This is the story of you and your story. At the moment you get serious and enter a committed relationship, the honeymoon begins. You're in that wonderful period where anything and everything goes. The world is full of unlimited possibilities. Everything is exciting. Everything clicks. There are no worries. No plot holes. No vast expanses of frustration as you plod your way from one pivotal scene to the next. In short, you are happy.

Enjoy it while you can because the honeymoon does not last. Very soon you will hit that plot hole and find yourself trying to figure out how your protagonist was in Paris at three o'clock, in Sydney at three thirty, and your story involves no science fiction elements whatsoever.

The frustration builds and builds until you find yourself in that situation you never expected to happen. You'll meet another story. And at that moment, you'll know something special is about to transpire.

I had chosen to draw a picture of an animal. It might have been a raccoon, but I don't rightly remember. At any rate, I drew the rough outline of the head and body, then began drawing one of the eyes. This eye was highly detailed. I spent hours and hours on the exact shape, outline, light glint, and the close surrounding features, like the raccoon's fuzzy face.

When the project was complete I had a brilliantly-drawn eye set in the middle of a rough outline of a raccoon's head and body. This is what happens when you ignore (literally, in this case:) the big picture.

I do this with writing all too often: focusing and getting hung up on the most minute details without paying attention to the larger story. I've run otherwise good ideas right into the ground using this technique. This isn't how stories are written (he said, as if he were an expert on story writing). It's more like working in clay: throw a lump down, shape it, take a look, shape it some more. Gradually flesh out the details, evenly, and with the appropriate amount of focus and effort at each stage.

I had a breakthrough this week while writing. Let's say I had three story sections: A, B, and C. Section A was finished. Section C was well-thought-out, but completely unwritten. Section B was needed to bridge the two, but was giving me fits. It was one of those sections that sucks the life out of you, getting hung up in details that are vastly disproportionate to where you are in the writing process.

So I stepped back. I looked at Section B and realized it was really nothing more than: protagonist meets person X, accomplishes task Y, and comes away believing idea Z. In the final book, this may wind up being two paragraphs or six chapters. I don't know yet. And I don't have to know yet. All that matters is that X, Y, and Z happen. I can figure out the rest on the next pass. And, if it does turn out to be two paragraphs, I shant have wasted the time writing six throwaway chapters on it.

As soon as I did that ("insert X, Y, and Z here") everything started flowing quickly again, as it should, and I'm only sorry I didn't do it sooner. In fact, little parts of Section C are also utilizing this technique and I love it. The story is flowing very quickly and all of these little IOUs can be easily paid off once I see how they fit into the bigger picture.

Give it a shot. The time you save just may be your own.

Didn't the writing bug also bite you that one day you left middle school right after lunch due to the flu and on the way home you were abducted by aliens? Then, after being gone several years, they returned you back to the exact time and place they took you? And you were pretty much none the worse for the experience except for the curse they laid upon you: the ever-present desire to write novels but without the ability to construct a plot that would hold a reader's attention for more than half a latte? Didn't that happen to you too?

Here I am, more than seventeen years after my abduction, and I'm still living with this issue. I may someday fill you in on what happened during those intervening years, but not right now. Suffice it to say I spent a good chunk of it writing non-fiction. I certainly figured out how to write words good . . . but then I made a naive mental leap. I assumed this meant I could write a novel. "You're a great writer!" my imaginary friends would tell me. "You should be able to write a book without any problem at all."

If by "without any problem" my invisible pals meant "with lots and lots of problems," then they were spot on. Simply being able to write good is not the same thing as telling a good story. For a number of years I had an uneasy feeling this was the case. Fortunately, two very non-imaginary people, Jack and Jill, took a look at my work and pointed this out to me. They each employed a constructive manner using plenty of terms that couldn't possibly terminate a friendship.

As I prepare to give this another go tomorrow, the second month of PBWQ, I'm hoping the story structure I've worked and reworked over the last four to six weeks or so pays off. Otherwise I'm calling those aliens and demanding my money back.

