the hardest parts of writing novels (final revisions and patience)

Miss Snark has some smart words to say on her blog today about how hard it is to finish up a novel. Here's part of what she wrote:

They know, like I do, that the final 20% of the novel is harder to write than the preceding 80%. They know too that a first draft (which is what you're talking about when you first write THE END) is hardly ever something you should show anyone except your dog. That means you're a year from being really done, if you ever finish at all.

I think she's right on the money with this. Sure, it takes a long time (for me, anyway) to write a 300-page first draft. But it's the easiest part, really, because it's the time for discovery, the time to make mistakes.

But each subsequent revision gets a little trickier as the piece gets tighter and tighter. I'm onto draft 3 or so of my new novel, and it's fun as hell to work on it, but it's a challenge to find just the right patches for stuff that isn't working.

I'm cutting and revising one particular chapter, and got hung up today on one short scene. Maybe 2-4 pages, but I just had a tough time coming up with the right rewrite. That's part of what was making it harder (that I needed it to be just right), so tomorrow, I'll just write three versions of the scene, with complete license for any or all of them to be total crap. I'll bet good money that one of them will end up working.

The challenge of the revisions is part of what makes writers so anxious to prematurely start peddling their books. I know I feel it. The sense of, "man, I'd like to be done with this and start working on query letters." But it's a long way away. (My fiction group meets tomorrow night, where we'll talk about the second half of the novel. I imagine I'll come away with a very long list of things that will keep me busy for a while.)

My Fantasy World: A Living Wage Theatre

I don't know what you all think about when you're in the shower, but I come up with fantasies, about how more playwrights might earn a living wage. (And I want other theatres artists to earn a living wage, too.) Here's my latest:

I'd love to create a consortium of a dozen small theatres (100-150 seats) in 12 different cities. Each of these theatres would commit to producing 12 new full-length plays over the course of a year, each by a different playwright. One writer from each city. Each month, the plays would rotate to the next theatre.

The plays would be cast and directed using local actors. The casts and production elements would be minimal. Ideally, there might be a single team who designs all the productions, and the set and other design elements could be shipped from theatre to theatre. Marketing and design elements could be used in multiple productions (cutting costs again).

Another plus is that it would be easier to raise larger corporate sponsorships for a such a large, concerted effort.


This plan would have some powerful benefits for the 12 playwrights, in that they would receive royalties their play for an entire year. So let's say 60 seats sold, 4 nights a week, 48 weeks, $1/seat (5% of $20 tickets). That's $11,520. Not a living wage for an entire year, but a start. (Higher ticket prices would yield more $ for the writers, but I'm not a fan of super high ticket prices.) In addition, they (if they chose) could see 12 different professional productions of their plays, which would be immensely helpful in the development of the scripts into material that would be of interest to other theatres around the country. They're also exposed to audiences in a dozen different cities--very strong potential.

Cost savings for theatres on marketing, sets, design, might be significant.


There are numerous reasons why this is likely to stay a fantasy. Some of them:

• How could you get 12 producers/artistic directors to agree on 12 different plays to produce? (Though really, you just have to say, each producer picks one play she loves, and everyone has to just agree to produce the whole set, even if the other eleven aren't all equally appealing.)
  
• Even with the cost savings, the economics of professional productions at small theatres is almost impossible (though I like productions at small theatres much more than big spaces. I don't believe that large theatres make much sense any more. A blog about this some other day.)
• Big systems tend to break down. What happens when one of the theatres goes belly up? Or one of the shows proves itself to be a big bomb?
• The production demands and cast sizes of the plays would have to be fairly limited, if the goal is to make sure everyone gets paid a living wage.
  

I wish that I had the time and resources to try to turn this fantasy into a reality (with one of my own plays, too, of course). But if any of you gets the urge, let's talk.

Laura Axelrod on Debt/Costs of doing biz

Laura Axelrod has some interesting things to say about being a writer and dealing with debt on her Gasp! blog. Check it out.

I recently added up the cost of my recent trip to NYC for the American Globe Festival. This is a festival where you have to find your own director and actors and foot the bill. The festival provides the space, tech, publicity, insurance, etc. Which is great. But even with all of that covered, I probably spent $180 on stuff (props and actors) for the show, plus another $140 to go down and see it (bus tickets, subway, meals. I slept on my friends' couch).

Each playwright got $25 in royalties.

Now, I had a great time, and the director and cast did a fine job with the show (which was sold out and advanced to the finals, though it didn't win any prizes). It was the first time the show was produced, so it was helpful for me to see it. I had some good meetings with playwright friends and got the chance to hawk my novel to some bookstores. The people who run the festival are very nice. And it's always cool, at least psychologically, to have a show in New York. Maybe someone saw it who might someday want to produce something else of mine. Maybe. I don't have a sense that a lot of industry people saw the show.

What I do know is that I can't afford to take a $300 hit for a ten-minute show (and the trip to see it) very often. It's a tricky thing, to figure out how much money you should invest to get your work out there, and knowing when the return just won't be there (and the intangibles count, too).

What I'm Reading: Digging to America

When I was going to New York and back two weeks ago, the bus rides gave me some precious uninterrupted reading time, and I read all of Anne Tyler's Digging to America. I got turned on to Tyler by Nick Hornby. (That could almost make it sound like Nick is a pal and we sit around drinking beer and watching World Cup matches together. Sadly, untrue. He's just one of my favorite writers, and I've read a couple interviews.)

Digging to America at first felt a lot like Breathing Lessons (for which she won the Pulitzer), but quickly diverged. She's so good at drawing her characters and the small essential dramas of their lives. In some ways not much happens in her books (I usually hate books like this), but there really are a lot of tiny conflicts going on within and between her characters in this proscribed, somewhat domestic realm that they inhabit. And she has a sense of humor. She's definitely a writer that I read and say, "I want to figure out how to write like that." It's a lot harder than it looks.

