draft when you care more or less about quality?

Last weekend was the annual AWP conference, and I spent Wednesday through Sunday in Denver attending. As this was my first ever conference, I wasn’t sure what to expect beyond some nervousness and a whole lot of people. As it turned out, however, I need not have worried about the first, as after about ten minutes, I realized there just wasn’t time to be nervous.

I spent about half of my time working the Willow Springs table, talking to people who came by and giving away magazines, which apparently makes people angry because we are “devaluing” the work. I think it’s always a good thing to get your work into the hands of people, though, so whatever.

After that, I spent a good chunk of time walking the bookfair, learning about presses and journals and meeting my peers. I got some leads on what I want to do when (if?!) I graduate and am going to start writing book reviews for the online journal, The Collagist (if they like my stuff, of course). My advisor walked around with me too, and that was probably the most useful hour of the entire conference, being introduced and having a long talk about the writing/editing career I’m starting on.

Finally, I attended a few sessions, though not nearly as many as I thought I would. Going in I thought these would be one of the highlights of my conference, but I learned pretty quickly that there was more to be gained by networking.

And all that was just during the “official” conference. My nights were spent attending readings and, once, a party at a bar where I was able to mingle with a group of writers who have found ways to make their art their life. Okay, so I might have pissed off Robert Lopez by not sharing my chicken and rice, but it was a great night (and he’s actually very nice). Three of our Willow Springs writers were at the event, and I got a chance to talk to all of them (two of whom I’d previously exchanged emails with).

I’m home now (actually, I’ve been home almost a week but it’s taken all that time to recover), and I’ve never felt so inspired to work. I have a bad habit of skipping days of writing (successive days, even), but I’ve done at least some sort of creation every day since. It sort of pointed out to me how real this creative life can be, and how close I am to possibly achieving it.

Anyway, this feels like a very trite blog post to me, but I’m in a rush to head out to an event for our literary festival: I’m assisting with a workshop for teen writers this afternoon, but more on that later.

Thesis revisions have not been going well this past month. Not only was I super busy and didn’t spend near as much time as I should have on my book, one of my revision tasks threw me for a total loop. I needed to add tenderness to a relationship, because if the reader doesn’t see why the relationship would exist in the first place, you can’t expect them to care if it lasts or not. The problem is that my main female character has a bit of a temper, and I didn’t want to sacrifice her character (as I see it) for plot conventions.

That said, yes, I can see that these revisions needed to be done, and what’s been taking me so long was working these in. I knew, theoretically, that I could accomplish what I needed by adding bits here and there (without, in other words, adding an entire new scene), but my first few tries ended up feeling either really forced or no different than the original. By my calculations I’ve got between eight and ten weeks to finish my thesis, and so the stall that was early- to mid-March really had me panicked. But I am moving again, finally.

My goal for break is to add between fifteen and twenty-five new pages—and that’s in addition to the revisions. It’s going to be a lot of work, and it means I won’t get to relax as much as I’d like, but if I can add twenty-five pages I’ll have the required eighty for the thesis and then will be able to go back to revisions again. That route gives me a more polished thesis but leaves me with more to be written once I graduate. On the other hand, I can aim for a total of forty-five-ish new pages, which would probably get me through the first quarter or so of what will be my final book.

Other than writing, I also want to get through at least two more thesis books. I still need to finish The Sound and the Fury (which I may ultimately leave off my list because I’ve struggled so much with it), and I’ve also started on Amy Hempel’s complete works (through two of her four collections).

So yeah, that’s what’s on my plate right now. Busy busy!

I’ve never had more blog visitors than I did on March 1, the day I started my Day Zero Project. It’s inspiring to know how many people were interested in what I’ve decided to do with the next few years.

Technically I’m already a bit behind, since I need to be completing one goal every ten days, but I’m not concerned. Not only do I have something like 988 days left, I’ve also made some progress toward some of the bigger goals (such as blog posts [2] and massages [2]). I’ve also started filling a box in my room with items I want to give away (or get rid of). I haven’t counted how many things I have in there, but there are some books, some shirts, two sweaters, a pair of sweatpants, and some hats/gloves/scarves. I’m also preparing my old computer to be donated, along with an old router and modem.

I also submitted a piece of fiction to a new journal today. It’s a piece that’s been rejected twice already, but that’s just the way things go. And actually, now that I look at my list, that does cross something off, because I had “Resubmit something that’s been rejected.” Awesome!

I know that sounds like sort of a cop-out goal, but rejection is something that I’ve struggled with over the years. Namely, I have this crazy large fear of failure that often means I won’t try anything that I’m not positive I will be successful at. So to continue to send something out even after failing is a big deal for me. The piece is out at two journals right now and I have a long list of other places to try if I get more rejections (which I probably will because I’ve decided to start at the most prestigious places and work my way down).

I also am submitting a piece to a contest this week. As part of my nonfiction portfolio we have to send a piece to either a contest or as a general submission, and I decided, for the first time ever, to try a contest. Now nonfiction isn’t really my thing—if anything, the workshop showed me that I have a much stronger natural affinity/ability for fiction than I do for nonfiction. I have some theories on why this might be (one of which involves an unencouraging professor), but I’m really okay with being stronger in one area. Besides, I enjoy fiction more. This one, however, I won’t be crossing off the list, since what I really intended when I wrote item 12 was “submit to a fiction contest,” since I feel that will be a much better gauge of my skill level.

