Drafting the First

At around 2 o'clock yesterday, while it poured incessantly outside, I arrived at the end a first draft of book three--the last of the Beat Street series. Friends that had to listen to me whining throughout this process deserve a great big thank you for putting up with me. 

The truth is, I hate first drafts.They require plotting, which means walking through dark tunnels to find your way into the story chapter to chapter (scream)! In the previous two books, I doubled back every few chapters to fill in the gaps and refine the writing.

I started book three eight months ago and forced myself to keep going and going until it was all done. Because the not-so-hidden rule of first drafts, as my dear friend Janet reminded me, was that they're hideous, nasty beasts. The good news is once you plot them out, you can go back and fix them.

That part's a lot more fun.

The one good thing about writing a first draft without thinking on it too much is your subconscious will eventually take over, just like Freud said it would, and when that happens you bump into all sorts of interesting situations and mostly people. And then you begin to see the connections and that's when the real work begins.

This is true whether you're writing a play, screenplay, novel or memoir--I'm convinced.

The other thing that happens after the first draft is you get to slow down and enjoy meeting the people you created. You may even be able to find layers in your previous books, though it's likely you can't do much about them at this point.

What I start with, on draft two, are the reasons I wanted to write this story in the first place. Book three is the hardest one for me, because the story is more personal than the other two, and sometimes a painful one.

I'm not going to say more than that because-- you know. I need to keep writing it. But I thought it was fitting that it poured all day yesterday when I moved through the last chapter. Except then something interesting happened, because I thought it would end painfully it didn't. In fact, it ended on a hopeful note.

I guess that's yet another thing to like about first drafts. They can surprise you -- in a good way -- when you're expecting to go one way and take a left (or right) turn. And maybe that's the point of writing (or one of the points)? 

There's only so many directions you can go. Our job is to find the one that makes the most sense to us.

Goethe's Window

This week, I left behind much of the news cycle. I was in Door County, Wisconsin, working on a new musical I am writing which is being developed at Northern Sky Theater. I was on the computer every day, it was mostly to write new lyrics or dialogue.

What a wonderful week. I met people I hadn't known before, connected with people I knew and overall got disconnected from whatever chatter was going on in cyberspace. After a day, I stopped checking my emails and facebook and started seeing what was around me.

I was also fortunate to have a ride to Green Bay Airport from a man whose daughter in law works at Northern Sky. He lives in the county and built a wall (pictures here) on his land. He laid each stone and the archway - and showed it to me before we left.

He said building the wall was therapy in difficult times. I could only think that no matter what kind of times I was living through, I could never build anything half so beautiful. I also thought about growing up in a suburb of New York, and how I always wanted to live either right in the city or out in the country.

Door County would fit the bill. Perfectly.

I just had to share a little bit of that with you, because (a) I didn't have much time to prepare anything in particular for you this week and (b) there really is something about land, sky, trees and writing. I think Goethe said one must always write looking out a window, and never facing away from the world.

I'm not facing the window in my workroom and even if I did, it looks out on the wall of the house next door.

I've just got to fix that. Soon.
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