Day 65: All Hail The Left Brain

Facilitator Bill from Banff told us that once we'd written 40,000 words, we'd know what we were dealing with. We all laughed, thinking he was a silly old man of questionable intelligence who really ought to retire. And here I sit, after days of creative darkness, after swinging between euphoric inspiration and the desire to abandon the project entirely, after squeezing 45,000 words from my ravaged, pockmarked mind – and I know exactly what I'm dealing with.

For the past week or so, I've been creatively despondent. My book was going nowhere. After 180 pages of writing by feel, I stalled out. I had told the story I wanted to tell, but it lay lifeless on the page and only brushed the surface of characters who are way too interesting to gloss over. I was at a loss.

Way back in July, my dad gave me a book on writing by Elizabeth George, a bestselling crime writer who is so left-brained I thought I was reading a book on tax law. She had some good things to say about character and plot, but her method was so anal retentive, I threw her book across the room, forgot all her insights and resumed the right-brain hippy dance I've been doing for three months.

Oh my sweet darlings. When the student is ready, the teacher re-appears.

I picked up the book, unfortunately titled Write Away, last night. Dear old Liz advised me to go back to the characters – their desires, their core needs. To address conflict – because all of us want different things at different times and that's why it's so damn hard to get along. And to let the conflict gradually build to an explosive and inevitable climax. She said if your story's stalled out, you've played your hand too soon.

In other words Writing 101.

And a perfect project for my poor, unappreciated left brain. With some right brain preparation, of course. I started with character work – first-person free-association writing, trying to uncover my characters desires, needs, questions and baggage. Then I slept on it, allowing it all to brew in my subconscious until this morning after my creativity-stimulating, cellulite-diminishing workout.

And then, I unleashed the Left. I opened a blank spreadsheet file – whaaa? – and gave each character a column, crafting a main plot and several subplots, all focused on desire and conflict, allowing one event to lead to the next, building to a big finish. By noon, I'd transformed my 45,000 words into a structured, planned novel.

With great, gaping holes to fill.

But I have a plan. A map. A destination and a means of getting there. I'm going to try my damnedest to use Stephen's slow n' steady approach. Mostly because these weekly existential crises are tiring me out. No longer shall I channel Virginia Woolf! (She said, tempting fate. Little did she know, her next mood swing was waiting, lurking, preparing to strike...)