More work

Yesterday I blew off a friend in order to have another writing night. Yes, I'm now headed down the dark path of eschewing actual human contact in order to sit alone in my room and pursue a probably futile goal. And again with the fear: I was scared that maybe the night I'd skipped to go to the writing group would already be too much time away, and either I'd read what I'd written and hate all of it, or just feel no connection to it at all and not be able to work on it.

But, I think it's good that I went. For one thing, I left the draft alone for a night, which gave me space to think about it. Some major problems bubbled up and made themselves known. I had a small conversation with them and let them know I was aware of their concerns, and sorry, I had a meeting to go to, but I promised we'd discuss things as soon as I got back. They huffed a bit but said ok.

As always, there's the fear. This time, it wasn't the fear of having to invent something out of thin air, but rather having to go back and read what I'd written and see that it was crap and again consider not ever trying again. Writing group to the rescue: we did the exercise, and it drove home the point that when it comes down to it, you can write something. Yes, it's hard to do it well, but it's not magic. It's labor. I brought a pen and pad to the group, and I hate long-hand - it hurts my hand, my handwriting sucks, it's physically tiring. That's good because it reminds me that it's physical work, and knowing that makes it so much more do-able. (Also, it makes going back to my laptop SO appealing.)

Before I pulled up the draft, I opened a second word doc and wrote out all the problems, and some possible solutions. I fleshed out the world the story's set in, then saw some problems with that, and then changed that so it made more sense. I also wrote about the characters a bit, and immediately realized I've made assumptions about them, specifically about their relationship, that aren't true. I'd thought they'd be linked in one way, just because of where they are in the story and what they're trying to do, and it turns out they're linked in another, messier and less pleasant way.

I'm trying to get to know the characters, rather than trying to make them up. This is the first time I've had no problems learning the character's names. They just told me, which was cool. I still don't know them very well, but as we spend more time together they tell me more. One surprise is that one of the characters who I thought was minor is starting to come out of her shell and insist that I know more about her. I've made her no promises about how much to show, but it's nice that she's standing up for herself.

(I know this sounds frou-frou, but it's a process that's working for me.)

After all that, I went back to the draft. Because of what I now knew about the characters, I had to change a lot of the first part, which led to necessary changes in the middle. I wrote for two hours. There are three characters now who I know ok, and they manage to accomplish something, but there's a fourth one who's probably going to make an appearance and cause some trouble. I need to know him too, and to know what the others will do when he shows up, and if and how everyone's going to get what they want. And after I do, guess what? It's still probably crap. Good times!

So far it's about 3000 words, and will probably get longer before it gets shorter. This is not to say I didn't ax a bunch of stuff, but then I wrote more than I'd deleted.

Now I need to decide whether or not to post what I have for critique next Wednesday. The group only has two pieces of writing to discuss, so they need more submissions. And, there's going to be a few weeks of no groups because of the holiday. So my inclination is to post. I know it's not ready, and my preference is to work on it more, but I also think I can continue to work on it now even if a bunch of people I don't know praise it or criticize it. Probably.