Blog

It can be challenging at times to fit in writing with the rest of my life. I’ve got other obligations in life: my job, my family, and I can’t just neglect friends for months as I develop a story. Being social is a great way to take my mind off the characters and world that most of my attention is focused on crafting when I sit down to write.

So how do I balance writing with the rest of my life?

I do my best to accommodate for both so that I can publish new stories for you on an annual basis. The first thing I do is try to pick a slow time of the year to start writing a new story. For the latest book I’ve written (more information coming soon), I didn’t write page one until New Year’s Day. I’m usually back home from the prior night’s celebrating early in the afternoon, and looking to start the new year off right by being productive.  It’s a good time to start writing for me because I’ve just been social the night before.

January is also a month that’s freezing, and when winter comes along, I tend to hibernate socially more than anything else. I only want to leave the house if I’ve got definite plans. There’s no, let’s meet up here and see if maybe so and so can get us into such and such. No way. Too cold for that shit. So starting in January gives me a solid month of writing where the only interruptions and events that are worth taking a break for.

The second thing I do to balance life with writing is the way I structure my writing, with my one page for day one, two pages on day two, etc. until the fifth day, when I start the cycle over again with writing one page. This will usually leave me ample time to fit my writing in with the rest of my life, because as I started to get on a roll writing the story, the time it takes me to write a page becomes more efficient, taking between 25-30 minutes to write.

Does half an hour seem doable to fit into your schedule to write?

By writing this way, the most time that I end up spending in a day writing is two hours. You’d be surprised how once you’ve developed a routine for your writing how easily it is to attain this, even with everything else you might have going on.

“I’d like to quit,” she admitted.

“How much more abuse can you take?” he pressed her.

“It’s not…it don’t hurt so bad when I’m in the middle of it,” she fumbled to explain.

“Okay,” Dr. Addams nodded. “How much longer do you think you can keep going on like this?”

“You ask that like I got a choice.”

His face reddened when he noticed her shiver. Dr. Addams immediately grabbed  medical gown for her to cover herself.

“Thank you,” she said as she slid into it. “You think I’ve got a lot of career options,” she continued. “I didn’t graduate. My folks kicked me out when I got pregnant. The boy who knocked me up dumped me when he found out. Had to give my girl up for adoption because I knew I wouldn’t be able to take care of both of us, and I at least wanted to give her a chance.”

“There’re options of getting an edu—”

“I wasn’t exactly rolling in A’s in school, Doctor.”

“Maybe you don’t get a job for a year while you work on yourself,” he suggested. He caught the glare of Nurse Raskin as she passed by the doorway. He shut it gently before turning his full attention to his patient.

“I don’t got the money for that,” she confessed.

“Don’t got…how many times have you claimed you were the top earner?” he asked incredulously.

“That wasn’t some claim! I am Daddy’s Bottom Bitch!”

“Please don’t debase yourself with that term,” he implored her. He loathed the conviction she had made that statement with as well.

“Sorry, Doctor. I forget I’m not on the street and have to keep my hollerin’ down,” she said with humility. “But I am Daddy’s best girl. That’s why he gives me top clients like—”

“Please,” Addamns cut in. “Just…please don’t say that animal’s name. Not in front of me. Please.”

“I won’t,” she said with an encouraging smile.

“If you’re…what’s his name? His actual name. I’m not calling him Daddy.”

“It’s L—wait, no. You know, I’m not really sure. He goes by Reginald now, but me and the girls don’t think that’s his real name.”

“Regardless,” Addams said. “If you’re Reginald’s top earner, why aren’t you loaded? Why don’t you have enough to walk away if you want to.”

“Well,” she said as she stumbled for an answer, blushing while she searched for it. “That’s…that’s not the way this all works.”

“He keeps most of it,” he stated more than asked. She nodded. “And you’re okay with that?” She nodded again. “Even after…” his voice trailed off as he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He merely waved his hand up and down her body. “…he keeps sending you to have all that done to you?”

