Struggling all day to write. Little bits of nothing.
It feels like I’m reaching into a bag looking for big muffins or apples, and find only tiny old stinky crumbs that I don’t even want to touch. I’m quite positive I put some real bits of food in there, some nice chunky meaty things to eat, but all I can find is the bottom of the bag, and it’s not pleasant to touch.
I’m on schedule. At around the half way mark. Part of my schedule was to take a week or so off and hit the road – driving down to visit Chris in Denver. 1450 miles – doing it in 3 days. Longest solo road trip I’ve ever done. Not planning on writing while traveling, except in this journal. Trying not to think about project management for awhile.
Sheer will mf. One large primal scream later, I feel much better. Trying the chin up thing – when stuck, do a set of chin-ups. And the screaming thing. And the guitar thing. And any other thing I can think of to shake off feeling stuck. Any other thing to keep my but in the chair, and my mind stringing words together (and not wandering the net).
Have to admit, I can’t tell if any of these tricks really makes a difference at all. What works one day doesn’t often work the next, or at least not in the same way, and I half wonder, if when I do feel better, if the change had anything at all to do with what I did.
The timeline is 7 months. 6 to write a first draft, one to handle revisions. We’ll set up a yahoo group or something for a small group of tech reviewers to give feedback on individual chapters. Feels good. Doable. Based on how long it took to write the sample chapters 6 months, 26 weeks, seems probable, not just possible.
Outline has 16 chapters and since I’ve thought i’ve them chrononically, that’s the way I’m going to write them. I have a head start on chapters 1-3. For the rest it’s just my notes.
So far it’s the daily schedule that seems to matter. I show up, I work. I show up, I work. I try not to think about how I’m feeling or whether I’m in the right mood, and just put ass to chair. When I really
Contract was signed earlier this week. Second publisher was interested but wasn’t as fast as O’Reilly. I’m now a signed writer with a book contract.
Got responses back the same day on the PM proposal. Both are tech book publishers and accepted submissions via email – and responded via email. Didn’t hear from the second publisher for a few days, but they were also very interested. WooHoo! Took 6 months to get here, but I’m talking to publishers about a book.
Ran to the library and read up on contracts and negotation. Didn’t write a lick all day – too excited to stay in the chair. Did some editing later on, but my rhythm was way off – hard to concentrate. Feel like a rooke that got to first base for the first time.
You think everyone is watching you, but really you’re just another shmoe standing on the bag.
Finished revising the PM book proposal over the weekend. New Riders, and another publisher weren’t interested (probably rightfully so, as it wasn’t quite their kind of book), but were helpful, and perhaps more useful, were quick in responding.
Sent the updated proposal to two publishers this morning. The draft chapters are close, but not finished yet – but given how long the response time tends to be (so far it’s been weeks to months), I’ll have them ready should someone want them.
With several chapters of the London book in the bag, and proposals out there, I’ve decided to switch gears and focus on the PM book. Until I find an interested publisher, as an unpublished author with an empty bookshelf, I want to keep spawning new projects and get them to the greenlight stage. I’ll keep doing this until I either have 4 or 5 proposal engaged projects, or I have a signed contract for a book that I’ll finish this year.
Mailed out the London book proposal to several publishers. Dropped them off in the drive thru mailbox. Heard them thud at the bottom, and thought of a wastebasket.
Got the proposal for EPM (working title “The education of a project manager”) finished on Wednesday, and sent it to New riders. Haven’t heard a peep. Spend the rest of the week on the London proposal, which needed more work. Yesterday I finally picked up a copy of Writers Market, continuing to learn about how all this works. Tons of sources on publishing that all seem to say similiarly distressing things. This is clearly uphill.
When I put together my 2004 plan, and listed my book ideas, a book on my experiences as a program manager was high on the list. Two reasons:
1) I was afraid I’d forget all that I’d learned in a year or two, or wouldn’t be able to write about it with an accurate perspective anymore if I waited too long
2) From everything I’ve learned about publishing, writing about something you have 10 years of experience with helps a ton in landing a proposal.
So I’ve been kicking around an outline, and today spent part of the day rolling together something like a book. I had a list of 35 chapter ideas, and got it down to 18. Almost book sized. I reused an aborted essay as the start for chapter one.
Just finished Chapter 4. Wrote a total of 10000 words, but the current version is only about 5000 long. This ratio is typical. Usually when I finish an essay, or a chapter, I’ll have a pile of fragments, stray pargagraphs, about equal in length to the essay itself. This doesn’t include fragments that I wrote, and deleted, which is probably signifigant. This only counts the fragments that I chose to keep around in case i needed them later.
There is a shape to these chapters now – I know how to write these kinds of essays now, and I can see the whole thing as a book. After Frank and I agreed that we had two different books here, one focused on writing with supporting pictures, and one focused on pictures with supporting writing, the writing has been easier. I’m focusing on the first, he on the later. The path is clear.
Draft of the book proposal is together. I read several books on writing these things, and went back to look at the ui design book proposal I wrote in ’99 (which was rejected). It’s in good shape. Once the draft chapters are together We’re ready to go.
