Book Two, Draft Negative One (-1)

I’m away from home right now, at an undisclosed location, trying to write book number two. Technically it’s book four, but I’m not counting the ones that didn’t see print. Here’s why:

Getting a book in print is hard. It’s glorious and back-flipping amazing, for certain. But there’s another side to it all, an experience beyond the angels-singing moment when the object itself is set free in the world. It’s unboxed and set on a  shelf or goes live on Amazon and ANYONE CAN BUY IT. They—anyone—can decide whatever they want and say whatever they wish, including that girl in middle school who was never nice or the jackass you dated right out of college. They—anyone—can throw it in the bin at Salvation Army, drive over it in their car, leave it on a bus seat.

That is vulnerability, boy. And the infamous “sophomore novel”, the second book known to be difficult to write, refers to the second book AFTER PUBLICATION. Here’s why:

After you’ve been out there in public all naked and unguarded and utterly powerless and soft and old and shriveled, just try to sit down and do it again. Oh my god. I can’t think of any clever analogy to help elucidate. I don’t think there’s anything like it. I’ve ridden horses, been bucked off and gotten back in the saddle. It ain’t like that. It’s nothing like that.

Here’s an observation, 20,000 words in. The first draft is not even a draft. It’s a Negative One (-1) draft. It is that bad. After having gone through the debut process I described above, it maybe makes sense that all my characters are going to show up  happy and good and oh-so-likeable. You bet they are. Nobody can find fault with me! I am readable! And likable!

Surely this explains why my current cast, who were so interesting at first glance, have become a writhing mass of sweet, dull people living happy lives. All contradictions and complexity scampered at the first signs of trouble. Owen, a thirteen-year-old who I witnessed slashing to death an entire bed of hostas, turns out to be a sweet under-challenged genius. His mother is a cold bitch, but hell, she is stressed out because she has a full time job to support him. Walter, the weirdo living in the attic is not malevolent but misunderstood, just like the snow giant in Rudolph. The much anticipated confrontation between my protagonist and her sister ends up a sappy Barbie doll scene with lots of crying and muttered apologies. I hate reading it. I hate having written it.

If everyone is affable and forgivable and sorry, there is no story. This is classic -1 draft material. The writer spends pages building up to a major crisis, only to diffuse the bomb before it explodes. Tension gets watered down. The -1 draft is about working through the jitters and the boredom. Yet it must be written. It must be forgiven. It’s necessary. Think about it. You sit down to write about people you’ve never met. You don’t know what happened to them or why they have trouble with each other or even what their trouble is. Of course the writer will fall back on the faintly biblical, “They wept and tore their clothing.”

Shit as it is, the  -1 draft is a start.

The next draft, the proper First Draft, is decision time. Now the writer must decide just what went on here. What destroyed these people? And how destroyed are they? Are we talking a week in bed, crying and muttering apologies? Or is this abandon the car at a rest area and hitchhike to Indiana?

The questions only become clear in the -1 draft. Now I’m seeing that my protagonist has in fact abandoned her car at a rest area and hitchhiked to Indiana. How did that happen? And why? People like her criminal brother and her narrow minded father were conveniently dead in draft -1. But now, maybe not? Maybe one or both needs help.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Here’s to trying again. Here’s to courage and facing the unknown. Here’s to storytelling. And readers, here’s to you.