Writing, Escape, and Control

Originally written 24 December 2021, 2.53am.

I started writing very young.

I took to the written word extremely quickly as a child. I was reading competently at age four and by the time I was eight I was attempting to write books of my own. I was constantly narrating the world in my mind as I watched events unfold, narrating as if I was narrating a book. Sometimes, it turned out, I was (though surprisingly few events in my novels have stemmed from real-life events).

When I was a young (and later an older) teenager, I holed up in my room, hiding from my mother's absolutely unpredictable rages and the awful words about any and all my minuscule failures rushing out of her mouth like swords to my battered soul, writing, on looseleaf, on scraps of schoolwork, on typewriters, on my beside table, on anything I could get my hands on. Writing and listening to music became the only two ways to drown out the horrible sounds of my later childhood and early teen years.

When I wrote, the world in my head dampened the sounds of the world where nobody cared and nobody listened. The aural effect of music filled in the gaps that writing couldn't. I stayed up late into the night and filled the silence with music -- music for enjoyment rather than to smother the awfulness -- and spun out dozens of alternate universes from a curious coalition of my brain and my fingers. At age fourteen I completed my first novel draft, and some seventeen more have followed suit since then.

I joined Facebook, then started this blog. My writing, heretofore a closely guarded secret, expanded onto platforms that people could read. The blog especially was a very raw and vulnerable place for me. Facebook, however, gave me a platform to hone skills I was weak on, such as succinctness (remember the 430-character limit?) and clarity. I had a moderately good run as a pseudo-comedy writer who simply spun everyday events into decently funny one-liners. As I aged and my mental health worsened and I started losing friends to depression, I slipped almost unconsciously into a storyteller/advocate style of writing. I told my own story with unflinching starkness, in hopes that the friends and family who read my vignettes would better understand and be better equipped to help their friends and family with depression. There are so many misconceptions surrounding mental illness in general and depression in particular, and I, as a writer on the inside of both, had a unique perspective -- and I thought maybe a sort of obligation -- to bring to the people. The act of writing about my experiences had the side benefit of helped me to clarify them and even to bring some modicum of healing to my now even-more-shipwrecked soul.

Then I met my husband. Or, more accurately, my in-laws.

Of course they were nice at first. They're still decently nice now, however, many wars were had on the topic of my Facebook posts.

To this day, I'm not sure what their issue is. There is a history of depression in the family, so it wasn't like they didn't understand. But essentially they forbade me from posting on Facebook. Not one single post about mental health was allowed. Not one iota of honesty about myself and my life was allowed. I fought this, tooth and nail. There were many screaming matches, and the wedding was nearly called off multiple times because I could not understand how they could say that they wanted me in their family, yet they wanted to chop off one of the very things that made me ME. Without writing, without honesty, I would not be the same person. That seemed to be exactly what they wanted.

Eventually, I gave in. I was just so tired of the screaming matches. I went back to writing on this blog (luckily I hadn't gotten to the point of telling them of its existence yet) because it was once again the only place I would write whatever I wanted to and not be torn to shreds for the next 4-5 business days.

In some ways, I regret that. I regret letting them control me like this. My husband is great, but his family is an absolutely impossible battlefield of land mines -- sorry, I mean unwritten expectations. The blog is a valuable outlet, but not writing as much as I used to makes me feel like I'm only half of a human being -- and a primarily-dead half-human being at that. I was finally beginning to come into myself as a communicator, and they casually stripped 25 years of writing, of ME, away from me like they were putting groceries away after running errands.

For as long as I can remember, crafting the written word has been a part of my life. And all it took were some overbearing in-laws to strip me of one of the three (3) things that has ever consistently brought me comfort over the course of this life filled with an almost-comical and certainly-unbelievable amount of death and misfortune.

They wonder now why I don't trust them. Why I don't talk. Why I come off as so rude, distant, and angry all the time. Nobody ever stops to think that that's what happens when you take away one of somebody's only coping mechanisms.

Disconnected

A belated welcome to all the DA fans! (Now that they've probably all read the post, left, and forgotten this blog exists...) Nothing like a little diehard-fan scrutiny to freak me out a bit... seriously though, welcome.
And now for our regularly scheduled post (I heard that snicker)...


The other day, while looking at the window at the rain falling outside, it randomly struck me that I'm almost always filtering my experiences through Facebook.

