Discovering discovery writing

It's interesting when you see something you do in your own writing process, and then someone else puts a label on it. Here's a course given by Lani Diane Rich/Lucy March (the writer who started the Betty-o-land community I'm part of):

Discovery Writing

How often have you gotten a critique back, or given one out, in which the advice was to cut the first three chapters? There's a reason for this phenomenon. There is a phase in writing called Discovery, in which the writer becomes familiar with their work, their world, their characters, their story.

As a result, they end up writing work that isn't quite right for the book, weighing early chapters down with infodump, backstory, and inconsistent characterization. By honoring your Discovery process, and setting aside time to write with abandon scenes and vignettes that won't be part of the book, you end up strengthening the book in the end.

In the Discovery Writing class, Lani will lead you through the writing techniques that will help you get to know your characters, find your voice for this story, settle your POV, and write your provisional opening scene, all while building a strong foundation so that when you're ready to start writing for the book, you can open with a bang.

If I wasn't having to watch my pennies I'd take the course, or at least the related one in September. But it's too late for me anyway, because I'm deep in this phase now. But I've never heard anyone articulate it--I wonder if she and her husband (who does a lot of the Storywonk instructionals with her) plan to write a writing "how to" book specifically focused on it. Wouldn't be surprised. 

I'd also like to take the course to toss her and her hubs some support! I'll do the next best thing and encourage everyone else to take her courses, cause I suspect she's a very good teacher. Her blog writing is very clear and inspiring.

I really experienced the Discovery concept when working on my next novel, because for my last few Nanowrimos that's what I did--instead of trying to write actual work, I just wrote nonpublishable faux writing. "Discovery writing." It was fantastic, I got tons of ideas, discovered my characters, cut some, added, understood the tone I wanted, etc.--all the stuff she talks about.


Which is why for this book I've been contemplating writing a very very rough first draft, and not even writing the book all the way through. Just writing the first third of the book maybe, and then stopping. See what that generates, what ideas it gives me, and then starting fresh. 

I wanted to know more about the Discovery idea so I looked for a Storywonk podcast on the topic and found this one. Lani and Alistair argue that watching TV shows and movies and reading is part of filling your personal creativity tank and figuring out your personal style in this stage, which confirms this is the stage I'm in right now. 

I've mostly been resisting TV series recommendations from other people, and just rolling around in the stuff I feel the need to watch, whether it's rewatching a Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, or a Marx Brothers movie or Bringing Up Baby. And I'm reading 7 books at once, plus JJJ's Hungry Ghosts, plus I'll be starting another graphic novel soon. The creative side of my brain is very hyperactive right now. So I'm pretty sold on this novel discovery idea. No idea when it'll stop though! Ack! Some other things (good things) have derailed my attention at the moment.


Les films:

Les books: These first ones were chosen for non-mynovel reasons. By the way, my French Practicing is coming along well. My written French still needs work, but my spoken is really coming back to me--I was tested recently and to my relief it went well. ;-)

The ones I've since started relate in some way to me discovering/soak up/reflecting upon sense of humor and tone for my novel. Rich just re-released two books and I wanted to finally try her out.

About the various employees/owners of an English language paper in Rome. Just started but I like the characters right away. I like books with various characters/storylines. Communities. Very well written.

Total random pick up at the library. About a family with a complete evil mother, whom the father finally leaves, and how he starts a new life away from her. Sort of pedestrian but the characters are charming.

The new Rennison! Hard to top the Georgia character cause she was the classic dumb narrator, but it's good so far. No cat character alas, but there is a nasty big owl, and freaky child characters who just may rival Georgia's little sister (this time it's twin boys). And her Yorkshire setting is fantastic--the kind of setting where the setting is a character. But a comedy character!








       

After brokenness - mercy

I posted awhile back someone else's essay about the state of being broken and how it's a positive thing. And my dad replied on his blog with an example of a time when he felt broken.

The state of brokenness might help us see flaws in our own thinking or acting or way of being. Author and writing teacher Lucy March talks about towering*, from the tarot card where you see a tower being destroyed, usually by lightning. 

Maybe a flash of insight that makes you realize (in the language of memes) ...

"Life: You're doing it wrong."

But I don't believe in letting the tower fall on you. Guilt and remorse are useful emotions for a time, but they shouldn't crush us. 

One of my dad's favorite passages from Shakespeare is the whole "quality of mercy is not strained" speec which is indeed beautiful, but it's about showing mercy toward other people. Leonard Cohen's "Sisters of Mercy" is a good compliment to it because it's a reminder that mercy is available to us as well. A lot of tarots show greenery outside of the tower--mercy as "graceful and green as a stem"?

