Method Writing.

I read somewhere that James Dean would so go into his character that he, when playing a drunken, would fool his cast mates and crew into thinking he was really inebriated. I also read that Bjork, following completion of DANCER IN THE DARK, was so absorbed by her character that she vowed never to act again. It had broken her heart. I love this idea, of being so entrenched in your character that you become them. It's something I do every time I write a book.

I didn't set out intending to write this way. Frankly, I never actually set out to write, I just sat down one day and began writing. With my first novel, it was easy for me to write as though I was my main character. JUST A LITTLE RAIN is a very fictionalized, semi-autobiographical novel. It's not all me, but it's enough me that I *got* Eliza right from the get-go. I never had to ask myself, "How would she behave in this situation?" or "How does she feel about this?" or "What things does she notice when she looks at the world?" I just thought about how I would see, feel, and react, then wrote it.

WHERE CURRENTS PULL was more difficult for me to get into, because my intention with that novel was to tackle a problematic area of my own personality (my inability to make big decisions, and my near-obsession with the small ones), but to assign it to a character who was very much not me. I found myself writing in Eliza's voice for a while, before I realized I had to change my approach for Natalie. I changed the music I was using to write to, and thought long and hard about her voice. Natalie spoke in run-on sentences; she began sentences with "So" and "And" a lot. She over-explained and over-thought everything. She was detail-oriented to the point of being either annoying or charmingly strange.
The more into her character I got, the more I behaved like Natalie. I started dressing in dresses exclusively just like Nat, started talking long, noticed all the small details of everything around me, appreciated sparkly things (not vampires) and the color blue, and- even more weird- developed a very easy, breezy attitude with life. Actually, I was probably the happiest I've been in a long time when I was writing Natalie, just because she's, generally, a very happy person.

Then we get to ABOVE THE WAVES. When I started on this novel, I already had it in my mind that I become my characters as I write. I found Amanda a specific playlist (which was difficult- I wrote a blog about it some long time ago), and set out to discover her. Amanda's a tough one, because she starts out this totally confident, dry, and hot girl. When I wrote the beginning, I curled my hair in waves every day, exercised twice a day, and limited my drinking. As the writing progressed, Amanda devolves into a huge mess of depression. So did I. It wasn't specifically intentional, but when you're trying to understand how a character will behave when she's feeling that way, you have to tap into something. It's interesting, because I imagined her depression to be this heavy sadness, but it didn't end up that way at all. She(we) felt a general numbness to the world, interspersed with fits of anger. Actually, it really worked for her character and, I think, was tons more authentic than weepiness would have been.

*It didn't work very well for me, however, and I'm finding it very difficult to break away from Amanda. I guess it doesn't help that the story doesn't end all rainbows and unicorns.*

Anyway, I wonder if other writers do this? I mean, I know I'm a weirdo, but there have to be more of us out there, right?

Listening to: Mates Of State "Re-Arrange Us" again. I'm a Tuesday, remember?

xo. kb.

Sometimes you just need to change your perspective.

The kids are away for the week, visiting my aunt. I've been looking forward to this since, well, since they came home from her house earlier this summer. It's not that I don't love my kids, but if you have them, you know it's difficult to get anything accomplished when they're around. And I'm an accomplisher girl. Play's fun and all, but I have all sorts of guilt that I'm not writing/cleaning/baking/reorganizing the garage. Yeah, I'm a Virgo. You guessed, right?

So I'm very excited to have a whole week, almost entirely uninterrupted (started new job Sunday, but still training), to write. As you all know, it's August already, and for those of you #write2theend-ers that means our deadline is quickly approaching. This means a lot of work for me, because my book, no matter how much I seem to write, seems to be stuck in the rut of being 2/3s complete.

Gah!

It's a difficult book to write. My MC Amanda has a serious problem with depression, and, as I use the technique of "Method Writing," I have to get into her psyche when I write. The spot I'm in right now is that kind of depression where you feel exhausted, but can't sleep. Where you're hungry, but nothing sounds good. Where you have a lot to do, but can't seem to bring yourself to get any of it done. And I'm trying to write this. I'm dying.

I'm a huge fan of, if you can't see the solution, then look at the problem from a different direction. So I decided to try for a new approach. I decided to write the end. Okay, not the end end, but the scene before the last scene. I've actually had to do this with the two books before ATW, and it's always brought me clarity and helped propel me to the finish. Because it tells me exactly where I'm going, and I want to see how it unfolds.

Of course, deciding to write the end and actually writing it are two different things. I sat down a gazillion times with nothing, tried taking the dog for a walk, then a run, then a bath to clear my mind, all to no avail. I started to feel the disappointment. The irritation that I have a whole week at my disposal and will end with nothing to show for it. Then Monday night happened.

I read THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins last week. It's one of those books that sucks you in, and you find yourself at 2am and finished, then up again in the morning with it still in your mind. I guess I loved it a little. I was super excited to read CATCHING FIRE, the sequel, but told myself I'd wait until I finished my first draft. Well, with first draft stunted, I decided to go out and buy the book. I started reading as soon as I got home, curious to see how she would follow THG, and immediately thrilled to see that she followed it with absolute awesomeness. I took a brief break to watch the band MENOMENA on Jimmy Fallon (they killed btw), then went back to the book. I was finished by one and went right to my computer.

I suppose if/when my book is published, I should thank Suzanne Collins in the acknowledgments for helping me out. All this stuck in a rut of un-feeling was bogging me down. The emotional intensity between Peeta and Katniss, Katniss and Gale really inspired me to write the scene ATW needed. I put on my Jeremy Enigk playlist (my equivalent of duct tape music- good for anything I need), sat and wrote, barely noticing the clock (except at 1:11, 2:22, 3:33, and 4:44 so I could make wishes) until the scene was complete. Five pages later, at five o'clock in the morning it was done.

I went to bed, got three hours of sleep, then was up yesterday looking it over. I won't say it's perfect, but the meat is there. The best news, though, is that I'm now back into the book. Emotionally invested. I went back to my original file, and was able to write over a thousand words and move the story along. And I'm looking forward to what I'll accomplish today.

It's a good place.

Listening to: Local Natives "Gorilla Manor"

xo. kb.