I’m about to start the first draft of a new novel.
This instills in me all the self-confidence of two virgins in a MINI Cooper.
I’m sweaty and awkward. I don’t have a clue where anything goes. And I’m
already questioning whether this was the right vehicle for attempting this in
the first place.
I don’t know why first drafts scare
me so much. It’s not as if I don’t know by now that I’ll be rewriting it all in
a few months anyway. You’d think, with three published novels and a finished
fourth manuscript behind me, I’d be like Larry King at the altar: ring in one
pocket, attorney on speed dial in the other. I know what’s coming—the
revisions, the tossed scenes, the killed characters, the discoveries I won’t
make until I’m practically finished with the draft. And yet I will do almost
anything to delay the process. This past week alone, I have:
1. transferred
all of my children’s baby pictures to DVD
2. volunteered
to be on the interview committee for the new principal of my daughter’s middle
school
3. Filled
out my bank’s customer satisfaction survey (probably a first in the history of
my bank)
4. Actually
listened to the Jehovah’s Witnesses who came to my door.
I’m so desperate I called up GEICO to see
if I could save money on my car insurance. (Don’t let the Cockney accent fool
you; the lizard is a liar).
I’m really starting to panic.
I’m stalling by researching stuff I will
never, ever need to know. The Internet is great for this. I can start off with
a simple question about common Honduran surnames for my new mystery series
about a Latino detective in suburban New York and end up two hours later
reading the history of the Indian ruler Lempira who fought the Spanish and now
has the Honduran currency named after him. (Pause to reflect: would the U.S. be
in any better shape if our bills were called “Geronimos”?)
My first mystery series, set in the New
York City Fire Department, provided loads of fun researching how to start fires
and blow up things. There is nothing like watching a video of a room turning
into a solid wall of flame in under three minutes to give one an Old Testament
appreciation for how fast things can get jacked up. Makes that unexplained clunk in
my car and the untraceable leak beneath my kitchen sink feel like good Karma by
comparison.
Here’s where a well-conceived outline
would come in handy. I love outlines. I really do. Wish I could write one.
Typically I start out with three pages of notes for the first chapter and by chapter
five, I’m down to descriptions like, “someone dies here” and “they have good
sex.” (Is there any other kind in fiction?) The truth is, I just don’t know
what’s going to happen until it does. I write great outlines for my second
drafts. But that’s like waiting for the medical examiner when what you really needed
was the doctor. It’s so much more convenient to catch the problem before the
patient stops having a pulse.
I know what I have to do. I have to write
something awful—something I would only show to my mother when she was alive,
and only then, after she’d had a couple of glasses of good red wine. And then I
have to believe that it will get much, much better as I lay down more of the
story. To build a smooth road, you always have to start with a pile of rocks.
Chinese Fortune-cookie stuff, I know. But
it also happens to be true. I had an art teacher at Northwestern University
named George Cohen who once instructed every student to paint the “best”
painting he or she could create. In the second class, Cohen asked every student
to paint the “worst” painting. Then Cohen papered the room with all of our
artwork and asked students to vote on the best pieces. About 75 percent of the
pieces voted as “best” were the ones we had painted as our “worsts.” (Makes me
wonder about my other decisions in life.)
So I will try to be fearless and not worry
about what’s “best” and what’s “worst.” I will try to have faith that over
time, there will be a road through the wilderness.
Then again, I could always start another entry in my blog…