I don't post every little tiny detail of my life on Facebook ('going to work,' 'eating [insert food here] then going to bed,' etc.), but I do spend a rather disproportionate amount of time thinking about it. In actuality I only post a status three or four times a week (depending what's going on in my life and how much music awesomeness is coming from the DA and White Heart pages), but I tend to look at every experience I have, no matter how mundane or ridiculous or simply beautiful through the lens of 'how would I write this on Facebook?'

Being a writer, a bit of a loner, a perfectionist, and a master of the cynical one-liner (just ask my relatives -- not that regular readers of this blog really need proof), my Facebook posts are very carefully crafted. I have literally spent forty-five minutes reading over and tweaking a single Facebook status at times, replacing one word, then checking for clarity, rhythm, and 'comedic' timing, and making subtle adjustments accordingly. If I spent a quarter of that kind of effort on revising my novels, I would be a bestselling author by now.

I'm not proud of that.

It scared me a little, this realisation that I couldn't remember the last time I experienced anything without starting to plan in my head how I would word the Facebook post about it.

So when I put the advance download of Dig Here Said The Angel on my iPod, I decided to wait before listening to it... it was two o'clock in the morning by then, and I had to be up early the next day. But I was determined to wait. Last time DA released an album I was under ten years old and my only knowledge of Daniel Amos was the image in my memory of the cover art of their self-titled debut. And with a White Heart album still not announced, this was my next best chance to get to hear a record from a band I love for the first time -- at the same time as everybody else. I've always wondered what it would have been like to have heard Doppelgänger for the first time in 1983, when everyone else was also hearing it (and being shocked) for the first time. So too with ¡Alarma! in 1981, and with White Heart's Freedom or Powerhouse in 1989 and 1990.

So I waited until I had a chunk of time where I knew I would be undisturbed.

Since I don't get to listen to amazing albums for the first time often, I'm not entirely sure how to go about it. I'm sure many people who were around in the seventies and eighties had a special sort of 'ritual' -- taking the record home from the store, opening it, setting the vinyl on the player for the first time, dropping the needle, and then examining every square centimetre of the artwork or reading the lyrics on the sleeve as they got to hear fantastic music from a pristine yet warm and inviting record.

A download wouldn't have the same visual and tactile experience, but at least I knew the music would be good. So I sat on my bedroom floor (where I always imagine people listening to records for the first time), put in my earbuds, adjusted the volume, and touched the title of the first song.

Within a few seconds, a now-familiar voice envelops me and begins to lead me away, into the world where everything is questioned and yet answered, where melancholy and humour collide.

I found a haystack in a needle
I caught an angel in a lie...

As the album played on, I consciously pushed the thought of reviewing it out of my mind. The blog, Facebook, even future choreography I might get out of this was not important right now. I was to listen to it as a fan, not a critic. I was to listen with the wonder of Lucy first seeing the lamp-post. It would be unfair to try to boil it down in my mind to a crass inadequate review while the album was still trying to show me all the beauty and texture it had to offer. And even though I fully expect to wind up choreographing at least a few of the songs at some point, this was not the time... it was not the time to be microanalysing the movements of the dancers in my head when I was supposed to be letting the music and the songwriting show me what treasures it had to offer even by itself. Imagining dance at this point wouldn't strengthen it, it would only deafen my ears to the music.

It took some conscious effort, but by the end of the second song I had settled in. And I listened to the music for an hour without once thinking of Facebook, and only having to push the blog out of my mind two or three times. I didn't work at imagining dance either, I only allowed myself to see what my subconscious pushed to the forefront. But the majority of my intellectual faculties were focused on the music texturing and the songwriting.

It wasn't until the next day that I realised just how much I had enjoyed that -- that piece of time where I managed to completely forget about the existence of Facebook. It isn't until you taste freedom that you realise how deeply entrenched you are in bondage. Four years I've let this thing -- this elaborate chunk of HTML -- dictate my thought patterns. Why?

I could go onto a psychological exposition on this, but we've all heard it before anyway, and it doesn't really answer anything. All I have is... why? Why do we seem to think it's so essential -- essential enough that we automatically think in Facebook text bites? What kind of creative freedom would we have if distilling our daily 'accomplishments' into a Facebook status that only three people will read wasn't a part of our natural thought process?

NaNoWriMo Eve

Pre-NaNoWriMo checklist:

Some idea of plot?
Check.

Research?

Nope.

Names for most of supporting cast?

Nope.

Food?
Check.

Tea (kindly supplied by friend)?
It was here, but I can't seem to find it...

Writing buddies?
Check.

Work done on choreography that I planned on getting out of the way before NaNoWriMo starts?
...Not really.

Barely-suppressible heart-rate-elevating excitement?
Check.

