[MUSIC PLAYING]
In a second draft, not so much trying
to solve the problems of the plot or the storytelling.
I'm probably trying to go deeper into who are these characters.
And by finding out about them, that's
going to help me tell their story and move forward.
And I'll hope that when I read through a second draft,
there will be little bits that delight me along the way.
Maybe it's dialogue.
Maybe it's a scene that I'll really like.
A lot of it won't wind up in the final book, but some of it
will be there from the first draft.
Some dialogue will always stay.
There might be a scene that will always
be there, because it just came, and it's good, and it works.
And eventually, you get a feel for that.
And you get a feel for, especially,
if it's not working, the heartbreak of it's not working.
But I don't give up.
I don't give up.
My revision process has to do with the characters
and the story.
I mean, it's the same thing.
The characters were there to tell a story.
So I can't separate the characters from the story.
Yes, I can say, oh, I know what.
Rachel's father swigs Pepto Bismol before school starts,
because he's nervous.
And that's the kind of person he is.
He's a worrier.
And he will be that way, maybe, through the book.
And that's good that I know that.
But still, more and more good things
happen as the drafts go up in number.
So a third draft will be-- many more things will come.
The interesting thing, really, is
that I know now that some of my best stuff
will come after I'm working with an editor.
Maybe in the first time, or maybe not until we
have our second go round.
Some of the best stuff will come at the very end.
Just as I said some of the best is at the beginning,
but some of the best will come at the very end.
Because by then I know things that I
didn't know in the first, second, or even third drafts.
Every time I go through it, I am identifying places
like, eh, this doesn't work.
I'll write comments-- ugh, forget it, no.
And I'll ask myself questions on there.
What is she doing here?
What is this all about?
And that will help me in the next draft.
So I don't necessarily try to fix it then,
because I like to have all of that.
Again, that all becomes security to me.
I know what I'm going to be doing.
The hardest part, again, is facing the blank screen,
the blank page.
So I never want to be in that position.
I always want to have plenty of notes.
There are times when I actually make
lists to track my characters.
And especially in a longer book, I have to track my characters,
track their development, track what they've already
done and said, on what page they've done and said that,
so I know.
And sometimes it doesn't come out right,
but for the most part, when I'm revising,
I'm revising as a whole.
But again, there are times in longer books when
it will be just this character, and then
this character, and then this character,
and I'll make little--
I'll make a little notebook about tracking characters
and tracking events, because that's very important.
And consistency is very important.
The book has to make sense.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I think an old-fashioned work ethic
is really essential, because writing is your job,
if it is your job.
Writing is my job, and so that's the only way
I can get it done, by forcing myself.
I pretend.
I've never-- well, this isn't true.
For most of my writing life, I have worked at home.
That's not always easy, especially when
you have family and things going on.
But my kids are grown now.
I have my own little room, my own space,
where I can go and lock myself up for as long as I need to.
If you want to write, if you're serious about writing--
maybe you're already writing--
you have to do this.
You have to make the time.
I know we all have heard of people
who get up at 5:00 in the morning,
and they do their writing for the first two hours,
and they get things done.
I could never do that.
I'm a morning person, but not that early a morning person.
Although, who knows.
If I had been desperate, to do that, if I had
had a job outside also.
I'm a-- I was trained to be an elementary school teacher.
And let's say that I had been working as a teacher,
but I was--
I had this burning inside me that had to come out.
Because it's not just that you sit down to write.
I think you need to.
You need to let this out.
It may be a fun idea to think, oh, I'm going to be a writer.
But the reality of it is it's not that much fun.
It's fun when you have a book on the shelf
that you wrote and say, [GASPS] I wrote that book.
How did I do that?
That's fun.
But the writing itself is not fun.
It's hard.
And you have to keep at it, day after day.
So I think if you've got another job,
if you've got small children that you're taking care of,
other things get in the way-- and other things
do get in the way.
Other things got in my way, too--
when you're doing this book, you have to keep at it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Between books, I used to go--
when I started out, there was so much, there was just so much
inside me that needed to come out,
that I went from book to book to book to book for a long time.
And I was fast and spontaneous, and it just kept coming.
And I needed it.
And then after a while, I relaxed about it more,
and would take time off between books.
And now I take a lot of time off between books, if I want to.
If I want to.
When I was young, and I started to write,
it was always on my mind that my father had
died so young and so suddenly.
And I believed that my life would be short,
and I had to get in as much as I could.
I just wanted to get it down.
I was just so desperate to let everything out that
was inside me and get it down.
And now I realize nobody would say, oh, poor Judy,
she died so young.
So I'm not in such a hurry anymore.
And also that I got happy in my personal life.
And let's face it--
what's going on in your personal life
does affect your writing life, can affect your writing life.
I don't see how it can't.
But it's good.
And actually, during some of the worst times in my own life,
I was able to continue to write, and that did save me.
That did save me.
I was able to go into this other world of characters and story,
and forget what was going on in my own life.
So yes, yes, I did write through the worst times.
And I look back and I don't know how, but I did it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I don't believe in the expression writer's block.
I have to say that.
No writer's block.
Put that out of your mind.
There are good days, and there are less good days,
and there are times when it just seems not to be coming.
And what I suggest, what I do myself, is just get up,
walk away.
Go do something physical.
Because the physical helps the mental
come to where you need to be.
So I was living in Santa Fe, and I was writing Tiger Eyes,
and I was--
at that point, I think I was working with my editor already.
And we were talking about a scene,
and it just would not come.
I wish I could tell you what the scene was.
I can't remember exactly what it was.
But I remember exactly where I was walking.
And I was walking, walking, walking in Santa Fe,
up and down the hills.
And during those walks, the solution came to me.
And I got it.
I got it that way, by not really focusing on it
but by doing something else.
And I can remember calling my editor,
and I was very excited because I figured it out.
I know what to do, i said.
And then I did it.