Photo by Pamela Weis – Stairwell in 1850 House Museum, New Orleans 2018
I am dabbling in historical fantasy. I don’t want to pigeon hole my stories, but that’s pretty much what this is. Late 19th century Brooklyn with ghosts, witches, and a talking cat – yeah, that fits the bill.
The quality of the story may be best suited for a young adult audience, but I’m not sure yet. What differentiates a YA fantasy from an adult fantasy? Complex plot lines? Sophisticated prose? Adult versus juvenile characters? I have not read much YA, so I’m not the person to answer this.
Regardless, I am loving the research process, finding fascinating tidbits on late 19th century New York and Brooklyn to weave into the story. And since this is not pure history, I can pick and choose, which is quite liberating. What sorts of toilets were most common among middle class families in the 1890s? What were the popular songs played on pianos in wealthy homes? Did women wear trousers? What was public transit like, if it existed at all? What were the most offensive and pleasing aromas one experienced when walking down a street on a hot summer day? There are so many little details to discover! Plus, I have included some tiny elements from my own family history, largely in the way of names, plus a few other odds and ends. It is deeply satisfying to create an entire world and imagine how the people in that world live each day.
This is my NaNoWriMo project for 2019 and I am almost done. Just over 46,000 words written and I will finish a day early because I won’t be around to write on the final day! It has been a fun challenge. I did not go to any write-ins, mostly because I write at odd hours, but also because I don’t think I would like writing in the same space with other people. It sounds distracting. But maybe I will try one next year, out of curiosity. If nothing else, it’s probably a good way to become part of a solid writing community.
The most important part of this writing journey so far, even without the NaNoWriMo challenge to help me along, is that I feel more confident with each day about the quality of my writing, and that I enjoy the process. I have written at least 800 words every day for the past six weeks or so. This is my new habit. My new routine. My new daily “must do.” With any luck, it will eventually become some kind of livelihood. But that was never the goal. The goal was always to just do it. And I have.
Photo by Pamela Weis – Morning in South Africa 2008
I did it! For two weeks in a row, I managed to get up a little early every day and write at least 800 words. On the weekend I managed about 2000 words per day. And there was one weekday on which I hit 1000 words! This is a huge milestone for me. Waking up in the morning is painfully difficult, but for whatever reason, the motivation was there. And what a difference it makes…it is so much easier to hold onto the thread of a story when you write a little bit of it every day.
But this is a one day at a time process. I do have a little bit of a social life, and getting up early is not always possible when I have been up late the night before. Late for me is about 11:30. So I wrote in the afternoon on Sunday, and that worked because, well, it was Sunday. I don’t have that luxury during the week, but I managed to get back into the rhythm of it.
This settles my indecision about NaNoWriMo. If I can write every day, I can do NaNoWriMo. I may not hit 50,000 words, but damnit, I’ll try my hardest to make it happen. As for what I will write? Ah well, I think I’ll make that decision when I start writing on November 1st (gulp, today!). I have an idea for a new story – a new circumstance for a new character – but I will see how it goes. Either I will stick with a new project for that month and return to my primary project in December, or I’ll switch gears midway through and return to my primary project. It doesn’t matter. It’s all so exciting! It also feels really good. I have finally found, or rather, finally accepted, that writing is one of my favorite things to do.
There are a couple of online writing communities to which I belong. I don’t know any of my fellow writers in person. I would not recognize their names or faces if I saw them outside the context of the online social group. A few of them are older than I am. One is in his 70s. Probably there are one or two in their 80s. This is comforting. I don’t think I’m too old to begin exploring a new creative pursuit, but if I were my 20-something self observing my present 40-something self, I might wonder – what the hell am I doing?
On the other hand, I always expected that I would get better with age; I would fit myself better, I suppose. I was a middle aged person in a young person’s body, strangely looking forward to gray hair and fine lines. I think most people who knew me when I was in my 20s would agree that I was always a little too responsible. Except for the rebellious cigarette smoking and that one tattoo, I was pretty straight and narrow in terms of life choices. I still am.
No, the time “issue” is not one of my age. It’s more about the time I have, or don’t have, in a given day, to spend writing. I wrote about 2000 words this morning in my novel. Ideally, I would do that (at least that) every day. As it is, I mostly manage to do it once or twice a week, usually on Saturday and/or Sunday. Very occasionally, I find some time on a week night. One day last month I took a personal day so that I could spend more than an hour writing. I think I spent about 3-4 hours writing and produced about 5000 words. That was amazing. It felt so good. I took my ancient PC netbook down to the lounge in our apartment building and parked myself in a semi-comfy chair, laptop on lap, for 1-2 hours at a stretch. It was cold because the air-conditioning was pumped, so I had a hoodie on. I doubt anyone took much notice of me. Writing on my lap is not ideal; the computer gets hot after awhile, and my neck sometimes gets sore; I prefer a desk. But it was better than being distracted in my apartment. This is one of the drawbacks to pursuing fiction writing at this point in my life. My husband and I live in a studio apartment. There is one large room, a small alcove for his office, a separate kitchen, and a bathroom. It’s small. And most of the time, that’s fine. But if I am to write fiction, I need silence and no distractions so my imagination can wander unrestrained by reality. That’s nearly impossible when my beloved, sweet, wonderful husband is awake. It’s not that he intentionally distracts me, or that he is bothersome in any way; it’s just hard for me to focus when he is up and about. I want to talk with him and hug him and interact. I need an office with a door that closes. But that won’t happen anytime soon, so the lounge downstairs is a decent substitute for now. And when there are people down there, I just put my ear plugs in. I don’t know them personally, so they are not as distracting as my husband. I am not interested in their conversations.
Time…carving it up in productive ways has constantly been a challenge for me, long before this writing pursuit came about. I keep trying to wake up early on weekdays to spend at least 20 minutes writing before work. I like writing in the mornings. The only downside is that our cats are hyper so they sometimes jump on my desk, and by extension, my keyboard. But that is tolerable because they’re cute and they make me laugh. The hardest part about morning writing is that I have a painfully difficult time getting out of bed in the mornings. That will probably never change.
As a personal challenge to my use of time, I am considering doing NaNoWriMo this year; it’s a little daunting. I would need to get most of my writing in on weekends. Weekdays would be extremely difficult. Maybe Thursdays I could get in a few hundred words, but mostly I’d need to be writing thousands of words on the weekends. Like 9000 words per weekend. That’s a little nuts. If I’m on a roll, I can write a little over 2000 words in an hour. I type pretty quickly and when the ideas are flowing, I just go with it. But still…
It feels like such a dumb problem to have. First world problem, for sure. Then I read about Toni Morrison and how she worked full time and raised two children on her own and still managed to find time to write early in the morning (at 4-freaking-am! according to Wikipedia) and I think, damn, I am so lame. I don’t even have kids. There must be a way to do this without making myself sick from sleep deprivation and totally abandoning all of the other things that keep me healthy and sane, like exercise.
Saying “no” to things will help. I will have to say “no” to more things than I usually do. And I’ll have to not feel bad about it. Time is not an infinite resource for an individual. If I want to finish the first draft of this damn book before, I don’t know, before the 2020 election, let’s say, then I need to get crackin’. NaNoWriMo might be just the thing I need to kickstart a new daily writing schedule.
