Before I get into this post, I want to thank everyone who has sent me feedback about my speech to NAMI.
I never know how these things are going to go over, and I never know if what I had in my head and my heart when I wrote a thing will translate into something similar in the audience. I am always anxious about being misunderstood, even when I’m speaking on a topic I know a lot about. Yay for anxiety! It’s super effective!
It means so much to me to know that I’m helping people. I’ve heard from a ton of parents who didn’t know their kids were living with anxiety, but after reading (or hearing) my stories about my experiences, they can see that their kids need the help that I didn’t get. All I want to do with my time on this Earth is make things that matter, and use the privilege and success I have to help make other people’s lives better. It’s so wonderful to know that this speech I gave (and the essay it is when it’s written) is making a positive difference in the world.
Okay, on to what this post is about: Writing!
Well, rewriting, specifically.
I’ve been working on the rewrite of my novel, which is currently titled All We Ever Wanted Was Everything. It’s a semi-autobiographical work of fiction, about a twelve year-old, coming of age in 1983. The protagonist is a kid who wants to be a writer, and I have no idea where that inspiration came from.
So every time I finish work, I make a post on my Tumblr thingy with the word count and some thoughts about what I did that session. It’s kind of how I cycle the airlock when I come back inside from the deep space solitude of writing all day. It feels good to write it, and I look forward to it every day. It’s like my reward for doing the work, in a way, and it’s nice to have this little diary of the process that I can look back on, to see my progress in more detail that just a word count. I know that some of you who read my blog want to know what’s going on in my creative life, and what I’m working on, so I thought I’d share some of the recent entries.
Each bolded part, and the words that follow it until the nifty little horizontal line, represents one day’s work.
…and that is a completed first draft of my first novel.
21 pages of rewrites on All We Ever Wanted Was Everything
Mostly going over the first part of the story now, seeing where I was clearing my throat, figuring out how I can smooth it out and lay the foundation that the rest of the story will build upon, and discovering that a lot of it holds up better than I expected it would, a year after I wrote it.
I made a few small cuts, added some stuff here and there and smoothed out a few places where I was clear in my head but not on the page. I can tell that I’m going to have to go over this part again, after I’ve done the real heavy lifting in the later chapters, and I may even wait until it goes to a couple of first readers to hear their feedback on this part, because I’m a little too close to it.
Twenty-one pages doesn’t feel like a lot, but it’s about 10%, which feels like a solid start to the rewriting process.
Rewrote about 4000 words on All We Ever Wanted Was Everything
It works out to just about ten pages, and it overlaps with the twenty-one I already worked on, but I needed to go back and make this as good as it can be, because it’s introducing the reader to the world and the characters.
I feel good about what I wrote today. I felt good enough to print it out and share it with Anne, which I never do. She’s reading it right now.
I’m probably going to go over this again after I get beta reader feedback, but I’m happy enough with where it is now (and it’s helped me focus on bringing out the narrative voice I eventually found over 61000 words) to save it and keep moving forward.
I really love this process. It’s incredibly rewarding and satisfying.
1400ish words (62439 total) on the Rewrite of All We Ever Wanted Was Everything
I worked for about seven hours, and I thought I was making a lot of cuts today, but it turns out that I was adding more than I took away.
I’m going to come back to this section one more time, because it’s not quite there, yet, but it’s closer than it was before I started, and that’s the point of the work right now.
11 pages and about 1000 words on the All We Ever Wanted Was Everything rewrite
I got to the first part of the existing draft that made me go, “Oh this part is awful. What was I thinking?”
It turns out that I was thinking that I needed that part (about half a page) to get from the part that preceded it to the part that followed it, so I cut it and wrote something new to connect them.
There’s a big scene that I’m on the fence about. I stared at it for an hour, starting and stopping and undoing and redoing and finally deciding to just walk away from right now. I’ll come back and do some more work on the second rewrite pass, I think.
I have come to realize that this first rewrite isn’t about getting the book to its final form; this is about getting the manuscript from what I thought it was to what it became, so the tone and pacing all work out in a logical way. It’s about cutting out the things that I thought would lead into stuff later on that never materialized, and adding new stuff in places where I decided I wanted to pay something off.
I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I’m enjoying the process that I’m in right now, even when it feels like I’m spinning my wheels in some mud.