This particular book was useful for me, too, because the book I'm currently writing is sort of based in domestic realism (much more so than anything I've ever written), and also deals with race and adoption. We have very different takes on these things, but it was helpful for me to see how she handles it all. Digging to America shifts 3rd person POV to a different character in just about every chapter, which was intriguing, though it didn't always work for me. This was especially problematic late in the book, where suddenly we're seeing through the eyes of a child, which I found annoying because I wanted to have more insights into what was happening. (I don't imagine Ms. Tyler is worried what I think.)

I should probably reread this one, to look more carefully at how she pulls it off, but I think I'll read The Accidental Tourist instead. (After I get through the pile of P.G. Wodehouse from the library, and Anna Karenina (honest), and two new Michael Pollan books that I got for my birthday.)

Why 6 is the Magic Number

(photo by Geri-Jean Blanchard from http://www.sxc.hu/photo/750314)

I was talking with my friend Dan the other day--he's working on his writing, but sometimes finds it hard to finish projects. I suggested that he look around for a writer's group, or else start one. I've started a few playwright's groups--one has been going for 14 years and another is about five years old, plus I belong to a fiction writer's group. I've thought a lot about what it takes to make a writer's group work:

Size matters. For a group that meets fairly often, six is an ideal number. If you have people bring material every session, you can give everyone a chance in a three-hour session. In order for a meeting to be effective, you really need a minimum of four people present. If you have six people in your group, you won't have to cancel, even if someone is sick and another has dress rehearsal. With half a dozen writers, each person can have her say without an excessive amount of repetition. And with six people, there's less of a tendency for one or two dominant personalities to use up all the oxygen (as often happens in larger groups). If you meet once a month, and bring in longer pieces, six writers only have to produce twice a year, which is possible for most writers.

Chemistry counts. Finding six people who can all stand being in the same room with each other, year after year, is not easy. A lot of it is luck. It can be helpful to state from the outset that this is a new group and be sure to schedule a session explicitly for the purpose of evaluating how well the group has begun to gel. If it's not, then you're better off closing the group, with no hard feelings. Once a successful group is established, it's hard to fill empty slots, and patience is critical. In my playwrights group, we actually bring in prospective members as guest writers for one session before deciding. In order to include someone new, the decision needs to be unanimous.

Quality. I think it's a good idea not to be the best writer in your group (for at least one person, it can't be helped I suppose). I like working with people who I can learn from. As much as I want diversity in my group in most aspects, I think it is important to have writers of a somewhat narrow range of experience. Putting pure novices together with bestselling authors is unlikely to be useful for either set.

Diversity. When putting together a group, it's important to have writers who write fairly differently from each other, but who can still appreciate the writing of each group member. A mix of genders, ages, races is much more stimulating than having five other folks whose writing styles and backgrounds are carbon copies of each other (and you).

Evaluate. My Rhombus playwright's group meets twice a year for four-month sessions (two times a month). After each semester, we schedule a business meeting where we just talk about the business of the group and how it's working. It's important to have this time away from the regular meetings, in order to continually refine the format and function of the group. (We always do it over dessert potluck, which is a fine traditions for writers with sweet tooths like me.)

Actors. This applies to playwrights groups. Find the best possible actors. Pay them a little bit if you can swing it. We hire two men and two women to read with us for the semester. We use different actors in the fall and spring semesters. Working with experienced actors helps all of our scripts, and the relationships that we've all formed have benefited everyone. One play developed in Rhombus went on to an Equity production and the show was able to use three actors who'd been reading the roles in our group.


Those are the main things I can think of at the moment. If you've had good luck starting groups and have other insights, please comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'm especially curious about small screenwriter's groups. (There's a large screenwriter's group around here, but it seemed awfully big to me.)

Opening Night Tomorrow

Measuring Matthew opens in the Dragonfly Festival here in Boston tomorrow night at the Devanaughn Theatre. I've been to a couple rehearsals so far, and it's been going well. I'm looking forward to seeing the other plays, too.

Measuring Matthew, May 10-13, Boston, Devanaughn Theatre

Scheming (again)

I’ve got a new time scheme I want to try out, inspired by a friend who is adamant about protecting her writing time. I'm going to reserve 9-12 every weekday for writing. This will only last while school is on, but that gives me about five weeks or so.

This time of year, it’s easy to be distracted. Yesterday, I ended up leaving early and walking around town to do errands (it was sunny and in the 80s). There are always dishes to wash, stuff to pick up, library books to return, bank visits, e-mails, etc..

But I need to just drop all of those things at 9am. Leave them where they’re at, and get to my desk and get to work. Clear off all the junk and papers into a milk crate that I keep under the desk. It fills up. Stuff doesn’t get done. Oh, well.

I’m also going to try VERY hard not to check my e-mail for those three hours. I normally prefer to check my e-mail about every two minutes. Need to close down the e-mail program and keep it closed.

I’m lucky to have the time in my life to write at the moment, but it’s amazing how fast it gets eaten up. Vigilance and discipline are key.

It seems simple, but it’ll be tough. I’ve tried a million schemes to get more work out of my time. Sometimes they work great (the playwright submission binge succeeded for me and a bunch of other people) and often they die quick, silent deaths (didn’t I say just two weeks ago that I was going to spend an hour a day marketing Tornado Siren and another hour a day marketing my screenplays? What happened to that fine plan?)

I hope this one will work. It's not far from what I've been doing, but I've been a little too loose lately.

Once school is over, I’ll need a new plan. I’m already scheming.