What I did during my summer vacation
or speed-writing in Khadgala
The more you write, the more you're like a truck driver: alone all the time, your back and butt hurt, you consume a lot of stimulants, and you have your CB radio on, so you can communicate with your good buddies. You have your rest stops and your milestones.
You have a delivery to make.
My little joke for the fact that I didn’t go anywhere this summer went like this:
Suntanned neighbor: How was your summer? Did you go anywhere?
Me: Yes! I was in Khadgala for two whole months!
Neighbor: Khadgala…Where’s that?
Me: You’ll have to read my book to find out!
If it’s a long haul, you got in thousands of words. I ended the work year with a thirty-three thousand word manuscript that I started in February, and which now stands at fifty-five. I decided to follow Steven King’s methodology (six pages a day), and I kept that up for two months, seven days a week. I have to say that I won’t be doing this again, although I was interested to know if I was capable. Why not, you ask? Because I happen to like taking three days to write a single scene, and because you commit to things on the fly that will probably have to come out in the edit phase, and that seems inefficient. You don’t get any particular bonus flashes of insight if you’re moving so fast. In fact, I think it’s the opposite. You get them when you have a bit more time to reflect. (Or at least, it’s true in my case.)
I’m neither a plotter nor a pantser, which I guess makes me the rarest blood type, a “plantser”(?). I plot by act because I don’t necessarily want to know where the story is going to end. I love to experiment with the story and let the characters do their own thing. If I feel like they are running the show, not me, I imagine that I’m on the right track. It takes the pressure off in a way that is actually an absurd thought. It’s like you are dreaming of musicians playing a beautiful song you’ve never heard before, and when you wake up you say to yourself, Hey, I composed that song. So no, you are in fact still in control, it just doesn’t seem that way because unlike a plotted character arc, I’m not trying to get anyone to do anything. I just put them in situations and, according to how they are, let them figure out how to move forward. Voilà, that’s plantsing.
I’m coming to the end of the story now. I wanted to be done with the first draft by now, but two weeks ago, I jammed on the air brakes for life reasons, so I’m 20K in arrears. No problem. That’s about all I need to finish this draft.
The modus ops are fair game too. In the next book, I will attempt the Buster Keaton method: come up with the beginning and the end, and leave the middle a big question mark. That will be writing absolutely outside my comfort zone, so it should be invigorating!
Do you struggle with this? Don't give in to the disparaging voice. Try to figure out who it is. What disapproving figure in your past is haunting you? Ask the voice: why are you siding with them? You're supposed to be siding with me.
Great to read of your process and progress.
I very much align with this way of plantsing, though I've never managed something with as big a word count.