She nodded again. “Why?” It almost came out as a demand.

He believed the tear rolling down her cheek was born from a pain worse than anything that scumbag politician had done to her. But she forced herself to say it. The worst thing he could hear, but had always known was true.

“I love him.”

Whenever I sit down to write any kind of story, one thing inevitably occurs. I make mistakes. No matter how extensive I outline my latest idea, or how much I thought about what I’m going to say, it’s never perfect when I first put it on the page.

And that’s okay. But it does bring up an important question. When do I start rewrites?

Different authors take different approaches to this. Some will keep chugging along until they’re done with the current draft, then when they’re ready for revisions, they’ll go back and make all the corrections they’ve spotted that need to be made before they start the revision process all over again. Others won’t move on from a chapter, or even a page, until they’ve reworked it to the point of perfection.

My method is a hybrid of the two. Or really, it’s mostly one, with a dash of the other.

When I sit down to write a draft of a story, particularly the first draft, I believe in keeping up the momentum of my writing. No matter how detailed I’ve been in the outlining process, it’s a tremendous feat for anyone to actually start composing their thoughts into a coherent story. Even though I’ve been doing this for decades, I’m deeply concerned if I brought my process to a complete stop to go back and fix something in an earlier chapter because I just realized it was wrong or thought of something better to say, I wouldn’t be able to get the train back on the tracks. I feel that this need for immediate perfection during your first go at composing a story is why so many authors don’t finish articulating their idea, essentially giving themselves writer’s block.

I do my best to cut down on the number of times I’m going to have to face this “Do I rewrite this” dilemma. One method I use is that extensive month’s long outlining process. I do my best to refine my plot, characters, and actions so that the formation and direction I want the story to take is crystal clear in my head. But bullet points don’t make a novel, so connecting all these ideas of what needs to be in a given chapter is still challenging, which is why I’m meticulous when I’m constructing the first draft. Numerous times, I’m holding down on the backspace key for an entire paragraph because I’m already editing my thoughts as I’m actually putting words to paper, screening out bad ideas and/or bad composition to eliminate the need for futures notes.

After finally settling on what makes the first draft, if I notice a mistake…err, let me start over. Because it’s not an if at all, it’s a when. And it’s not really a when, either. Rather, it’s every time I catch a mistake, the same notebook I’ve been using to outline the story now gets a new entry under the title “Notes & Revisions” and I mark down the chapter the latest edit is going to need to be made in, along with a shorthand of the change I’m going to want to make.

Now, in last week’s entry, I stated that I spent the most time writing page one of a new story, believing I need to get this right because the whole story is going to be built off of this foundation. Wouldn’t this suggest that I do backtrack and make revisions during my first draft of an idea?

Yes, it does. Which is where the dash of the other method comes in.

Sometimes, even after doing my best to sift out all the errors before they become part of the story, I’ll notice a couple paragraphs later that I’ve led myself down the wrong path. It might be difficult to comprehend how this could happen, after it’s been on my mind for months, after I’ve run my idea through the ringer again and again, and as I’m micromanaging what I actually type, that this could still happen. But it does. A lot. And the reason is, no matter how many screening processes I set up for myself, whether it’s one more, five more, or hundreds more, sometimes, you’re just not going to know something’s wrong until you actually sit it there on the page. Only then will you go “Oh! No, that doesn’t work, it needs to be this!”

When that happens, I see how far back I’d have to go to make the correction. Because if I’ve written five pages before I noticed the mistake, that fear of derailing my momentum comes into play, and I opt to just make a note of the change that needs to be made when I sit down to do my first round of revisions. But if it’s something that was just typed a paragraph or two before, something I can literally see on the page I’m currently typing, I go back and made the mistake.

So that’s my rule for rewrites. If it’s within the current page I’m working on, I’ll make the quick edit. But if it’s anything longer than that, while I’ll pivot the way I’m telling the story so that it reflects the change I need to make as though I’ve already made it, for the current draft, I’ll merely make a note of it until I’m ready to revisit that part of the story in the next draft.