My second-to-last quarter as an MFA student ends next week, which means I’m in a crazy end of quarter crunch right now. Particularly stressful is the portfolio due for my nonfiction class. (As an aside I used to think I was pretty equally talented in essay and fiction writing, but I now know better. Much better.) I’ve really been struggling with the revision on my essay that I’m including in the portfolio. It’s about bras, and it was super fun to write, but I’ve been having serious trouble coming up with a focus. So it’s about the bra, I’ve got that much figured out, but I still have to figure out what the bra is about…if that makes any sense.

Anyway, other than that the deadline for our fiction contest passed, which has meant hours of logging and reading for me, as well as coordinating the team I put together, I’ve also been doing a lot of reading, both for my thesis and class. But the last few nights I’ve been making sure to take at least a few minutes before bed to read something completely unrelated to school stuff. The past two nights the book I’ve picked up has been A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome, which appeals to the history buff in me (I was sick on Tuesday and watched the History channel all day; I can tell you lots about the last Ice Age now). However, this book, while interesting, hasn’t exactly  been the stress-free read I was hoping for. Let me give you an example.

From a chapter on the Imperial Forums: “We go in. We are penetrating the perimeter of the largest basilica the Romans have built thus far. We feel disoriented by its dimensions, and by the height of the ceilings” (229).

The above, in my opinion, is nothing short of bad writing. Even allowing the author the use of the second-person, there are better ways to write those three sentences. Such as

We go in, penetrating the perimeter of the largest basilica the Romans have built thus far. Its dimensions are disorienting, as is the height of the ceiling.

And that was quick; it took me maybe thirty seconds. With a few minutes I think I could clean that up even further. But what’s important to notice is that the exact same information is conveyed. Even the emotions that the author wants to evoke in the reader, though my delivery is less insulting to the reader’s intelligence. It still tells the reader what to feel, but it’s not so blunt.

Have you seen this type of delivery in books before? Did you notice the problem when you first looked at the quote from the book? How would you rewrite those few sentences?

When people find out I’m studying fiction writing, one of the first questions they ask me is what I’m going to do for a job. If they hazard a guess, they mention teaching. Strangely, no one mentions being an author. All those books at Barnes and Noble must just appear out of thin air.

When I was in professional writing, the ideas about what I would do for a career were slightly more varied. Sometimes they’d ask about teaching AND journalism, and never mind the fact that then I could have been a journalism major. The thing is, a lot of people see writing as a sort of cop out major, as hobby instead of career choice. When I switched from engineering to writing, a friend whispered behind my back that I just wasn’t smart enough to handle a “real” program. And really, I don’t choose to write fiction because it’s something that will make me money. Instead it’s something that I enjoy, something I’m good at. It might make me some money; I hope it does, but that’s not why I do it.

So back to those two career choices I seem to have: I’m not all that qualified to teach, and I have no desire to be a journalist. What’s a girl to do?

Well, as it turns out, there are countless jobs open to writers. I could go into editing or publishing (the two fields I’m looking at most strongly). I could do PR or communications work, which right there gives me ins to pretty much every company in the world. I could work for a nonprofit, or the government. As a personal assistant. As an office assistant. I could do copy writing, technical writing, web writing. I could write plot and dialogue for video games. I could write famous people’s books. I could freelance resumes and cover letters, writing them for people who don’t know how.

Look around you, at the sheer quantity of the written word. For now we’ll ignore other means of visual communication. There are cookbooks, instruction manuals, advertisements, product labels, blog posts, fine print, emails, bills, magazines, coupons… And that’s not even counting all those books (they magically appear, remember?). All of that, by writers.

If you can’t tell, I’m starting my job hunt, and each day I’m astounded by the sheer number of opportunities before me. So you tell me, how has your career used the written word?

I’m so excited to be done with this revision!

I just finished revising the first 47 pages of my thesis, and man am I excited! I’ve been working on these revisions for a month now, and I’m very glad to be moving forward again; I never expected the revision to take this long. My original goal was to have the pages to my advisor by the Friday two weeks ago, but that deadline has obviously come and gone.

What I struggled the most with in this, my first real revision ever (I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never revised before), was a particular dinner scene, which I needed to add tension to. It’s the first real moment of direct conflict, but in the original draft it was over in four pages. I initially shied away from the drama because I didn’t want it to sound hokey or melodramatic. I think I found a good balance in this draft and more than doubled the length of the scene.

I also struggled with my character’s motivations and relationships; in the first draft my advisor said he wasn’t sure why my main girl and guy protagonists were together—there was no affection in the relationship. Here, again, I was shying away from what I was afraid of writing. I think I’ll still need to add more of this in the next draft, but I think I’ve been able to add a lot without making it seem like overkill or romance-novel worthy.

In the end, I deleted a lot, added a lot, and ended up with seven new pages and more complex characters, so that’s certainly a good thing. Now I just need to add another strong thirty pages (minimum). Three months to go.