The daily rhythm is better now. I get up – I write. When I get stuck, I run or walk the dog. Something physical. When start to get lightheaded, I eat. Repeat. When things are going well, perhaps one session in three, I can go for several hours. More often it’s tough going, and I can only go a half hour or so before I need to do something else. Playing guitar is a great 5 minute break – I grab the guitar from it’s stand just an arms length away, belt out a tune or two, and I always feel better. Singing songs while playing guitar gets stuff out – and it relaxes the whole creative process for me. On tought days I’ll keep the guitar in my lap, since I can’t get very far without wanting to get back to something that feels good.
This is my pattern every day – Saturday, Sunday, holidays. I write every day. If I can’t write about London, I write about something else. If I don’t want to write, I have to at least write something about not wanting to write.
I’m working on chapter 3, and it’s been slow. Pulling teeth. Not fun. I get little ideas, and run with them, but they usually amount to stillborn paragraphs and suicidal sentences (successfully suicidal). I also have pathetic phrasing, messy metaphors, and goofy grammar. Usually I go through this phase for an essay or for a chapter, but it doesn’t take this long. Usually after 3 or 4 hours I have a decent pile of ideas, and some of them start to stick together. Hasn’t happened yet. I have at least 4 near-paragraphs that are all only suitable as opening paragraphs. None of them currently work.
Showed a first draft of chapter one to Frank and Jill – lots of questions and comments. The hardest part of feedback on drafts is that you have to listen to commentary on things you know are problematic, but haven’t fixed yet (or don’t know how to fix), but you have to listen to it anyway as if their points are an act of discovery. No way around it – it’s part of what makes writing fun! Yay!
The truth I think is that when feedback about work hurts, something is being said that you know is true, but you (ok, I) haven’t dealt with yet. Or haven’t understood yet, or simply don’t want to deal with. The only thing I need is more persistence – as they say, rewriting is writing.
The plan I want to have, the daily plan, is something like this:
9:00am – get up. Run or lift.
10:00am – work on primary writing project.
12:00am – break for lunch
1:00pm – work on primary writing project
4:00pm – go outside, go for a walk, get some exercise
7:00-9:00 – write or read
Here’s what I did today:
10:00am – Jill woke up me, told me she’s going to work
10:01am – thought about the possibility of writing
10:02am – went back to sleep
11:30am – woke up
12:35pm – walked butch, and thought about writing while I walked him
12:45pm – Realized the power is still out. Went outside to get wood to start a fire in the fireplace.
12:55pm – sat by fire. Enjoyed the warmth.
1:00pm – Fell asleep on floor by the fireplace.
2:30pm – Wrote this entry.
It’s been 3 months since I left Microsoft – I promised Jill a “Scott 2004 plan” and I finished it last night. 3 pages long. Plan was approved by Jill today (she almost said it was good – high praise indeed). I have marital support now – woohoo!
The primary goal is books. My life goal is to fill the bookshelf near my desk with books – one’s that I’ve written. Since committing to this plan I admit I’ve studied the shelf carefully – shelves are BIG. This particular shelf is 15-20 books wide. If it takes a year to write a book, it will take me nearly 3 decades to finish this commitment. (Unless I’m allowed to write in crayon, in big 50pt Hellvetica, with one or two letters per page. If that’s allowed I may be in good shape after all).
I have a long list of book ideas – but the London project is still the best place to start. As slow as it’s been going, it still makes the most sense for several reasons.
I have half a moleskin journal filled with my notes and observations from the London trip. I have 250 photos of my own, and several hundred of Frank’s. Since I returned I’ve been putting together the pieces and trying to put it together into a framework. We had several ideas for frameworks for the book that we talked about over English breakfasts at the Cherrytop cafe near Baker street – but none of them have worked for me so far.
As it stands I have nearly a dozen half starts at a first chapter, none of which work. The daily activity has been picking up threads of these half starts and either weaving them together to get further in, or finding start #13 or #14 and seeing how far I can go. The work is slow and there are no rewards yet.
Power is out. On the old Sony laptop. Fire going. Reading and writing. When the power goes out every winter, I always find myself reading Emerson’s “self reliance”. Reading that thing can make enduring anything seem noble. Yum.
In London – actually heading to Paris from London, currently in the Chunnel. Frank is across from me, Ipod in hand, reading mens health uk.
Even with all the time underground I feel like this trip, and this project, is about re-examining travel – paying attention to how everyone else pays attention to, or avoids their experience. Even now, on this fancy upscale train, most people are busy trying to avoid, at least in one sense, the experience of travel. They sleep, they read, they listen to ipods – something to escape the monotony of sitting and looking around. People trade glances, like a game of tag, except no one admits that they’re playing.
The windows, mostly useless in the chunnel, provide a writer like me with an extra sneaky way of watching other people. But search long enough in the reflections, and reflections of reflections, and eventually I find someone else – probably also searching – and we both look away. Whoops – found what we were looking for, but not that we’ll admit it.
Why is it so tempting to watch others when we know they won’t look back? It’s all natural, but somehow forbidden – can’t admit we’re watching. Can’t smile when we’re caught. Must pretend we are not human.