“Where does it hurt tonight?” he asked.

Dr. Addams hadn’t even noticed that the sister had slipped past him. Whenever he saw Candi, everything else just faded away.

“The bump on my head is the worst of it,” Candi answered.

He was captivated by her, unable to imagine anyone lovelier. It didn’t matter that one of her eyes was nearly swollen shut. Or the dried blood caked around the nostrils of a nose whose bridge still hadn’t healed from the last time she’d needed fixing.

Dr. Addams probed the back of her noggin. It didn’t take long to find the knot she was referring to. As he gently applied pressure to it, he found it would’ve been harder for his hand not to land on it.

“Not your throat?” he inquired.

The years had not been kind, but beauty like hers couldn’t be beaten out of her. As much as life tried. As much as that animal tried.

“I mean, it’sa ‘lil sore, but I don’t really notice it.” She winced when she forced a smile.

He wasn’t so sure he agreed. And there were plenty of visits to choose from. That animal seemed to be trying to one up what he did to her. But what was just as sickening was that her pimp kept sending her back for more.

“Smile for me.”

He felt bad asking her to do so. She’d seen him enough times to know the drill. He wasn’t looking to cheer her up. He had to see if any of her teeth had been cracked again.

It was at this point in the examination he found his mind drifting to how he would treat her. She’d never leave the house in this state. He treat her right. He’d treat her with kindness. Like a princess. He couldn’t imagine any other way. He couldn’t comprehend how that animal could do this to her once, let alone again and again.

“It looks worse than it is,” she said to fill the silence, and he wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him, or herself.

“It looks worse than ever.”

Candi dropped her head, and he flinched at the thought of rebuking her. Even this he found was too harsh a treatment for her. Even though she needed to hear it. Even though it might lead to the change she needed to make in her life.

Even though it might save her life.

“I’m sorry,” he offered.

“It’s okay, Doc,” she said, again forcing a smile. Her anguish didn’t look nearly so bad this time. “I know you’re right.”

It wasn’t much, but it was the opening he’d been hoping for for the past few months. He wasn’t no time pouncing on it–

“Candi…”

–before chickening out while she stared at him expectantly.

“…Is there anywhere else he hurt you?”

She nodded, rising from the examining table with a grimace, disrobing. The skimpy nature of her wardrobe made it possible to do so without aggravating any of her other bruises. One of the bite marks on her breast looked like it had drawn blood. Her cheeks were crimson down to her thighs. She favored her shoulder where it had been twisted too far back.

That was new.

She still looked breathtaking. But seeing her so marred by that monster was too much. He should’ve been able to gaze at her naked body objectively, like he’d done with countless patients.

“Candi,” he started again with enough determination to see it through this time. “I’d like to revisit the conversation we’ve been having for some time now.”

I think a big reason why so many people who have an idea for stories never sit down to write it or never actually finish it is in part because of a fear they’re not doing it right. The idea may be ingenious, but they may still never put pen to paper because they’re worried they might screw it up by not knowing how to craft a book.

There is a bit of mysticism to writing, because it’s something that can’t be taught with absolute principles, like math. I’ve learned that every writer has their own process for how they go about composing a story, many of which can be unique.

 So this week, I’m going to go over what works for me. Who knows? Maybe when someone sees how I write, they’ll think “That’s all it takes?” and start telling their own story.

When I first get an idea for a new story, I start to brainstorm, thinking about all the possible scenarios and paths this one idea can take me. I’m putting the idea through the ringer to see if it holds water, and can actually withstand the length of a story. If it’s passed this, I start going into the outlining process, assembling all these ideas into a loose plot, formulating the characters that would find themselves in a story like this, making sure their motivations are clear and consistent throughout the book, and so on. This process typically takes months, because I’m laying the foundation for the idea.

Once that’s done, we get to the actual writing.