About 10 pages and 1400 new words on the rewrite of All We Ever Wanted Was Everything.
Right now, the manuscript is sitting at 64222 words. At one point today, it was over 65000, so I know that I’m doing a lot of shaping and scraping and cutting and other things that you do with clay but can be applied to writing if you squint.
This is really starting to come together, and I’m making a good deal of progress turning what I thought I was writing when I started into what I figured out I was writing when I finished. And I’m still enjoying the process, which I keep mentioning so I can remember when I inevitably decide that this is all terrible and I never should have started it in the first place.
This is the third day in a row that I’ve wanted to keep working, but I’ve sort of run out of creative focus and energy after five or so hours. That seems like a very short work day, and maybe someday I’ll stop feeling like I’m slacking off when I do what is a full day of work for me.
I don’t have a question, I just thought I’d comment to tell you that I did read all the way to the end and that it was interesting to me. I’m a writer, too, so it’s interesting to see how someone else is thinking and approaching their work, but I also really like the concept of that daily check-in to see how it went, and I think that could be useful to any creative person. Just the reminders of good days might help get through some bad spots, whether writing-related or not. Also, I’m not an actor, but yes, I emotionally share in the experiences of my characters as they have them. I’ve definitely cried through the writing of some scenes, and I’ve found scenes with conflict difficult because I’m so bad at conflict myself.
Hi Sarah,, I recently started writing my own blogs. It is just some random thoughts I have. Please check and give feedbacks
https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/82407469/posts/1857722232
https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/82407469/posts/1853900454
I love that you’ve compiled your tumblr status updates into one big post here. I always find it fascinating when I see your tumblr posts with your updates. I think it’s great to see that no two writing days will ever be the same.
I’m so happy that you’ve persevered on this novel, and I think the way that you go about your editing is very fascinating. SO excited to read this when it gets published!
Before I went to Croatia I deleted all social media apps from my phone because I needed a break. One by one some have crept back in but are not as consuming unless I’m tired or it rains for 48 goddamn hours (SERIOUSLY STOP FUCKING RAINING!) but I’m caught up on twitter and always read these. I’m interested in the process and I’m so happy you are happy. I wish the best for you!
Tumblr. I meant tumblr. Gah.
I probably have a lot of questions because I think a lot about process, how I do it, how other people do it. (I think a lot about the whole “how far am I from a normal writer” question, which is funny, because I’m pretty sure there is no such thing. I’ve been told that a published author, I think Ann Patchett unless I’m misremembering, lays on her sofa for ages, writing the book in her head, not putting any words down on a page until she’s finished it in her head. Which is something I could never do.)
You said you write in LibreOffice. Do you write directly by typing or do you write anything by hand first? Do you write in one big document? Do you have any notes either in a separate document or handwritten or whatever, to keep things straight? (Like, when I’m writing a long story, I’ll have a separate document with all of the characters names and specific details that I might forget and want to keep straight.) Notecards? Post-Its? Voice recordings, like Agent Cooper or Michael Keaton’s character in Night Shift? Handwriting on your arm?
Obviously you didn’t plan this to be a novel, so how much do you plot ahead and how much do you make up as you go? Do you have certain plot points you’re trying to get to, or do you just let the characters take you where they want to go?
I make notes in a little journal, and sometimes on a whiteboard in my office, but I do all the heavy lifting in one big .odt document. I save it and make a local copy plus a remote copy at the end of every session. I also keep notes on my desk in front of me, for things that I have to keep referring to, like character names, locations, and things like that.
I didn’t plot this at all until I decided to let it grow from one short story into a connected series of narratives that all come together into what I hope is a cohesive coming of age story. I knew then that there were some major points I wanted to get to, and I used a bunch of stuff I learned from a book called ANATOMY OF STORY to help me uncover what was missing from the story structure. Once I knew what was missing, I was able to think about what I could add to the narrative to get those missing parts into the narrative. Some of that was helped along by characters wanting to do things that I hadn’t planned, so when that happened, I just listened to them and transcribed what they did. Other times, I held their hands more forcefully.
Thanks, Wil! (I just put a hold on my library’s copy of Anatomy of Story.)