Productivity-wise, I had a pretty good week. In spite of the fact that I had several nothing-at-all days, the (essentially) two days I was on were good ones. As I mentioned in my PBWQ update yesterday, I decided this week to visualize the entire storyline as a series of bullet points. So instead of writing a long and winding synopsis like so:

At this point the protagonist decided to fix a bowl of cereal. He had been up all night trying to figure out how he was going to get out of his current predicament. He decided to talk things over with his buddy right after breakfast. His buddy always knew what to do.

I ended up with something quite a bit more succinct:

• o Bob eats breakfast.
• o Buddy helps out Bob.

It's easier to read, understand, edit, manipulate and discourages the fluff that tends to creep into my synopsizing. Which is another way to say: it's virtually darling-proof. If you're taking the whole just-the-facts-ma'am approach, you're not creating little literary gems all over the place. If a bullet point doesn't fit, out it goes and no one cares. It's refreshingly clinical. I wish I'd thought of it fifteen years ago.

Most of the time it's because I'm too dejected to write anything. Storylines hit brick walls. The brain goes numb. Everything I've done for the past six weeks is crap. I know I need to keep at it if I'm going to knock down those walls, reignite the brain, or turn the crap around. But it can be really difficult to harden myself to the task at hand. I think Gimli summed it up best during his orc-chase with:

"Well, let us go on," said Gimli. "My legs must forget the miles. They would be more willing, if my heart were less heavy."

Oddly enough, however, this happens even when I am fired up and anxious to keep working on a project. Like now. I've got dozens of ideas flying around in my head for The Spark and I should be looking forward to sitting down and banging them out. But the truth is, it's still tough. At the end of a typical work day---usually twelve straight hours chasing orcs---I just can't get into it. Apparently my legs aren't willing no matter what.

Fortunately, I have a little trick that keeps me going. It's called Twenty Minutes and it's simple. No matter what you feel like, work on it for twenty minutes. If you're still burnt out at the end of twenty minutes, go ahead and quit. At least you got a third of an hour in which is a third of an hour more than you would have otherwise. However, if you feel yourself perking up at the end of twenty minutes, just keep going. I find that nine out of the ten times I try this, I go at least an hour past the original twenty minutes and I always feel better about it.

At least until I hit that next wall or another band of pillaging orcs. Where are Aragorn and Legolas when you need them?

Unfortunately, at this point, I can’t even find my shoes.

That was from last week, when things were looking pretty bleak for me, creativity-wise. This two year book project kept running into nothing but dead ends, no matter which way I came at it. And it was a shame too, since I had so many good scenes (and even a good ending) planned. But all the good scenes and good endings in the world are for naught if readers put your book down after the first fifty pages. If you can't get that heart-pounding action going right away, readers nowadays---with so many millions of other creations vying for their attention---will walk. I don't blame them.

Fully knowing this, I explored and explored and explored for some better way to get my story jump-started. I started doing some brainstorming, with a lot of anything-goes, out-of-the-box type thinking. As I did this, one particular crazy suggestion came to me. While thinking aloud on paper, I jotted down some what-ifs and concluded with this:

Hmmm, never mind. Let's set that one aside for now. But let's continue this exercise. It's a brainstorm session and remember: in brainstorming there are no bad ideas.

I set it aside, but it came back again. I set it aside again, but it came back again. The reason I kept setting it aside is because it was so incongruous with my current story setting. The reason it kept coming back is because it was a potentially good idea. So I threw up my hands, told my brain, "You win," and started playing it through, just to see where it would end up. Never mind all the work I'd done up to that point (about 720 hours, for those of you keeping score at home). As the old saying goes, "No matter how far you have gone on a wrong road, turn back."

When I was done, I simply wrote: Did I find my shoes?

I still don't know the answer to that. Further, I'm reluctant to disclose any more details until I explore this idea a bit more. So for that, I apologize. (Not because I'm keeping anything from you, but because this amount of mysterious build-up is almost certain to result in a ginormous let-down for you once you hear it.)