So this is my song-reply to my dad's reply. 

Pick the version you think you'll like best, cause I love them all.

It's obviously touched many artists.

Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.

They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on.

And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me their song.

Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been travelling so long.

Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control.

It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.

Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned:

When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned.

They lay down beside me, I made my confession to them.

They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem.

If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn

they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

When I left they were sleeping, I hope you run into them soon.

Don't turn on the lights, you can read their address by the moon.

And you won't make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night:

We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right,

We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right.

Serena Ryder

Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt

Original Leonard 

Leonard Cohen with the sisters of mercy backing him up  

Sting and the Chieftains

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* Lucy March has just re-released an older book in ebook form--the very book she talks about in her post on towering. I haven't read it yet! But you should buy it too cause it's just $3. :-)  "When I wrote The Fortune Quilt, my writing goal for the book was to tell a story about someone whose life had completely fallen apart. Like the beginning of a country western song, the book would start with her losing everything she held dear – family, friends, and career – and would chronicle how she rebuilt her life from there. In the book, the main character, Carly, ends up in a community of psychics and artists, where she is then told that this horrible experience she has had, her entire life falling apart, is a universal experience, and it is called ‘Being Towered.’"

                  

Your Journey is Always in Draft Form

[This posting talks about Betties. See the Betties tab to understand the reference if needed.]

The Original Betty who started the Bettying--that is to say Lucy March who decided to blog for 500+ days until her 40th birthday--describes what she went through, her last marriage, as being towered. The term comes from the tarot...

I love the added insult of God's hand reaching out with a mallet to give the tower a thwack and the "not again" look on the Fool's face.

"There’s a card in the tarot called The Tower. Although tarot decks vary, The Tower is one of the illustrations that offers the least variation. Almost always, you have a tower, the top of which has suffered some horrible calamity, causing it to break off, and as the Tower tumbles, you see people jumping off, trying desperately to get to safety. Typically… it doesn’t look good for them."

 "...Despite the apparent tragedy of the card – and let’s make no mistake, there’s loads of tragedy in a good Towering – I have to say that, in hindsight, I look at all the times I’ve been Towered in my life and I think, “Thank God.”... every Tower that has fallen has taught me something about how they are built."   [To read her full post go here.]

Now she's found some peace and the blog is being turned into a community, but it's leaving in mourning many of the blog readers whose lives didn't undergo the same transformation that hers' did over the last 500 days. There's a reasonable sense of abandonment, that was poignantly addressed in a recent entry.

But still... a new journey can begin any day, for anyone. Many journeys have already begun, it's just that they're still at the scary-bottom-of-the-hill-looking-up-at-the-steep-incline stage. Or the brave-explorer-lost-in-the-frozen-ice-fields stage. Brr.

As I walked home from the library today Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten" came on my mp3 player, and instead of thinking of Pantene, I thought of Betty Angel.


I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned

The Betty-sized Hole in My Soul?

I don't think I've mentioned my stovetop method for Big Decision Making. If I'm wondering about big things like "should we get a house" "should I return to school" I imagine taking out a pot, making up a House Dish, and setting it to cook. Sometimes I'm actively working on it--adding ingredients, stirring--and other times it's sitting on a backburner, just simmering. Once in awhile I take off the lid to see if it's ready, or if it needs more time. If I let big decisions take their own sweet cooking time, I don't regret them. (I can only think of one example where a dish was ready, I ignored its readiness, and it burned.) Here's a story about one of those decisions.

THE CHURCH BURNER
In 1997 I wasn't renominated to the Board of Directors of our wee church. I was the only young person on it (23) and one of the only women. I was disappointed cause I loved doing it, but I decided it just meant I was not the vision the deacons and elders had for the church. (To this day Fernando's convinced it's because he had breakfast with one of the deacons and told him that we loved the Howard Stern show--which we did. lol.)

I know I was still attending a bit in 1997, but it was just because the people were absolutely wonderful. Warm, generous, kind, beautiful people. But I was no longer learning. It was like reaching the end of your university degree where you start getting bored. And since I didn't agree with most Christians' beliefs about homosexuality, abortion, women ministers and so forth, I couldn't be authentic. I could love people, care, joke, and listen; but I couldn't talk about my real ideas.