Well said, Will ,,,,I know Stephen King draws much on life around him ,,, the house that Carrie lived in was almost identical to Stephen’s house from age 3 to 18 ,,, Carrie was loosely based on a girl named Dorothy from High School ,, In “Stand By Me” Corey Feldman’s part was in real-life Stephen himself,,,, although he never showed any over-emotionalism like in movie ,,,, Your part (of course) was based on my third cousin…. River’s part was based on a friend Jim ,,, and I was real-life Vern played by Jerry O’Connell ,, Principal Wiggins (officiating the pie-eating contest) was really Principal Higgins ….. Arnie who owned “Christine” was based on a family relative of mine ,,,,,, You see Stephen and I had Grades 7th – 12th and over 1,100 lunches together ,, He was really a great friend in those 6 years ,,,, I write too but Bible Projects ,,, currently combining 4 Translations into one easy-to-read format ,,,, It makes the Bible more understandable,,,
I’ve asked before and I’ll ask again, how do you get your self-editor out of the way to get the first draft out? I’ve tried several different tactics and none seem to work for me.
I have learned, over twenty years of doing this, (holy wow that’s a long time) how to separate useful worry and criticism from harmful worry and criticism. Useful worry keeps me going, and harmful worry makes me doubt myself. So I just keep going when I feel like it is crap, because it’s so much easier and so much more fun to fix crap than it is to fill up a blank page.
Other than familiarity with the form, what made you decide to tell this story as a blog post rather than (say) a play or short film? How important is editing and rewriting in your process? (Put another way, once you realized it had outgrown a single post, did you ever think of serializing it?)
Any thoughts on adapting the book to another form (yourself or someone else) if there were interest, or is it too early to consider that sort of thing? (I’d imagine you’ll at least do an audio book?)
This story was born when I was watching Stranger Things Season One. I’m the same age as those kids, so it brought up some things I haven’t thought about in over thirty years.
One of those things was about riding my bike and finding a lost charge card, so I started writing down that story. As I did that, I remembered a lot of other things that happened that summer (1983 or 1984), and a few other things from my childhood that I hadn’t thought about in decades. I realized that I could take all these stories and add them to a bunch of stuff I made up, and I could tell a coming of age story.
I could probably tell this thing as a series of serialized blog posts, but I’ve always wanted to write a novel. I have thought about adapting this to a screenplay, and some friends who have read a little bit of it have suggested that, but right now I’m just focused on making the novel as strong as I can make it. I’ll think about adaptations in the future, if readers like the story enough to warrant that work. And, yes, there will be an audiobook!
I love writing but never feel I have the time to finish anything. Thanks for keeping us updated on how it is going. It is inspiring to imagine your busy schedule but know you are finding time to work on it. I read “Dead Trees Give No Shelter” and your Star Wars short and liked both a lot. Do you find writing fiction more gratifying then your earlier nonfiction work?
It’s more gratifying now, because I don’t have as many interesting real life experiences that I can draw upon to write about as I used to. My boys are adults and don’t live with us, my work as an actor is rare, and usually NDA’d when I do get to do it, and I spend most of my time sitting at my desk, making up stories and writing them down.
I’m also using different muscles right now. Narrative nonfiction is about putting the reader into my shoes and recreating, as faithfully as possible, what happened. Fiction is putting the reader wherever I want them to be, experiencing the story the way I want them to experience it.
Hi Will, I had some bad experiences and writing gives me a peace of mind. Please check out the articles that I have written and provide feedback
https://mireya2199571274.wordpress.com/
2000 pounds. That’s one ton of comments. I like hearing about your progress. And I am glad you are plugging away. Go Wheaton go!
HI have been writing about mental health……specifically in the black community. To date more people than ever are started to talk about
their personal experiences with mental health or someone they know. Aside from a personal experience , is one of the reasons are started
researching an writing about this important subject and to hopefully create some dialog and safe place for people to talk. thank you for your email.
A really interesting blog post Wil. Its interesting to see how you break down a project, particularly where it has grown so organically.
How have you managed when you reach a point in the narrative where you get bogged down or stuck on a section? Do you take a break? Work on something different whilst your mind thinks over the bit you are stuck on, or something else?
I walk away from my desk and do something else. I let myself do other things, like exercise or Skyrim or watching a movie, and when my mind wants to drift toward solving the problem, I follow it.
accountability is a wonderful thing. When I’m writing, I actually have two different excel spreadsheets I use to track daily progress throughout the year. Glad to see I’m not alone.