At any rate, I'm feeling pretty good about this right now. I might even be ready to start PerBoWriQua early. And if you're wondering what that is, don't bother Googling it. I made it up. We'll talk about that next post.

Well, for one, a good story is hopefully a wee bit more interesting than our unscripted lives. Sure, we may create fresh, new dialog during the natural course of our normal day. But it's doubtful we're coming up with anything Shakespearean either. No, to make a good story takes something extra.

A few writers get lucky. Every so often a writer might be sitting on a train and suddenly think, "What about a boy who's a wizard who doesn't know he's a wizard?" I'm not that kind of writer. I struggle; and Sunday evening was no exception. I tried one of my usual tricks (don't ask me why it's "usual" since it hasn't worked yet). I tried to "open my brain" so to speak. I looked at art, listened to music, and did what I could to rise above the reek of the earth into that plane of creative bliss.

Unfortunately the stairs to this blissful plane are forged of pure unobtainium. So, stuck in the reeks, I tried the next best thing: writing. Over the years, I've discovered my brain works best while in motion, and nothing gets the wheels turning like setting the fingers tapping. At first I had intended to delve into the biographies and backstories of my favorite characters in the current work, but I instead turned to my lackluster story. I decided to play a mental game and walk through my dilemma to its logical conclusion. It went something like this:

1. Re-focus the story goals
2. Revise the synopsis
3. Set to that third draft
4. Finish it
5. Get it published

While Step 5 seems like it should be the ultimate goal of any writer, that actually isn't mine. Because what I slowly began to realize is that Steps 1 through 4 were destined to generate a good book. Not a great book. Not an awesome, gripping, knock-your-socks off book. A good book. It would reach Step 5 without a problem and end up at the book store among its brethren:

No disrespect to the authors (or even readers) of these books. They're infinitely more successful at this than I am (or probably will ever be). But that aside, this bookshelf just isn't the direction I see myself heading. I want to plow forward in a wholly unexpected direction. I want to blaze trails for generations of writers to come. I want to flap my arms and fly to the moon. I want to lose twenty pounds. As you can see, "I want" doesn't necessarily equate to "I can."

Still, if anything's going to "happen" it's going to be a long journey. And, as we all know, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Unfortunately, at this point, I can't even find my shoes.

Unfortunately, most creative ideas appear brain-dead obvious in hindsight. Why of course we came up with refrigerators, tube socks, and the printing press! We can't imagine our lives without them. But when it comes to looking forward, things get a bit more difficult. Sure, anyone can read a Harry Potter book and think, "Heck, I could've come up with that!" But the odds are: no, you probably couldn't. And neither could I.

The lack of recent public updates on my own creative process is in direct correlation with my own inability to peer into the future and come up with anything worthwhile. I've struggled off and on (or, more accurately, off and on and on and on and on) with writer's block (if that's the right term). This isn't an uncommon affliction and I'm confident I'll get over it at some point. (The way I'm confident I'll pick six winning lottery numbers someday.)

Oddly enough, though, over the last few weeks I've struggled more with the struggle itself---a meta-struggle of sorts. I've become fascinated by the entire concept of writer's block. The creative process is just that: creative. We, as fiction writers, by definition get to make it all up as we go. There shouldn't be any problem with that at all. I mean, what could be easier than writing about anything? In fact, to prove my point, I'm going to try it now. Here goes:

Mr. Sanders stepped out of the car, his left foot plunging into a puddle. "Not again!" he groaned through clenched teeth. The rain had been relentless the past few days and Mr. Sanders seemed to have developed a unique talent for parking next to flooded potholes. He was late for work, of course, making this all the more annoying.

He shook the excess water from his shoe as he muttered a few more curses under his breath. He closed his car door and began his daily plod through the parking lot to the front door of his office. Only a few steps into his trek he heard a low, rumbling sound. Was that thunder? It could be. He saw lightning in the distance on the way to work. But something in the back of his mind told him it wasn't thunder. He took a few more steps and he heard it again, though this time louder and more clearly. It wasn't thunder. It sounded more like . . . like . . . no, it couldn't be. An animal growling that loudly and deeply would have to be huge.

