Muskoka Novel Marathon 2010 - UPDATED DAY 4

Day Four: Monday, July 19

Ironically, this was probably the best day for me, and Shirley pretty much agrees for herself. I think for me it was that I no longer had to worry about how the Novel Marathon was going to go, at least three quarters of it. Few potential disasters remain on the last day. There were also no major interruptions such as readings or dinners.

For me a novel marathon is not only a balancing act between inspiration and exhaustion, but between creativity and socializing. I've always been on the fringes of it socially, wanting to dedicate myself more to writing; but being with so many other writers is an opportunity. The tension between those two things, I find difficult.

It doesn't help that I have a thing about competition. Novel marathons are inherently competitive, and I had it etched in my mind as a child that the purpose of competition was to humiliate and destroy the loser. Sportsmanship and friendly competition weren't in my family's lexicon. I haven't yet managed to entirely heal the damage, so I mostly avoid competition of any sort. That was why I'd never entered a writing contest before this past May. I have never submitted my stuff for judging at the novel marathon, not only for this reason but also, since I am published, to allow someone unpublished a shot at their manuscript being seen by an editor. But that schtickela of mine makes the social aspect more difficult also.

Between that and my preferring to bury myself in the writing, I've never got to know my fellow marathoners that well, with one exception (known around these parts as darksomebelle), because she pursued a friendship with Shirley and me outside the marathon. Shame, because many of them are obviously very cool and they probably think I'm a snot.

Anyway, Shirley and I were on an enough of a roll that at 8, when the marathon officially ended, we wanted to keep going, and so we did a little more after finishing the clean-up of the place and going home and before collapsing into our respective beds.

The Fool on the Mountain is far from finished, which we expected, though I confess I wanted to have it better skeletoned than it is. What Shirley and I are going to do is keep on writing it, on a schedule yet to be determined. We will inform you of the deal once we finalize it.

Day Three: Sunday, July 18

Did I lose a day there? No, these are retrospectives... this is the sort of thing that is happening with my mind right now. Or, another: I remember there was some sort of little novel marathon crisis that Paula and I were worried about the other day, and I can't remember what it was, or even which day it was on. I hope we resolved it.

Shirley and I weren't nearly as productive yesterday as I'd hoped we would be, and I think the biggest cause of that was the reading we did in the afternoon, which was supposed to go from 2 p.m. to 4 but actually occupied us more like 1:30 to 5. That was a big chunk out of our day and a complete momentum-stopper.

Exhaustion and disappointment translated into depression. I fell into my old habits of feeling worthless and disliked and alone, of hating the way I was interacting with people, feeling constantly that I was giving a bad impression but not knowing how to stop, of feeling like no one was hearing me and I was in essence disappearing. I basically felt like that all the time up until maybe three or four years ago, which was why I am very much in the habit of avoiding social situations, a habit which persists.

Writing-wise, I feel like I just don't have it. I'm not capable of producing work of my usual quality, I feel; the ideas, the lines, the facility with words, the access to my usual inspiration and skill is just not there. Maybe you, if you've been on the waves, may disagree with me; I hope so. But I am certain that I will be able to make vast improvements when doing revisions. There are several things I need: rest, cooler temperatures, and to be by myself. As I write The Fool on the Mountain, there is a certain amount of jonesing for writing PA.

But what I will do, of course (aside from whining bloggishly on your virtual shoulder), is soldier on today, Monday, the last day. The words may not be brilliant, but they will be there, a framework on which to build. We will not have as much of the book as I wanted to have, but we will have some. Probably my expectations were far too optimistic.

At least at this point in the novel marathon, Shirley and I are not the only ones staggering around, bumping into things, drawing our mental sustenance from various substances and looking out through reddened, bleary eyes from a brain floating in a sea of exhaustion. Most of the other writers are in the same condition. That's what novel marathonning is all about: setting the fire of inspiration against the natural limits of mental energy. Kind of what my life is always about, these days. It's just more intense right now, and, of course, misery loves company.

Wrap-up blogpost tomorrow.

Day Two: Saturday, July 17

For Melissa’s awesome novel marathon pics, click here.

By the Muskoka Novel Marathon page count method, Shirley and I are at 70 pages, well behind some of the others, one of whom had done 140 by yesterday afternoon. You’d think a collaboration would go twice as fast, especially in wave where both people can write at the same time. But when you are doing a role-play wave, one person is always waiting for the other’s line. We’ve also slowed ourselves down by editing. And, to be entirely honest, the odd argument.

We aren’t really competing in the prolificity stakes, because we are, in effect, cheating, but I at least am thinking in terms of completing as much of the book as possible before 8 p.m. Monday. I’m going to propose a change in strategy to Shirley once she’s up, though it’s a bit emotionally difficult for me. While I have readers reading, cranking out pure rough draft and not refining it until later feels a bit like undressing in public. Aiigh, I think, they’re SEEING my awkward sentences/lackluster descriptions/continuity errors! But then, sharing the creative process is what this is all about. In fact I think maybe our original strategy was to crank it out rough then refine later… off-stage, in effect… but I hauled it back to refining, and for that reason was doing way too much turning double quotes into single quotes and that sort of thing yesterday.

