writing

An ode to “Rectify”

/ Tracy Abell

Last night, Zippy and I watched the final episode of the four-season series “Rectify.” (Logline: A former death row inmate named Daniel Holden, who may have been wrongly convicted as a teen, comes home after nearly 20 years away.)

Zippy and I discovered the show on Netflix last year and were blown away by the first three seasons. At the time, the fourth was still in production and then it eventually became available. For months, I put off watching it because I knew that the story and characters deserved my absolute emotional attention. The show is quietly, beautifully, stunningly intense. There isn’t an empty calorie in those 30 episodes. Each episode must be savored and slowly digested, and I needed to be ready.

Today, I’m digesting. I’m thinking about all those characters and their stories. I’m ruminating on the complexities of justice and the legal system, and the horrors faced by people in prison and the dificulties ex-cons face once they get out. I’m missing Daniel’s sister, Amantha, and wishing we could be friends.

I can’t stop thinking about “Rectify.”

It’s the real deal. The writing is magnificent (and taught me much about storytelling and the power of character arcs), and the performances are extraordinary. Many scenes had me laughing and crying, and always, always thinking and feeling. The show is so damned good and creator Ray McKinnon deserves to have a star or tree or satellite dish named after him.

I’ll stop here. Please, if you haven’t yet seen it, make time in your life for “Rectify.”

Thank you, Marilynne Robinson

/ Tracy Abell

Last weekend I spent time with my nephew who is also a writer. We talked books and the writing process. We also talked a bunch about Marilynne Robinson, and the next morning I woke with her on my mind. I grabbed my notebook from 2003 when I spent three weeks in Iowa City absorbing her genius, and reread the notes I took.

Today, one of MR’s fourteen-year-old pearls of wisdom helped me out:

You should be every character’s advocate. You are God to that character. Typically, in one way or another, people are trying to make the best case for themselves. People are whole creatures. Villains have history behind them.

Aunt Isabel is no longer a one-note character. Marilynne Robinson for the assist!

Feeling a bit like this

/ Tracy Abell

I’m writing the final scenes of my middle-grade novel.
I know where the story goes and how it ends.
However, that doesn’t make the process  any less exhausting.

I’ve got lots of characters coming together,
and they’re all toting individual motivations and plot lines.
Choreographing these scenes feels a bit like juggling chainsaws and kittens.

The good news is that it’s only a first draft.
I need to remember that these scenes do not need to be perfect.

PSA: Get thee some waterproof paper!

/ Tracy Abell

I just had a nice shower and a very productive plotting session. AT THE SAME TIME.

Whoa, Tracy! How is that even possible?!

It was possible because  of an amazing invention called AQUA NOTES.

AQUA NOTES are pads of waterproof paper that you can write on with a pencil while taking a shower. I just wrote out three pages of stellar notes for my work-in-progress, and I’m thrilled because I figured out stuff I didn’t even realize needed figuring. Those pages of notes are like bonus material! And it all came to me during my relaxing shower, an activity that frequently gets my subconscious to come out and play. This time, I was prepared!

Where can I get some of those magical AQUA NOTES, Tracy?

I recommend buying them here, where you can buy 4 pads and get the 5th for free. Write on, friends!

Chekhov on a Bunny Monday

/ Tracy Abell

I’m not sure what put the light in this rabbit’s eye*, but I know where mine came from: today’s writing session was great fun. Even though I’m writing a first draft and, therefore, not overly hung up on language, I put down some good stuff. And that makes me very happy. Even after reading the following:

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
~ Anton Chekhov

Much of what I wrote today is more tell than show, but I still had a damned good time.

*okay, it was probably the sun

The accumulation of detail

/ Tracy Abell

All fiction relies on the real world
in the sense that we all take in the world through our five senses
and we accumulate details, consciously or subconsciously.
This accumulation of detail can be drawn on when you write fiction.
~  Rohinton Mistry

Word spew

/ Tracy Abell

Some writing days are excruciating. The worst are those when I don’t get any words down, and instead spend my time catastrophizing and twirling in my head. The next worse are those days that feel like a death march through neck-deep glue, in which every word has to be dragged kicking and screaming to the page.

Today was the latter. I achieved my word count, and now possess a messy mass of sentences which have the potential to be revised into something less vomitous.

Yay, me.

Sidetracked by aquatic mannequins

/ Tracy Abell

I’m drafting a new scene for my middle-grade novel, a scene that takes place on a lake. There’s a raft and it’s a hot summer day, and the protagonist is learning how to do a back flip off the diving board. Anyway, I wanted to document where I’m at with this book and so went to Pixabay in search of a lake-raft-swimmer image to use.

I found this:

The photo has absolutely no connection to my scene (okay, this lake is comprised of water, as is the lake in my book), but upon discovering this image, I quit my search. I mean, this piece of photographic genius deserves its own documentation.

There’s so much weird going on here. You could focus on the fact that these women are playing cards / gambling in swim caps and goggles or that the mannequins are wearing robotic assassin expressions, but all I can think about is how it’d feel to stand in lake muck while slimy lily pad stems wrap around my legs.

Eww.

So. Many. Words.

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Only 26 letters in the alphabet, yet so many words to choose from as I write this book. I’m not talking “damp” vs “moist.” ** I’m talking about the pressure of potentially stringing together words that inadvertently take my novel in a whole new direction. Words wield so much power.

But words are also a writer’s playground, and it can be very cool to play with them. Sometimes, though, writing a first draft reminds me what it was like to get off one of these old merry-go-rounds.

I’d be disoriented and slightly fearful about what I was about to crash into. I’m having that same feeling today.

** (Sorry, moist-haters, couldn’t resist)