So with no bitterness I moved on. I had long intellectual conversations with my buddies, and I decided that would be good enough until one day either some kind of church, or small group, would enter my life again. I'd know it when I saw it. In the meantime there's really only two people two whom I fully express my spiritual beliefs, and that's my friend Maewitch, and my dad. My dad is a very intelligent and open-minded Christian so I don't even feel like I'm missing challenging Christian conversations in my life; what I've been looking to replace is a community of like-minded, spiritual, growth-oriented people, to support each other, share ideas with, care about.


TWO WEEKS AGO
Flash forward to two weeks ago. Fernando's sister was visiting. She was telling me about a church she finally found that she LOVES, and it's very near where I live, so I was intrigued. I thought... hmm... maybe this is a sign... (cause all these years I've had my little feelers out, ready for a sign.)

But then she said their service is Sunday in the morning, and I thought, no. Emphatically no. There is no way that the church that I Am Meant To Be With will involve mornings. I'm not even being silly here.

But then she said they were starting up an evening service. Oh hmm interesting. She was very enthusiastic about the minister, about the people.

Then she mentioned the name of the church, which included the word "baptist pentecostal"* and I remembered the reason why I don't want to be a part of any mainstream church, unless it's one of these nice liberally ones that's into gay marriage. (Which is not to say that I judge Penguin--she's not against gay marriage.)

So no, not the sign I was looking for, after all.

After Penguin left, little thoughts were bouncing around in my head.

Fernando had been playing Warcraft all this time. I told him my thought about her church, and how it had almost seemed like a sign, but no.

He said: "It seems to me that The Betties are the church you've been looking for."

And I said: "You just read my mind."


WHAT A SNEAKY POT!
And like all decisions when you properly follow the stovetop method, it hardly felt like a decision at all. I had chosen the church without choosing a church. Let us review the requirements...

TIME: They're on the internet so I can "talk" to them whenever I want, and in any case a surprising number are up all night like myself (plus some are in the UK and Australia etc.)

DOCTRINE: There are a lot of Betties, so there may be Betties who don't believe in gay marriage; but the subset who blog a lot, and whom I therefore interact with the most, are generally a liberal, anti-racist, pro-LGBT, feminist gang.

GROWTH: Besides the occasional Christianish-type, there are lots of atheists, agnostics, witches, buddhists, and so on.  This is the mix I like. Most people I know are atheists so I like this better balance of beliefs, it's how I add to my core beliefs. I've read Siddhartha, Walden and Ayn Rand because of friends, and in future will be reading an oracle deck, a buddhist book, and a Starhawk title because of Betties. (Okay the Starhawk is from old friend Maewitch, but she introduced me to Jennifer Crusie, so she's my Alpha Betty.)

AUTHENTICITY: Betties have strong opinions, but they create safe zones where you can have a breakdown, be snarky, be shmoopy, talk about sex, express your fears, talk about mental illness, rant about what angers you, get offended, apologize, and send out "fairy god betty vibes" when someone's life takes a nosedive. Things get real, real fast. And then they usually get silly.

GOALS: The general cut and thrust of conversation--beyond the daily bread--is about trying to be good people, finding our ways through life, helping each other out, and spiritual growth, however that's defined in each person's life.

OTHER Since the Betties originated in the fandom of Jennifer Crusie and Lani Diane Rich (Lucy March) there's a preponderance of writers and readers, which makes it a particularly well-suited community for me. There's a LOT more worship for bacon than a nice vegan girl like myself can take (facepalm) almost every last Betty owns a rescued cat or dog. Finally, snarky humor is allowed--thankfully cause it's written in my DNA. And if you offend someone, there's room for apologies. There's also a patented word for dispensing unwanted advice "assvice" which is good, cause it's another bad habit of mine. But giving each other assvice is a general Betty trait, so at least I'm with my peeps.

There's also a maturity level that you just don't get in all communities, off or online, which is why I've never been able to bring myself to join a vegan community. There are many vegan individuals who I lurv; but I've been part of a fundamentalist church once in my life, and I won't go there again, not for the rightest of causes. The Betties are not fundamentalists. They are first and foremost compassionate--towards people, animals, and the planet. And experienced enough to have learned that drawing the balance between those three, while still protecting one's own life balance, is always going to be a flawed and humbling journey.

And so... Miss Mabel is officially removing one pot from the stove. This baby is cooked! (Mmmm babies. Better than bacon.)

 

______________

* Oops - correction added May 26th, after I saw my sister-in-law again. I'd forgotten what kind of church it was when I wrote this. Oh those Christian churches... they all look alike to me. ;-)