how to write a novel blindfolded, while riding a horse backwards, through a lake, while eating a taco

I love hearing writers talk about their process.  I’ve heard many, many writers speak and I’m happy when someone asks the process question—it’s always so different!  But I swear to chocolate, I have got to have one of the craziest novel-writing processes that I’ve ever heard of.

No outlining, very little prep, hardly an idea of what my topic is, maybe just a sentence or two of an idea, maybe an image of one or two scenes that would be fun to write, and that’s it.  I start page one.

This is nuts!  Do not do this!

Especially when you see how complex some of my plots end up being.  Basically, I throw a bunch of stuff on the page, just pushing ahead until I get jammed up.  Then I back up to the point it was last working (meaning, I still was excited by it, could still clearly see the scene I was working on, etc), trash everything after that point, and go off in a different direction.  Then push ahead until I get jammed up again, etc, until I get to the end, maybe 50,000 words, maybe 100,000 words.  Until I get to the end.

Then, the real work starts.  I swear, those 100,000 words are just the clay on the wheel.  The work of making the pot can’t start until all the clay is up there.  I have no idea what I’ve got until I’ve got the whole thing.

It is at this point, the second draft, the I begin to find the plot. Not until now do I actually discover what the book is about.  That’s right, I have no idea what it’s about until I’ve got a whole draft done.  I start to notice repeating themes or subplots or cool side characters and bring those out.  I cut sections that drag, sections that don’t fit the tone (the tone I didn’t know I was using until this point).  I find the story in this mass of scenes I’ve written, cause and effect, the flow of what’s going on.  By the end of that draft, the clay is starting to maybe, sort of, look like…something.

Then the fun starts.  In the third draft, I start figuring out what’s really cool about whatever it is I’ve written.  I mean, cool to me.  The REAL story starts revealing itself.  I love this part!  Random stuff that I stuck in as filler suddenly gains all this meaning.  I just keep brushing away the dirt and these sparkly goodies are revealed.  (To me, anyway.)  More stuff gets thrown out.  More scenes get dialed in with the new awareness of what it’s all about.  Layer upon layer, it becomes clear.  But not until now.  Up to this point, I was flying blind.

Last draft, typos, stupid sentences, blocking errors, cut and paste boo-boos.  Etc.

Writing a novel is a lot of work!  Writing a novel backasswards like this feels insane.

I hear about people who do all this work before the writing: outlining, world building, character sketches, polishing chapter by chapter, people who work out their work before they write it.  Amazing.  So organized!  Honestly, there have been two times I tried outlining a novel and both times I never wrote the book.  I kept working and working and the more I worked, the less I could actually write.

Writing a novel for me is all about faith.  I have to believe the story is in there.  I have to feel around in the dark for it, piece by little piece.  Dive in, thrash around, throw stuff on the page, weed through it—how many metaphors can I cram into one blog post, I wonder?  Shall we take bets?

I also wonder why it is that writing a novel must be done so differently by different writers. Altnerative brain wiring?  Karma?  DNA?  Temperament?

But then I heard an interview with China Mieville the other day and he said this Most Awesome Thing EVER:

“…Rather than starting by thinking about it rationally, throw in something stupid and then rationalize it as seriously as you can afterwards.”

YES!  That sums up my process PERFECTLY.

(And a Really Real Writer does it that way, too!  So it must be okay.)

(As if I would stop if it wasn’t.)

(As if I could.)