Writing The Chapters: Excerpt From My Book: A Friendly Guide to Writing and Ghostwriting
he pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.
- - - Vladimir Nabokov
Writing the first chapter is like going on a blind date. All you know about the person sitting opposite you is what you can see on the outside. You’re strangers. You have no opinions about each other. You have no history together. But as you get more comfortable, you begin to share feelings and the life experiences that have shaped you. You notice where your lives have intersected in the past, what you share in the present, and the more often the two of you meet, the more you learn about each other. Pretty soon, the conversation is flowing and you either decide that it won't work or you’re anxious to see where it can go.
The book that you’re creating is also a stranger. You have a working title and an opening line, you know what it’s about in broad terms, but now you have to really get in there. Hip hip calls it “getting in the pocket.” In writing, it's called “getting into the zone.” When I was writing my first novel, I hit a wall of frustration early on. After several attempts to get the narrative flowing, I pushed away from the computer and called a friend, also a writer. “My idea is a good one,” I said. “I know what the book is about and I’m ready to start but it won't let me in.”
I wasn’t looking for answers. I knew there were none. It was up to me to get going, but I needed a sounding board. My friend offered me encouragement and she reminded me that I didn’t have to begin at the beginning. I could start writing whichever chapter I chose.
That helped. I had a clear vision of my second chapter so I decided to start there. The beauty of writing a first draft is that you can start with the second chapter, jump ahead to the fifth, and then go back to the first. It’s like laying out the pieces to a puzzle and randomly trying to fit them together. You add a piece here, put back a piece, add another there, and watch it begin to resemble the picture on the front of the puzzle box.
When you’re writing, the chapters begin to translate the idea in your head, but it’s important to be patient. If you have the idea for the book and a Table of Contents but you’re not filling up the page with words yet, you might think you’re slacking off. That isn't necessarily true. I’ve identified three steps to get myself going, two of which precede the actual writing phase.
Step #1: Living through the experience
When I’m in the midst of an event, this is not the time to for me to write. It’s time to focus on my senses and see and feel everything that’s happening.
Step #2: Integrating thoughts and ideas
When the event is over, it’s time to consider what has happened and how it has affected me. What has changed and what has remained the same? How have I changed and how have I remained the same?
Step #3: Writing
The previous steps prepare me to sit down at the computer and start writing.
Letting the process occur organically will bring you closer to yourself and give you the ability to express your thoughts in real terms. Being delusional about your strengths or your weaknesses will keep you at arm’s length. Here are six ways writers get stuck in delusions.
1. You read back what you just wrote in your first draft and decide it doesn't need any editing.
2. You tell yourself that an agent or a publisher will love your work even though it bores you.
3. You get smart constructive criticism and you ignore it.
4. You leave in errors and typos because you can't be bothered to fix them.
5. The second half of your book is repetitious because you’re sure that your readers have forgotten the first half.
6. When you get stuck, you decide that the chapter is finished and you stop writing.
When your mind feels jumbled and your frustration levels are rising, instead of judging yourself, running in place and getting nowhere, remember that your first draft will most likely not be excellent. It may not even be good but that doesn't mean you should stop trying, even when you feel like you're moving at a snail’s pace. You just have to write.
“I’ve told people,” said Amy Poehler, “that writing this book has been like brushing away dirt from a fossil. What a load of shit. It has been like hacking away at a freezer with a screwdriver.”
I know how easy it is to assume that other people are doing better and advancing faster than you are, but you have no idea how the objects of your envy are feeling about their work or what they’re telling themselves. When I was in the ballet, I remember struggling with a brand new piece of choreography. It appeared that the other dancers were having an easier time picking it up than I was. They were sailing along, wearing beatific smiles, and they looked cool and collected as they performed the steps like they were second nature. I wondered how they could be so confident while I felt so inadequate. Then I realized that I was doing the same thing they were doing. I was wearing that same smile and if one of them looked at me, they would think I was breezing through the choreography as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
Comparisons have nothing to offer besides false information that leaves you feeling inferior to someone else. If you think another person is faster or better than you are, if you think someone else has a handle on what they’re doing and you don’t, you're usually wrong and you're only hurting yourself. The same goes for thinking you're better than anyone else. We all have different strengths and weaknesses and we all work at different paces. Some people write like the wind and go back to edit their work later. Others labor over one page at a time and only go forward when they’re satisfied with what they wrote. I know a writer who walks away the minute his scheduled time is up. Another writer deliberately stops in the middle of an unfinished idea so she has an open gateway into her material when she returns to write the next day.
Everyone has his or her own way of working. What matters is getting something on the page. Anything. There are no short cuts. If you don't nurture the ability to be consistent and focused, you’ll never reach the Nirvana of watching words appear on the page with seemingly no effort on your part. You have to keep checking your attitude. Have you found interesting or unusual ways to say things?
If you look beneath the surface and tune into the subtext, the tacit thoughts that lie beneath the words, you’ll find new ways to write about events and ideas that will leave your readers rapt. The subtext, the meaning behind the words, is far more honest than the words themselves. Clichés and stale descriptions are signs of lazy writing. A big yawn.