‘Finishers Edition’ Writing Camp Day 3
Dealing with unexpected hiccups
Gooooooooood morning, afternoon, or evening, wherever you happen to be! And welcome to Day 3 of Writing Camp: ‘Finishers Edition’!
This is the magical day when you should reach the halfway point of your writing goal for this week…and hopefully just a little bit further than that!
Woohoo!!!
What Day 3 is all about
On this third day of Writing Camp, we’re going to focus on how to stay on target. By now, you’re probably getting a good sense of just how realistic (or not) your writing goal for this week is. Even if you’re finding yourself able to stick to your writing schedule, there comes a time in every writer’s life when they realise they may have been a little too ambitious in their goal-setting. Today, we’ll figure out what to do when that happens.
Improvise, adapt, overcome
If any of you have ever watched Heartbreak Ridge, you may recognise the phrase above as one of the mottoes of Clint Eastwood’s character in that film: Gunnery Sergeant Tom ‘Gunny’ Highway. Which may result in some whiplash when I tell you that I’m actually going to start by talking about Underfoot in Show Business, Helene Hanff’s vastly underappreciated 1962 memoir about trying to break into Broadway in the 1940s. (Please tell me one of you has read this book—it’s fabulous and I want to fangirl over it with someone!!)
I can’t remember when or how I first read Underfoot in Show Business, which has long been out of print. I’m relatively sure that I first read it either near the end of my PhD at the University of Cambridge or in my very early ECR years soon thereafter. It’s quite possible that I learned of this book thanks to my dear friend Anke.
Anke is living proof that I know all the coolest people. She is a historian of medieval alchemy (all the coolest people are medievalists, obviously). She is an antiquarian bookseller with the kind of skill and discretion that result in a long list of impressive (and impressively anonymous) loyal clients. Also, she tap dances (or used to).
Anke and I got into Hanff’s memoir when we were doing what all ECRs must do: try to make plans in the face of overwhelming uncertainty (not to mention odds). In this respect, we had much in common with the author, judging from her note ‘To the Reader’:
You may have noticed this book was not written by Noel Coward. It’s a book about show business, where fame is the stock in trade, and it’s written by a name you’ve never heard of and probably can’t pronounce. There is a simple explanation for this.
Each year, hundreds of stagestruck kids arrive in New York determined to crash the theatre, firmly convinced they’re destined to be famous Broadway stars or playwrights. One in a thousand turns out to be Noel Coward.
This book is about life among the other 999. By one of them.
I can’t speak for Anke, but I loved this note. I felt like Helene Hanff was one of us: a scrappy young hopeful trying to make it. She knew what it was like to audition over and over with no callback (the showbiz equivalent of an invitation to interview), to approach agent after agent and publisher after publisher without her manuscript getting anywhere.
But I’m most grateful to Hanff for introducing us to the concept of what she calls ‘Flanagan’s Law’ on the very first page of her book:
We’ll begin with the law that governs the life of every one of the 999 from the day he or she first arrives in New York, which was first explained to me by a stage manager named Bill Flanagan. Flanagan’s law of the theatre is:
‘No matter what happens to you, it’s unexpected’.
And this is indeed what happens throughout the book: Hanff and her cronies make prediction after prediction about the course of their careers, only to find that what actually ends up happening is something they never could have anticipated.
Which brings me back to Gunny Highway.
Among the many strategies Clint Eastwood’s character uses to whip his Marines into shape is taking them by surprise—say, by charging into their barracks at 5am instead of at 6am like he said he would. When they wail in protest, he growls, ‘You’re Marines now. You improvise. You adapt. You overcome’.
I am neither Clint Eastwood nor Helene Hanff. But when it comes to the goddam unpredictability of it all, writing has a lot in common with both showbiz and warfare. You may make plans. You may have talent or grit or courage. But the only way you’ll make it in the end is if you learn to expect the unexpected, and adapt to it.
Maybe you’re looking at your carefully written plan from Monday and seeing that you’re falling behind. Maybe a Life Event has popped up and you don’t have the writing time you budgeted for today. Maybe you’ve realised that you need a totally new chapter/scene/section/stanza that you hadn’t anticipated. Whatever your ‘unexpected’ is, you’ve got to learn how to deal with it.
My own approach to dealing with the unexpected in my writing is more Hanff than Eastwood: I try to have a sense of humour about whatever may have come up, and then I try to recalibrate. I reschedule a writing stint. I put one project on pause so I can deal with proofs, revisions, or something else that’s just come up on another project. I leave myself breadcrumbs so I can pick up where I left off.
What I try not to do is let the unexpected stop me altogether (although I may need to binge watch Parks & Recreation for a while before I’m ready to get back to it).
So if you’re looking at what you’ve written so far during Writing Camp and thinking, How did I end up *here*?? And how do I get from here to the finish line?!, remember Flanagan’s Law and Gunny Highway’s motto. Expect the unexpected, and be prepared to improvise, adapt, and overcome.
Day 3 Writing Prompts
Pick whichever one feels right for you.
Option 1: Freewriting
Look at what you produced in Day 1 and Day 2 and freewrite on any aspect of that material for 5 minutes. Remember: Do not stop. Do not look back. Do not worry at all about using perfect punctuation or sentence structure. Just write as though nobody’s watching (because they aren’t).
You can use this exercise to jump-start your writing task for Day 3. If you feel like you need to break up your writing day into different stints, you can (a) set yourself a goal for your next writing stint today (e.g. set a timer for 20 minutes, or set a goal of writing at least 200 more words) and/or (b) for a little training in how to improvise, adapt, and overcome, try out Option 2 below.
Option 2: Directed prompt
For those who’d like a little more direction: first, take a look at what you produced on Day 1 and Day 2—these will help you to keep an eye on where your piece comes from and where you want it to end. Then, keeping these in mind, take 10 minutes to write about one of the following:
One thing you’ve written that you did not expect to write
A new direction you find your project heading in on Day 3
A new writing task you’ve discovered you need to add to this week’s plan
Where you think your project might now end up when Writing Camp concludes
A new thing you’ve realised you will need to write when Writing Camp is over
Option 3: You do you
If you’re at Writing Camp for the camaraderie and accountability rather than the prompts, that’s great! Do your own thing, and let us know about it in the chat!
Ok, folks: time to get writing!
Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow for Day 4 of Writing Camp: ‘Finishers Edition’!
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VB,
M