Mr. Sanders covered a few more yards when the growling sound was unmistakable. He turned to see a huge dragon entering the parking lot, vast wings outstretched, and a nasty look in its eye. Mr. Sanders froze in his tracks, no longer worried about his drenched sock. The dragon moved closer; in fact, it seemed to be coming right toward him. Alarmed, though not yet frightened, Mr. Sanders' mind raced through his options. "I could run," he thought. "Or call for help. I'm sure there's a cop nearby. A dragon-slaying cop." He closed his eyes and shook his head. The dragon approached. "Think! Think!" he said to himself, though this time out loud. It was becoming apparent to Mr. Sanders that the only solution to this problem was to fight.

He set down his briefcase, opened it up, and pulled out a longsword, shield, and full body armor. "And I almost didn't pack this stuff this morning!" he thought to himself. The dragon picked up speed as he donned his gear. Just as he at least pulled on his helmet, the dragon was upon him! He raised his sword to strike, but the dragon was too quick: it swiped the weapon from his hand and it skirted across the parking lot. The dragon raised it's clawed hand for a second strike--certain doom for our Mr. Sanders--when the most extraordinary thing happened. Mr. Sanders picked up his brief case, held it out with both hands, and just as the dragon attacked, he slammed it shut around the dragon, and clicked the lock shut.

He continued his journey to the front door, thinking of his day ahead and what other adventures might beset him when he had the most horrible thought.

"I bet he eats my lunch!"

Um, okay. That actually helped me remember what my problem is. Anyone can make up any kind of story like that on the spot. Making up a good story is the tricky part. Now I know why I've been at this so long and have so little to show for it. Dang. The creative process is hard.

But I'm not going to let that stop me. If I keep at it, sooner or later something good's bound to happen. Right?

Right?!

The ending is important, the ending is paramount. It does not leave you hanging, it does not leave you disappointed, it does not peter out into nothing. It does not annoy, it does not anger, it does not cause readers to petition Amazon.com for a "zero star" rating. It always satisfies, always suits, always gratifies.

The ending should never fail. When I was a child. I wrote like a child, I plotted like a child, I mixed up verb tenses like a child. When I became a writer, I tried to put childish ways behind me. When perfection comes, the pesky imperfect middle chapters are forgiven. This I finally realize, though I knew it all along.

So remember! Every story has three parts: beginning, middle, and end. But the greatest of these is the end.

(I'm screwed...)

Yes, yes, I realized I touched on all this in the last book update. Today I just want to dig into the whole concept a bit more.

Not every book actually needs a plot. Travel books, memoirs, dictionaries, — all of these have the ability to fill hundreds of pages without even the merest threat of a twist ending. However, unlike the other books I've written, this one is fiction. As I got to the point where I realized the book might never end, it dawned on me that I might not be the only one to notice the problem.

For one, books that never end are very expensive to print. But worse, books that never end are never read. And, like most writers, I'm definitely writing to be read. So what's a struggling wannabe to do? Come up with a plot, of course.

Disclaimer: I'm not a complete idiot. I did know about this strange literary device called a plot before I started. And to be honest, I had one when I started. I wrote up an outline which looked okay when it was only seventeen lines. It wasn't until I actually started writing, however, that I realized it was about as thin as butter scraped across too much bread. There was no way my piddly little idea could support the weight of an entire novel.

As I mentioned in the last post, I began work on a second book (or booklet). I worked on it for two days. It's about ten thousand words long and told in the first person point of view. It fully fleshed out the backstory I needed to give the main story a sense of purpose. Once I had that, I officially abandoned the first draft and went back to the literary drawing board: the synopsis. (If you can't tell a story in 500 words, you sure won't do it in 500,000 words. Trust me.) This second pass of the synopsis is getting a lot closer to where I want to be. Still a ways to go, but closer (and in the right direction).

Even better — for you, that is — I may be ready to actually unveil some of this mystery when Update Three rolls around. Which means I'd better stop typing here and get back to the word processor.