Congrats on finishing that draft!
Every time I read something about your writing process I am again reminded why I will never write anything else but short stories (which I enjoy a lot btw). I could never ever muster the discipline to do this. Well done, sir. I’m looking forward to read it.
Jerry Holkins once told me that you don’t have to be a novelist to be a writer. You just write things, finish them, release them, and repeat. It can be a short story, it can be a comic, it can be novellas, it can be screenplays. The important thing is not WHAT you write, but THAT you write.
I’ve never kept a daily progress writing log, but I’m now working on multiple projects and think it might be useful, so thanks for sharing your approach.
I’m always curious about the process of others, in whatever it is they are doing. I love words & using them well but writing stories isn’t really my thing. Even when I was younger & did write things they were never for anyone else. Just putting daydreams in a written form for myself. I like stream of consciousness & how your posts are often you working things out. I am a seeker of Understanding so it’s wonderful understanding your thought process & work process better. Thank you for sharing this with us. And finally, the part you shared about your speech helping parents to see that their kids need help, that’s just so wonderful. Anyhoo, sorry for rambling. 😊
Just wanted to say thanks for the insight and idea. I am an academic and work on several projects during the summer. It’s solitary work and easy to a) put off and b) misestimate how much work 8 have done. I think I’m going to steal your idea and create a tumblr that’s just about research accountability! Thanks.
How do you come up with the idea of your stories?
I remembered some stuff from real life, and when I looked at all of that stuff as a collection, I saw the raw materials to build a story.
That’s cool. I used to write stories all the time when I was younger.
I read the entire blog post and am always fascinated by how other writers process their writing. I look forward to reading your finished product.
I’m super excited to see this, at whatever stage you want to share it. You’ve always been a good writer when you’re writing nonfiction, but I think you’ve leveled up at least twice in the last year as you tackle longer, harder fiction projects.
I certainly feel more confident and secure than I ever have before, but I don’t know how much of that is mental health treatment, and how much is actual experience helping me settle down. I suspect it’s a mix.
I’d probably rate it PG-13, if that helps. And of course I remember your kid! Please deliver another high five for me.
Wil, I am not a writer. However, my daughter Catherine is working to become one. Thank you for this. It allows me to understand her world a little better and to allow me to give her constructive support not just support from the sidelines. I am always encouraging her to write. She has only let me read a few things. Now, I understand why she is reluctant? The stuff I have been allowed to read has been pretty good. I know she has talent as writer and all I want to do is enhance it.
While I am not on Tumblr, I do appreciate your creative process. As a Costume Designer, I am always trying to look at shows with a different eye and approach. Thanks for sharing how you do things. Too many people see TV shows and think “how hard can it be?” HARD, people, damn hard!
I am also not a writer, but I watched ST:TNG in its first run, and then you sent an e-mail to my son when he was five or six years old that made him laugh, so now I’m a lifelong Wil Wheaton fan (that’s a cute story, if you’re interested, but I won’t digress here).
At any rate, I just wanted to pop in and tell you that now that you’ve brought us along on this journey, there’s no way in hell I’m not buying this book. So this isn’t just therapeutic, it’s generating sales!
Good luck with the rest of the process. I’ll be reading along…
True, I’ve skipped quite a chunk of it, sorry. This sort of writer insight is usually interesting to me but right now it’s late in the evening and, also, I’m a writer on hold 🙂 I’ll be returning to this post only after I restart my writer priority. Right now the priority is my mental health. I found your blog this way – I am just lucky it fits into my writing interest too.
TMI.
(I edited and cut half of it out already)
I just wanted to say I’m on your side, I like your style of blogging. I’d like to be more gratifying but can’t find the right words.
You wrote you approve comments so please delete it after reading 🙂 I feel like a celebrity stalker.
That was a really interesting look into your creative process and I enjoyed reading it. It’s great to hear that you are enjoying the process and getting satisfaction from it. I’d say that’s an excellent sign that you are on the right track with where you’re directing your time and energy. I am looking forward to reading it, when it’s done!
Looking forward to reading the finished product. Best of luck.
