Playing the Waiting Game

I'm sitting down with a cup of tea finally, the big kids are next door and the little one is watching the Wiggles (again). I'm exhausted, and by the look of the house I've done virtually nothing.

So much of my time is spent waiting. I wait for the kids to put their shoes on so we can go to the park. I wait for the washing machine to finish so I can put it on the line, during which I'm waiting for the boys to decide what they want for breakfast. Waiting for them to finally fall asleep at the end of the day. Waiting for an email reply.

The thing is, though, is that I need to be maximising my waiting time so I'm actually using it to do something productive. I spend half an hour throwing a frisbee in the yard, or pushing kids on the swing, and although these are important activities, they leave much of the grey matter free for other endeavours. The four-week period in which I tried desperately (and unsuccessfully) to get my synopsis written were a case in point. The story was at the forefront of my mind, and all my available brain-time was spent on it. I got heaps done! Not only that, it invigorated me, I had so much more energy for other things.

Today I'm exhausted because my mental activity has been taken up waiting for an email. None have come. Who cares! It's hardly the end of the universe. Shows me though, where the flabby bits of my mind are. I need to dust off some of the big questions from the top shelf of the cupboard: is my front story strong? Is my back story causal? If God's called me to write books, what kind of books does He want me to write? What does He think about my book reviews? What does He think about my stories? About where my mind is going?

The dishes are calling me. Tea's finished. So, mind, where are we going to go now?

Synopses-ing...synopsis-zing!

Harry Kemmelman, who  wrote an amazing book called The Nine Mile Walk and Other Stories, talks in his prologue (I'm a prologue reader) about the genesis for the story idea and how it refused to gel. He put it aside for some fourteen years while he did other things, until one day he pulled his notes out again and the story flowed really quickly. He makes the comment that in answer to the question "how long does a story take to write?" it takes either one day or 14 years, depending on how you look at it.

 I'm planning for my "one day".
I hope my book doesn't take fourteen years. So far it's taken five...and I'm only just beginning.

Yup, still working on the synopsis. Yup, the one I started about two months ago. Yup, the one I thought I'd just about finished except for a little bit of polishing and putting it into nice paragraphs.

 I sat down this time last week to start writing it up in the style shown me by so many great online synopsis guides, and suddenly thought (yup, at the first sentence), "who is this woman? Have I really got to the bottom of her character arc? Where does this "front story" start from really?"

Oh heck! I don't KNOW!

Seriously, I had no idea writing a synopsis could be this hard. Or this rewarding. A few hours later I'd asked myself a whole bunch more questions, and actually came up with a few answers too. The story, from what I can see, is so much stronger than it was. I found an old piece of paper buried in my notes with an original synopsis on it that looked so vague and blank in comparison. By the time this synopsis is finished and I sit down to do the actual writing I'll have a pretty detailed road map of where the story and the characters are going. So pleased. Thank you God!

Funnily enough, I'm looking forward to writing my NEXT book (yeah coz, you know, I'm just SO close to finishing this one...lol). Watching how the plotting process works has given me ideas on how I'll go about it from the beginning next time.

Back to work. I've got a "one day" to keep planning for!