Got Words?

by Stephanie Black

I am happy to announce that I have written some honest-to-goodness words on my new novel. Yep, I am now the proud owner of approximately 2200 words of story. Granted, those words aren’t all actual story, because in my first draft I like to write a mini-scene-structure outline at the top of a scene: scene goal, conflict, hook. I’ll delete those notes in the second draft. But for now, I can include them in my word count, can’t I?

Starting this novel was a bit daunting for me because when I finished my last project I had absolutely no idea what my next novel would be about. No idea. Zip. I knew I wanted to do another contemporary suspense novel like Fool Me Twice, my novel scheduled for release next spring. But as far as a story? Umm . . .

This was a new experience. Previously, when I’d set out to write a novel, I'd I worked off ideas that had been percolating for a long time. This time . . . nothing was percolating. I did have some scenes in mind and enjoyed playing with them mentally, but unfortunately these scenes belonged to a sci fi story that I knew I didn’t want to write as my next book.

I am awed and amazed by writers—and this is probably every writer in the world except me—who have so many plot ideas that their motto is “I’ll never have time to write all of them!” Some people have dozens of projects in the works. Not me. I tend to immerse myself in one story. The ideas for my first novel percolated for years. An offshoot idea from that first book led eventually to my recently completed novel, though the books are completely unrelated.

For this newest project, I was starting from scratch. So I brainstormed. I filled page after page with random thoughts. Finally, ideas started to stick and form and take shape and now—hooray! A story! After creating a VERY rough outline, I’m through the starting gate and on the track. The plot is still riddled with more holes than Jeff Savage’s socks, the characters are stick figures, and for Pete’s sake, who did commit those murders that took place five years before the book opens? I'll figure it all out eventually. I like Anne Lamott’s advice—I’ll have to paraphrase it here—that authors should give themselves permission to write lousy first drafts. I know my first draft is going to be an utter mess, and that’s fine. Giving myself permission to write a lousy draft means I can get those words down and find the story. I then rewrite like crazy as I clean up the story, expand it, deepen it, and layer it. It will take me longer to rewrite the book than it will to draft it in the first place, and that’s the way I like to work.

So my goal this afternoon is to add a few hundred more words to the story. Forward march!