Wil, I’m not sure if you can help me with this one or not, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. I have a story in my head that’s begging to get out, and has been for some time. Any time I think about trying to write it though I can never figure out how I will find the time between working my full time job, caring for my 3 young children (ages 3-10) time with my wife, helping my mom who’s health is deteriorating, etc. Do you have any suggestions? I feel like if I only write like an hour a day I will never get any where because it will take too long to find my voice each day. Am I better off just sitting on the story until I’m an empty nester?
Sorry if this is a confusing question I’m just not sure what to do at this point.
If out of an hour a day 30 minutes each day is spent finding your voice, in a year you still would have worked on your story over 182 hours. That is a lot.
Thanks lyda, that’s a good way of looking at it! 🙂
Finding your voice gets quicker the more you practice it. I finished a (roughly) 105k word novel-shaped object in about a year, with a solid 3 month “nothing got written” period in it, with the bulk of the writing being done in 45-minute sessions between “out of the shower” and “heading to work” weekday mornings. Yes, there was some stuff being written in evenings and on weekends, but most of it was written while I was waiting for my hair to dry.
“Novel-shaped object” because while I like it, I firmly think that it has sufficient problems as to be better off being written again rather than polished to a publishable state.
Reading and following your process reminds me a lot of how I had to work on my dissertation. There’s a great book called How To Write Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day that proved incredibly helpful to me, not just for my dissertation, but writing in general. The main idea is that you sit down and write for fifteen minutes, even if all you write is, “I don’t know what to write, and it’s really frustrating.” If at the end of fifteen minutes you have a thread to follow, great. If not, stand up, walk away, and go do something else.
In the end, I had pages upon pages of crap that I deleted, but wound up with a very nice book on Benjamin Britten. Thanks for putting yourself out there, it really helps me to feel validated in my own experiences. You’re awesome.
Thanks for this post! I’m a professional writer (of law, not of fiction), and it’s great to get some insight into your process. I may try a similar sort of “punching out” recap for myself to help with motivation and productivity — what a good idea!
My questions are whether you have a ritual to get you started on your work for the day (I find avoidance in the mornings such a challenge!), and whether you have a structure to help your productivity if/when things feel like an uphill battle — do you use pomodoros? Just write till you can’t write no more? Something different?
Thanks! 🙂
When you write a story, do you start with an overall structure, i.e. the story will cover these topics, generally in that order, and resolve in this manner or is it more organic, like you write some vignette completely fleshed out and then follow where that takes you?
Stumbled, clicked and I am enjoying reading! going back post by post.
Thank you, Wil, for all you do. Your speech was amazing. You help me feel better about my own struggles. Your writing is great, and I am looking forward to reading your book.
Thanks for a peek through the window at your creative process.
Stephen Soderbergh said it much better than I ever could:
” I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating. I don’t care if it’s a book, a film, a painting, a dance, a piece of theater, a piece of music. Anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us. I think the world would be unlivable without art.”
Thanks for giving us a peek into your writing process. It’s always interesting to hear/read how others (especially celebs) construct/deconstruct the writing process. Early one, I always had issues with the self-editor, almost to the point where I would spend my allotted hour of writing doing little tweaks, nips and tucks and generating a word count under 20.
Now, I simply churn out verbiage in my writing time and when I get enough completed pages, print and put them into a three ring binder. About once a month, I take the binder and spend some quiet time editing/note taking what I have written. Eventually, by the time I’ve completed draft 1, I have draft 1a at the ready with enough editing notes to choke frog.
I do have one question for you though: do you outline prior to starting, do it on the fly while writing, or a mixture of both?
Hi. My name is Brianna. I am 14 yrs old. I wanted to say I love your comedy on Big Bang. You are so funny. I wanted to let you know I suffer from anxiety issues myself. It’s gotten worse over the past couple years. I just got back from Wisconsin where I was set up with a tour of the capital through a representative’s office. It was stressed I had this disorder but when we got there we were put in a group of 95 loud children. On top of that I was using my wheelchair. It was horrible. We had to go on our own. I was severely disappointed. People don’t understand what we go through. We look “normal” but it’s a hidden terror we have to live with. I know I mentioned my wheelchair. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia at age 9, muscle disease at age 12, ankylosing spondylitis at age 14 and a brain cyst just this January. I live in pain everyday but some days are much worse then others. I just wanted to let you know I know some of how you feel. I hope to meet you someday at a Comic-Con or something. Stay strong. Thank you for the work you do. You bring joy to many.