Writing music (classicchristian247.com)?
Uncertain as of yet. (Thanks a lot, superstorm Sandy.)

Writing music (iTunes)?
Check.

Furnace running?
Check.

Second plot for when I finish the first one early?
Check.

Blankets?
Check.

Fresh batteries for Lila?
Check.

MacBook?
Check.

Annual final-hour-countdown freakout with writing buddy over Facebook?
Check.

(Well, all the important stuff is covered, anyway.)

And now, fellow writers, let us charge forth to the path of glorious exuberant creativity! For the rest of the month may our battle cry shall echo the words of what's-his-face from Mythbusters, "I reject your reality and substitute my own."

Bring on National Novel Writing Month!


EDIT: 9 November 2012
It wasn't even NaNoWriMo yet and already I was making NaNoisms? Are you KIDDING me?

The Doubleheader -- Post-Event Update

Yes, I've been neglecting the blog a bit. 3,334 words a day was a little bit more difficult than I expected.

I also didn't expect the crash at the end of November. It felt like every energy reserve I had was sucked dry. (Coming down with a full-blown cold -- which I still have -- in Week Two didn't help though.)

It wasn't so much the fact that I was writing three thousand words a day -- it was switching between two entirely different plots that slowed me down. Within the first week and a half of the contest I'd started to put in three thousand words on one novel one day and three thousand words on the other novel the next day (I had started out writing 1,667 words per novel per day). I'd pick whichever novel I was most excited about and work on that one for the day, giving it a big enough lead that I could let it simmer for the next day while I worked on the other.

But though I was able to make it work this past month, I'm not trying that again anytime soon.

Writing 100,000 words in a month is a good challenge, and I'm willing to repeat it sometime, but I'm not spreading it across two books again. The stopping and starting of separate plots all the time really slowed me down. Often I ended up starting my writing session at 11pm and speed-typing anything, anything I could possibly think of to come reasonably close to three thousand words by midnight so I could update my word count accurately on the website. (And, incredibly, I actually managed three thousand words an hour a few times. I'm not exactly looking forward to rewriting those passages though.)

The end result?

Well, my perception is probably slightly warped from exhaustion, exhilaration, and diminished air supply through my plugged nose, but I think it was mostly worth it. Novel Two especially has some serious potential. I adore the characters in Novel One, but the plot, well... wasn't. I didn't actually wrap up the story, I just brought it past 50,000 words and dropped in favour of writing the ending to Novel Two.

My final count according to the website was 109,064, but taking the total of Novel One and adding it to the total of Novel Two gives me 108,670 words. Not too bad really, considering that I closed Day 29 at 98,506 with hardly any ideas for either novel.

Novel One ultimately ended up being (so far) 50,572 words. But like I mentioned, it's not technically finished.

Novel Two, thanks to a rather formidable burst of mad typing as I desperately tried to get my fingers to hurry up and keep pace with my idea for a (hopefully spectacular) final twist, reached the end at 58,098 words less than an hour before December.

This does break some personal records though (and that's always something to aim for). I broke my record for most words written in a month (previous record was 74,450 words, set November 2010), most words written in one day with 10,558 (previous record was 6,137 or something of that sort, also November 2010), fastest 50k (14 days 5 minutes; previous record was 20 days, November 2010), and, of course, most novels written in one month.

Something I found rather effective this time around was to structure my writing time around music.

I've always listened to music when I write, but this time I got into the habit of finding an album on iTunes and putting it on, then making myself write (no Facebook or blog) until the album finished. Then I could spend a few minutes checking Facebook and the blog and email and everything else before picking another album and doing it again.

And just when I was starting to get tired of most of the albums I already had, I was introduced to this Internet radio station.

Because I know a good third of the stuff they play on there, it was so easy just to sit down and say, 'Okay, I'm going to write until the next Petra song.' And if I wanted to narrow it down a little (because they play a lot of Petra), I would make it any Petra song from the album Back To The Street.

It worked beautifully. I was amazed.

I've always heard that in NaNoWriMo it's preferable to structure your writing time around blocks of time rather than word count (less distracting), but I'd never been able to do that -- I would spend the entire writing session glancing up at the clock and was never really able to settle into the story. Using the playtime of a complete album in iTunes really helped because then I knew when I was done and I was better able to tell myself 'no, you haven't actually been writing that long because this album's only forty-five minutes long and it isn't done yet. You can't go to Facebook yet.'

So that's what I learnt in this contest. Hopefully it helps some fellow writing music nerd.

