Seventy Days of Sweat and Six Months on the Oregon Trail

I finally signed up for Seventy Days of Sweat, the Writing Challenge posted at Alison Kent's blog (Thanks to our own Alyson Love for telling us about it!)

So I have to write 4 to 6 pages a day - no sweat, after Script Frenzy. I loved being pushed at Script Frenzy, it reminded me how much I really want to write every day. And how important it is to get rid of the internal editor.

What I didn't like about Script Frenzy was my writing. It was total crap. Okay, only 99% crap. I don't like that. I know that timed writing, speed writing, writing without the internal editor is important - it's the best way to get those "gems" that just don't show up when you're thinking too much about writing as you write. To be honest, you really don't know as you write what's good and what's crap. So you just have to write and figure it out later.

The problem with Script Frenzy was that there were no gems. There were a few things I liked, but mostly I hate what I wrote. Okay, I haven't reread it but I know it was bad. I didn't know where the story was going. I just pushed myself through. I've done this before and it's ended up as crap. It happened again.

So after Script Frenzy, I decided to look at writing with a fresh start. Why am I writing? What do I want to write?

I want to have fun writing. I don't think that the kinds of stories I want to write will ever be best sellers so I don't think I will ever make a good living writing. Besides, I want to write my stories without worrying about what's marketable. Yes, I want my books to sell, I want people to read them, but I think it's a small audience for my books and that's OK. Of course, if Oprah was to pick one for her book club, I'd have no objections!

I want to write long complicated historical novels. Romances? Well, really more like mainstream stories with romances. I love the idea of building a world as we think it was in the "olden days", and seeing how people dealt with that world. Especially seeing how strong, smart, independent women handled the restrictions (and romances) in their lives.

I also want to write plays. I love the idea of collaborating with people in the theatre. And I totally love the idea of sitting in the theatre watching my story come to life.

So I thought to myself that I would try to write a play that takes place on the Oregon Trail, but not the play I wrote during Script Frenzy. Came up with characters and a plot I liked. Took a look at it, and oh my, it was one of the sub plots from my novel about the Oregon Trail. I think I need to go back to that book.

I need to cut back the scale too. I can't include everything from the 1850's in the book - it's my first one, I'm still learning. Later I can write something very detailed and intricate. So I'm just going to write about the Oregon Trail. I won't include the escaping slave, I'll save that for another book. After all, the underground railroad is a fascinating topic, it will make a great book. I won't include duels although they fascinate me, because I just don't understand them. But that would make a great romance. Or maybe a play. The romantic hero will not be an immigrant from famine Ireland. That will be saved for another story too.

So for "70 Days of Sweat", I'm going back to my story about Carolyn on the Oregon Trail. But I'm not going to wing it like I did for Script Frenzy. I know a lot of the plot and the characters. I'm going to write those five pages a day. I know I learn about my story as I write it. But if I write without some guidelines it goes nowhere. So I'm going to call this a "guided discovery draft". That means I'll read all my writing books about plot and character and do the exercises to figure out plot and character to guide where the story goes. And I'll also write those five pages a day, and accept the fact that writing the book will change my ideas about the plot and character.

I think if I do this, I'll have some gems in that draft. And I'll have a good working draft that I can rewrite (who knows how many rewrites I'll have to do) but it will be a good starting point.

Roxy Fontaine