Staring at the Ceiling

And how to live with the early stages of a book

Ann Patchett tells a story about a long-term relationship she had with a very nice man, who loved her. She loved him, too. And yet, she couldn’t commit to marriage because she couldn’t figure out how to tell him that much of writing was lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling.

I told my husband this story early in our relationship, and he loves to remind me of it when I’m fretting about the slow pace of a book in the early stages. Late in a book, it is not uncommon to write 3000 words a day for several weeks. Some part of my brain feels like I should always be able to do that.

But that is not the case. Right now, I am in the early stages and my word count in a given day might be 400 words or 750, or sometimes not even that. This week, I am with my friends at a writing retreat in Santa Fe, and my lofty goal was to draft 10,000 words.

Ha.

I’m at the staring-at-the-ceiling phase. I’ve been feeling a sense of intense resistance to the story and couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Writers sometimes cite writer’s block at a point like this, but what I know is that I’ve missed something, or taken a wrong turn, or lost the main thread of what brought me to the book in the first place.

Instead of trying to force words this morning, I sat down with my laptop and tried to get curious. I read the pages I’ve written, and they’re quite agreeable; I like the characters, the basic story threads I’ve teased out so far, but something felt empty in the middle.

Ah. That’s good. So what’s missing?

That’s not always an easy thing to answer. Instead, I asked my journaling self some practical questions. What would make this morning feel like a win? It would feel like progress to write 750 words. 1000 would be a major victory.

That’s useful information. How can I get those words? The answer was to either stick with the main storyline or delve into a thread from the past.

Okay, again, useful, but I still felt a little lost and resistant. What if I outlined the next scenes with just two sentences each: who, what, where, and why, a possible visual to capture theme, and then what was happening.

That helped. I wrote out the next scenes in the main thread, where I realized something I hadn’t seen that I’d planted (good job, girls in the basement), and then spent some time on the past storyline, and also saw concrete things to do.

There is something going on in the real world that impacts my novel setting, and I recognized that was causing some consternation, too. It is complicated and beyond my control.

I had a couple of conversations that helped me figure out what to do with that. I’m not sure the answer is correct, because the situation is still evolving, but I have a good-enough-for-now answer.

What I mainly did this morning was write a sentence or two, then stare at the ceiling for awhile, then write another couple of sentences. Had a big aha moment. Wrote another idea for a scene.

Also, in my woo-woo way, I thanked the book for coming to me to be enfleshed. It’s always such an enormous gift, and I haven’t been properly appreciative. Thank you, book. Thank you, girls in the basement. Thank you, muses and wild ideas. I promise to do my best.

So while I didn’t write 1000 words, or even 750, I feel much more aligned with the story. I know where I’m going tomorrow. I have cleared away a lot of resistance, and the book feels again like it might be something.

Now I’m off to redeem my reward, going to the Plaza with my friends to admire the shop windows, maybe find a little treat, and look at art.

What I am walking with this week:
— the cool, light air in Santa Fe, one of my favorite places
— the joy of long, rambling, deep conversations with my writer friends
— the continuing joy of writing novels, year in year out, over and over

What are you walking with?