Suffice to say I am now the author of eight novels -- even if they're all still rough drafts because I fail miserably at the rather-crucial big-picture aspect of rewriting. (But they all have impeccable spelling!)

The Desert

I loathe more than anything the feeling of not having an idea for something.
Whether writing, photography, dance... I've always had an idea for something at almost any given moment. My problem as an artist never used to be getting an idea, it was keeping up with the overabundance of ideas. In approximately twelve years of artist-like endeavours, I have never once run dry for more than maybe a week. Even then I'm usually working off such a backlog of previous ideas that I barely notice.
There's always something -- real life presents so many 'plot' twists and characters for writing, so many beautiful scenes and intricate detail for your camera to capture, so many movements for the human body to mimic. How can one possibly run out of ideas?
I have been reduced to counting. Counting out music 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4... Wanting to be able to say I've accomplished something that brings me closer to my dream of dance but in reality I'm just putting it off in a more sneaky way.
I need a bigger practice space. I need to move out because my family screams at each other at the slightest provocation if any at all and it screws up my concentration. I need to learn the real names of the steps so I can write it down more accurately. I need this, I need that...
No -- what I need is to get off my lazy backside, shove the headphones in, and dance. Breaking it down can come later. Dance the same steps over and over again, memorise it -- then attempt to write it down. Scream along to the White Heart or Flyleaf if need be but dance.
I have this chance wide open in front of me. Ability, training, some talent (I hope) -- all right here for the taking. I've been incredibly blessed in almost every way you could ask for a career in dance.
But I won't have it forever. There is no guarantee -- the human body is fragile. I know I have to do as much of it as I can before something happens that might disable me, but apparently the 'action' side of my brain hasn't figured that out. It's figured out (much to my decidedly not-artist family's consternation) that I'm not going to do anything else with my life, but it appears to have a problem with if you're not doing anything else, then actually get up and do the one thing you have decided you will. Seriously, have I really become this lazy?
I've already come to the conclusion that I'm going to set aside some time every day to work on choreography. At first I thought maybe fifteen minutes would be sufficient, but after putting that into practice I've discovered that the resulting fragmentation of the thought process means I would be better off not bothering. I really should know by now there's no way to get a quality result if you only work on something in fifteen-minute bursts.
So I'm going to look at my schedule and see if I can't pull together an hour every day, at least. It's going to be difficult here in August with the novel, but really, if I have time to write a novel, I have an extra hour somewhere that doesn't require Facebook in it.
So if I start posting rants about Facebook, it means I'm on Facebook instead of dancing and for that I hereby give you full permission to scold me. Facebook will always be there but my body will not always be young.

How To Spot An Idiot

'It's official... signal at 12:20 it even passed on TV. Facebook will start charging this summer. If you copy this on your wall your icon will turn blue and Facebook will be free for you. Please pass this message if not your count will be deleted. P.S. this is serious the icon turns blue, so please put this on your wall.'

Between 12.30 last night and 1.30 this afternoon, my Facebook news feed became flooded with this one post.
It's the official mark of stupidity -- the chain status/wall post/message/'like' page claiming that Facebook is going to start charging. It's full of misspellings, weird grammar, repetition, and things that don't even make sense (what does 'signal at 12:20' even mean? 'Your icon will turn blue'... what icon?)

First off, if Facebook was going to implement a major, major change such as charging money, they would send you an official message from the Facebook team through... Facebook (what a coincidence!). They've done it before; when they update the privacy settings for instance. If you log in one day and Facebook asks for money and you haven't heard anything about it, obviously you haven't checked your Facebook in like six months, therefore you don't use it often enough to bother keeping up the account, free or not.
Of course, a change like that would almost certainly hit the news, but I'm very sure every Facebook account holder would get the news directly from Facebook very far in advance.

Also, assuming this post was true, it would tell you which TV network it showed up on, wouldn't it? TV in this age includes thousands of channels. Just saying 'it was on TV' does not make your claim (or anyone else's) valid.

One more thing... no way on earth will posting a certain message on a certain webpage change an icon. It would require too much extra time to build the code to make that happen and then be able to launch it on several million accounts all at once. Even their message/chat integration thing was rolled out slowly over a period of at least six months. To write the code that would make a certain (unspecified) icon turn blue when a particular (highly unprofessionally written) status was posted would be more complicated then the message/chat integration and therefore would take at least as much time to roll out for everyone. It would not start working for everyone all at the same time as the status insinuates.

