At the end of June I bought Victoria Lynn Schmidt's Book in a Month: The Fool-Proof System for Writing a Novel in 30 Days. Why? Because after getting some feedback on the first 36 pages of one of my books, the book about my car accident, I realized that I don't know a whole lot about story structure when it comes to writing a whole book. The feedback I received was good, what I shared was well written, but it raised questions regarding structure, where the story was headed, such as to go chronologically or not and if it's ok to have the big climax at the beginning.
It occurred to me that perhaps it was time to do something I'd been resistant to doing: getting help. Reading a book about writing. In the past, I couldn't bear the thought of such a thing! Why on earth would I spend time reading about writing when I could be using that time writing? And yet would I use that time to write? Usually not. And even if I did, perhaps not as effectively so if first I'd taken some time to read a bit about writing. I just wanted to be a natural, to not need to read about it. And in some ways I am a natural. But when it comes to writing an entire book? Well, it was time for help. Plus, although I have an aversion to following "traditional structure," I do know it can be useful to know what that structure is before I break away from it! There is freedom within form. I realized this about dance a few years ago. Time to apply it to writing as well.
So on July 1st I committed to using this book, Book in a Month, even though it's for writing novels. I am writing memoir, but pretty sure I want it to read like fiction. So I figured I could work with it. And on days 1 and 2, I was an over-achiever with it and did each day's exercise for 3 different books-in-progress. I thought maybe I'd write 3 books in a month! Since I already had hundreds of pages, it's not like I was starting from scratch. So why not work on more than one at a time, right?
Wrong. Once I sat down on Day 3 to work on a comprehensive outline, I realized that only one of my books would be getting attention this month, and it wasn't going to be the car accident one, partially because there's not really an ending yet since I knew I'd have at least a few more EMDR sessions if not more. And the story that was easiest to outline, I already had 274 pages to work with, and a clear beginning, middle, and end for that story.
So I proceeded with this story about the summer of 2009-- tempting to reveal the topic here and now, but not quite ready-- and what I found was that the daily assignments were so helpful! They really got me thinking about things I'd never considered, and most of it was applicable to writing memoir.
I did each day's homework all in a notebook, by hand, and then I'd sit at my laptop and work on my revision process. Book in a Month really helped me learn a lot about character development and story structure. (I also ended up buying Story Structure Architect, which I found to be useful and interesting as well.) But most importantly, it helped me commit. Every day for one month, I worked on my book. In the fourth week, there may have been one day where I didn't do anything (or something so minimal that I didn't want to count it) and 2 days where I barely did anything. But something is always better than nothing. Oh, and in the back of the book are some stickers. One says "I'm a writer." I put that on the bottom of my monitor, and I'm pretty sure that seeing that day after day, all throughout the day, has helped me truly become a writer, committed and dedicated to the writing and revision process and confident that I will be published some day. It also helped remind me to get back to work when distracted by things like Facebook!
What a gift.
And Victoria Lynn Schmidt's advice, assignments, worksheets, and questions, her voice that comes through, were all great. It was easy and fun. It was enjoyable. And every day I felt so good even if all I did was the daily exercise or edit a page or two. The commitment to daily made all the difference, and the professional advice taught me a lot, both about writing and about myself. I highly recommend her book to writers or aspiring writers, even if not writing a novel. It would also be helpful for screen play writing, which is where I might be headed after I get at least one of these memoirs finished and published!
Oh! I almost forgot to mention how it all turned out in the end for me. Although I did not reach my goal of having a manuscript ready for professional feedback by the end of the month, I'd say I'm at least 80% there, closer than ever before. It occurred to me to spend all of today writing to see if I could get through a big chunk of what's left to do. But then I remembered an important part of this month-long process: planning the reward and then celebrating completion of the month. So today, I haven't opened up that manuscript document. And my reward? I took myself to an afternoon movie. I also feel like I officially became a writer. Not published yet, but committed to the daily work to the writing and the rewriting. Getting closer and closer to one of my longest held dreams coming true. That's a reward in and of itself.
What's next? Well, I will continue. I have 279 pages that are mostly done, at least done enough for feedback, possibly even ready for hiring a professional to give feedback. I bought a book about writing and publishing memoir. Started reading it yesterday. I'm also thinking about checking out some website or a book that specifically address scenes. I'm not setting another solid deadline, but I am guessing that some time in September I will be shopping around for some professional help. Already have a couple of connections and possibilities. And I am always open to more.
© 2013 Rebecca Clio Gould. All rights reserved.