Kallijas’s account of the duel, other than the interjections of Sukala and Kallijas’s response to them, is drawn from a file so old that Shirley and I are actually unsure as to which one of us originally wrote it. I think it might have been both, but I’ve done so many revisions over the years that it might as well be mine. And yet still it needs more, especially being altered into an oral recounting. But I will be brave and edit it no more at the Novel Marathon.

What we are likely to do today, as well as continue his duel story—what, you thought it was over?—is create some scenes from Kallijas’s earlier life as a champion, for him to remember ruefully in the light of his disgrace, even though we will not be sure, as we write, quite where they’re going to end up in the final book. He did some very heroic things to acquire the reputation he has, and they should be fun to recount. And we’ll see where we go beyond that.

See all of you who’ve donated on the latest wave. Those of you who have not… it is not too late! You can read all the waves we’ve already done and then join us on the front line of creation in the current one. The novel marathon is not even half over yet as I write (7:32 a.m. Sunday).

Day One: Friday, July 16

I am actually writing on Day 2 at 6 a.m., though I only got to bed around 2 a.m. The sun is a pink, and now orange, flame, licking over the horizon to the east of my screen porch, where I slept. All around is birdsong. I am doing a run-through of what we wrote last night, about 15 pages as Novel Marathon works are counted, or 3,500 words. Not that much, for two people in six hours. I don't know what Shirley felt, but I wasn't happy with either quantity or quality. My head is much more in the story this morning; it all seems much more clear to me, and the revisions will improve it. To use the Fifth Millennium idiom, I felt a thousand days' journey away from it all last night.

I blame the distractions. There were Shirley's Siamese kittens, 31 days old, orphaned at 17 days, necessitating their attendance at the novel marathon to be fed and litter-trained. They have become, naturally, the mascots; socialized to people perforce, they are available to any writers, we have announced, who need a fuzzy or cuteness break.

There were the generous readers who donated $10 or so apiece and so were added to the Fool on the Mountain wave, but some of whom we also then skyped just for the hell of it, so that we could talk with them and literally hear them breathe over our shoulders as we wrote--something I have not quite yet got entirely used to, in my fledgling livewriting career. Not a complaint, however. I love you all and your interest fuels my inspiration. The problem, in truth, was the biggest distraction, viz:

It was supposed to be a restful week of charging my writerly batteries in preparation, but between journalistic deadlines and last-minute issues with the marathon, which I am helping organize with fellow marathon veteran Paula Boon, I came into it tired. The issues ran the gamut: we didn't know for sure until Wednesday where our traditional Saturday night wine and cheese would be. Several food donors dragged their butts letting us know whether they were in. Unrelated, but my car won't start, so I'm dependent on that of Melissa Gold, who is acting as the go-to person at the marathon and staying at my house.

But worst of all, a representative of the local board of education, which is donating the use of the building, phoned me Thursday--that is, the day before the event started--to say in a sternly schoolmarmish voice that we weren't allowed to be there between 11 p.m. and 7:30 a.m., though our application had clearly stated that it would start 2 p.m. July 16 (allowing time for set-up) and end 10 p.m. July 19 (ditto break-down).

If you know anything about novel marathons, you will realize that the decreed hours would be fatal to a novel marathon. Novel marathons are 24/7. That is their very nature. So on the very eve of our novel marathon, Paula and I were absolutely panicking, frantically calling up other possible venues (as if we could get one with notice this short) and even considering calling off the whole thing, to which people had travelled from as far away as Alberta to attend. This was when we both should have been getting our heads into our characters and stories.

The situation was blessedly saved by Paula's husband Nico Byl, who wrote an absolutely immovable email, containing both a vague legal threat and a more explicit threat to phone its recipient's highest bosses, to a crucial person on Thursday night. That person relented, and Muskoka Novel Marathon 2010 was rescued. But Paula and I both were emotionally exhausted when we should have been cranking up our inspiration.

Then Shirley and I had our own mini-crisis: at 8 p.m. precisely, she realized she'd forgotten her laptop's power cord, and set off on the hour-long journey necessary to fetch it.

That left me to start the book by myself when I hadn't thought we'd actually 100% decided where it was going to start. I'd been thinking it should be while Karani and Kallijas are climbing Haranin towards Sukala's cave, and since that was a naturally descriptive scene, which I could therefore do absent her half of any dialogue, I seized on it. I still felt somewhat exposed and alone, carrying the work by myself for that first hour when I hadn't expected to, and my discomfort showed, I think, in the writing.

Between all these things, despite whatever appearances I might have been managing last night, my writing mind was not really entirely there.

Now, however, secure in its venue, the novel marathon is steadying down in its course, and I find myself able to immerse myself more deeply in the world and the work. I hope I will be able to hold off the demons of exhaustion enough to stay there for the remaining three days.