As I wrote in last week’s entry, on my first day of writing a new story, I only write one page. This is done for a couple reasons. The first is because I know a story of any length is going to be a massive undertaking, and I want to give myself an early win by setting an easy goal to start off with. The second, which is going to seem like it contradicts the first, is that starting to write a story is anything but easy, and it takes me quite a while to write that first page. And it’s a draft!

Page one usually takes me the longest to write. I have the story outlined, and I’ve been thinking about the opening the most during the outlining process because it’s the first thing I’m going to have to do, and yet, it might still take me double the time to write this one page than any other page the rest of the book. The reason for this is the first page sets the tone for the rest of the story. While I know I’m going to revise the story constantly, I don’t want to just throw something together for the first page as a placeholder because each subsequent page is going to be built off of what I do here. It’s critical that I achieve the feel I want, because otherwise the rest of the book is going to feel off, and it’s going to lead to massive revisions in every other draft.

That’s why I spend so long on page one of the first draft. Investing more time here in the initial stage saves me a mountain of time for the rest of the writing process.

Next week, I’ll go into the effects this step has on all subsequent pages.

“Thank you, N—”

“She’s in exam room eleven,” Nurse Raskin said as she turned and marched back the way she’d come.

Dr. Addams let the abrupt departure slide. Just as he had the last time. And the time before that. Nurse Raskin, and the rest of the staff, had grown tired of voicing their disapproval of her visits, settling for freezing him out socially (and professionally).

“Ow, Andrew,” the mother yelped behind him. “You’re squeezing too tight.”

“Sorry mom,” the boy said. “That nurse scares me.”

Dr. Addams turned back to the two of them. After Raskin’s announcement, he’d forgotten they were still there.

“Can I let you in on a secret?” he told the boy, looking around like he was about to confide something major to him. “Sometimes, she scares me too.”

Once again, the boy fought to keep a smile from bursting through his face.

The mother didn’t share that same restraint. Her guffaw bellowed down the hallway, loud enough to be heard at the front desk and waiting room. She slapped his arm repeatedly, and this time he was sure it was no accident she kept hitting his bicep.

“A doctor and a sense of humor,” she observed. “Now, about that dinner,” she said, attempting a smooth transition.

“What dinner?” he asked.

Her eyes went wide, and he could tell she was replaying the entire visit in her head, up until Nurse Raskin had interrupted. He expected her eyes to bulge out of their sockets with embarrassment when she realized she hadn’t actually hinted at having him over and tipped her hand.

“Well…it’s just…uh…” she stammered. As painful as it was to watch, he knew it was tougher for her, grasping for words.

“I appreciate the offer to have me over for dinner for treating Andy,” he offered her a lifeline. Her face broke out with relief, but he cut her off before she could officially extend the invitation, “But they have me working most of the late shifts. I’m afraid I don’t get out of here until eight or nine.”

It wasn’t even a lie. The entire practice despised his visitor so much they were willing to make him suffer until he turned her away. It didn’t matter that he was one of the founding members of the practice, that he’d worked with most of the staff for over a decade, or that all told, he was a pretty good practitioner. They all asked him “as his friend” to send her away, but there was nothing friendly about their requests. Or their actions.

All he was doing was refusing to turn away a patient who was hurting.

The mother fumbled to come up with some alternative, another invitation that he’d be able to make, but he excused himself before she could. He was only delaying the inevitable. The ailments little Andy was experiencing had increased dramatically since her divorce.

The door to room eleven was ajar as he approached it. One of the nuns who made the rounds, consoling those who’d lost loved ones and handing out pamphlets to battered women, was already inside. That was rare. Even the sisters tended to stay away from his favorite patient.

“You’d be surprised at the results prayer can yield,” the sister said. “When we humble ourselves before God, we always find Jesus is a powerful force to have in your corner.”

She chuckled. “Baby, I guarantee I spend more time on my knees than you.” She waved a hand across her face. “Look how far it’s got me.”

He couldn’t help snorting in amusement, drawing the attention of both of them. “Doc!” she exclaimed.

Even through her lumpy, purple face, she looked gorgeous.