Outline = Lifeline

Writing novels has been a favorite pastime of humankind for a long time but what I'd love to know is how many people managed to produce a work of undeniable artistic merit while single-handedly caring for a thirteen month old? I read somewhere that John Gardner lent a young Raymond Carver keys to his office on weekends so that he could get away from his two small children for a few hours and practice his craft in peace. We must also not overlook the fact that he had his wife to take care of the kids while he was away. I have no such luck in my life. I love my daughter dearly but our waking hours together are anything but peaceful in the way that a writer desires. In fact, I sometimes find she regards my laptop as a rival for my affections and acts pugilistically towards it. When she is in a more generous frame of mind, she clamors for her favorite Sesame Street videos to be put on. When finally she dozes off and I am free to write, I am often distracted from the task at hand in a way many writers claim to be. In the bargain, I have ended up making a jar of rather delectable raspberry cherry preserve and baked lots of carrot cakes and zucchini bread. When I am totally frustrated with my writing life, I cook. Thankfully, the food that is thus produced turns out pretty good and so far has not given anybody indigestion. Perhaps it would make sense to make chillie sauce when I am cooking for relief. I actually have some ideas stewing on the back burner of my mind.

The update on the work since the last time I blogged is this! Outlines work. A month ago I started out with eight chapter outlines. Last night, at 2.30am I managed to reach the half way mark. I am happy to report that the story grew out of the narrow confines of the outline and ambled off to interesting places quite on its own. That was a serendipitous occurrence that I had not bargained for. It seems that that once your writer's dreaming mind enters a scene, things happen on their own. Robert Olen Butler speaks at great length about this phenomenon in his book From Where You Dream.

A note here about the quality of work. It is far from satisfactory but it is widely believed that first drafts, by definition, are shitty.(Annie Lammott, Bird by Bird). Some of my best writing was nothing to look at when I first put words down on paper. So there's hope yet.

Right now, I am looking forward to cranking out another 12,000 words to get to the next milestone: the next four chapters fleshed out first draft fashion. Power to me!

Panic Attack!!

In the past one year alone, I think I have read at least a hundred books and essays on writing...if not more. From Robert Olen Butler to John Gardner and everything in between, I have devoured with a doggedness that has left me breathless and panting. Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones" and Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" have filled me with hope but the Grand Summit still eludes me. Like the Mount Everest, it sits 29,000 feet above me swathed in plumes of ice. Five false starts, 40,000 words, four chapters rewritten five times over, I have not made the progress I had in mind. Being a creative professional, I am used to tackling a design problem on the running, pin it down and wrestle out a solution, five presentation sheets, plan, section, elevation plus views, bam bam bam, everything printed out while the clock is still ticking. So this is driving me to utter despair. I never spent so much time listening to the clock tick away in its corner in my entire life. Yesterday, I came across a piece of advice: write an outline for every chapter. Is that how its really done? Will it ever get done?