So next time you see one of these things and are tempted to repost it... don't. Think through it logically and then decide not to post it. Because if you do repost it, it will make you look a huge bumbling idiot to your family, your friends, your enemies who are your Facebook friends anyway, and that really cute, really smart guy (or girl) you have a huge crush on.

The Rest Of My Life

The other day a thought suddenly struck me.
Life is a lot more finite than we think.
Oh sure, everyone says life is short. Even the Bible says it's like a mist or a vapour. I knew in my head that I didn't have forever but it never really hit me until Thursday.
Given my current age and the average lifespan of my relatives, I have sixty, maybe seventy or eighty years left.
And sixty years isn't that long when you think about it. Most sixty-year-olds are still pretty spry and still love life (or maybe it's just the sixty-year-olds I know). When you think about it they're still pretty young.
Sixty years ago it was 1951. World War II had been over for more than five years already. I think when most people think 'sixty years ago' they automatically think Depression or World War II prior to doing the math.
Sixty years isn't that long.
And that's assuming I die of 'natural causes' on the young side of 'old.' What if I'm killed or severely injured or contract a heinous disease within the next year? Then what?
The people at my funeral would say "She was nice... I guess... but she was bullheaded and tactless and a master of the guilt trip. Always needed to keep things exactly the way they were and never entertained the thought of change. And she spent way too much time doing nothing on Facebook."
Real awe-inspiring.
For years I've wanted to form a dance troupe and tour around and if that isn't feasible I'd like to be a singer. On Thursday I realised it really is never going to happen if I sit on Facebook all day. I have to work on choreography every spare moment of the day if I'm going to get it off the ground when I'm still young enough to dance.
And that's only one aspect of my life.
What about the God who created me? I claim to love and serve Him, but do I? Probably not, at least not as well as I should. My conscience has been nagging at me for a while to read the Bible and pray more but I kept putting it off... tomorrow, tomorrow.
But my life -- even if I can make my dreams of dancing and/or singing a reality -- will be empty if it isn't to the glory of God. To know how best to glorify God, I must know God. And to know God, I must spend time with Him reading the Bible and praying and actually looking for Him instead of just doing it out of routine.
Maybe this is the wake-up call I've been praying halfheartedly for for so long. And hopefully this time I won't let it fade.

David Meece -- The Rest Of My Life
(from Learning To Trust; Star Song, 1989)

Justice, Sweet Justice

Do you remember the party I mentioned the other day?
The primary reason nobody responded (I found out later) was because of the annual paintball tournament put on by the church. I had completely forgotten it was this weekend until I'd already sent out invitations to my party.
Oh well, I thought. Even if they come late, they can still come.
So I changed the information in the Facebook event (and made it known to those who aren't on Facebook) to make it clear that if you had to come late, it would be perfectly all right.
Still no one responded, except the youth pastor heading up the paintball event. He and his wife would most definitely be there, he said, but they would be a bit late.
While I appreciated that, it frustrated me quite a bit to know that the youth pastor was willing to take the time to attend, but no one else was. They were going on the same paintball excursion; they would be arriving home on the same bus; for the most part they all live within the same town; yet the youth pastor was willing to come and they weren't.
They didn't say they weren't willing, of course. Those who I asked point-blank said something along the lines of 'I'm so sorry, I really wanted to come but I can't because paintball day is a big tradition for us so yeah...'
No, you don't really want to come. You aren't sorry at all. If you were, you'd come out for at least the second half of the party.
So I simmered, although the sudden availability of two close friends who had previously been unable to come eased the pain a little.
But now, today -- paintball day and party day -- it's raining, twelve degrees (Celsius), windy, and muddy. Less than an hour ago, paintball day was officially canceled.
And all those who thought paintball was more important than one they call their friend (and who even went so far as to lie to that friend) will now spend their afternoon sitting at home refreshing Facebook and/or mindlessly watching crap on YouTube while my real friends and I laugh together and enjoy steak and crisps in my house.
Sweet, sweet justice.

Another Rant

For the past two summers I have attempted to throw parties for varying reasons. Not a lot, usually only one per year. But a party nonetheless.
When I plan a party, it's all about the people. The more the merrier, even though I suffer from a hopeless case of social awkwardness. I love getting people together and listening to them talk and watching how they bounce off each other. Perhaps it's the writer in me, the people-watcher.
Since the object of the party is to get lots of people to congregate in the same general area, I tend to invite everyone who lives within an hour's drive of my house that I have any connection at all with. And I will use any means of communication that I can get my hands on that will get the message to them. If I had the self-confidence to do it, I would buy myself a megaphone and run through the streets at three am when people don't expect noise and are therefore more likely to hear it, yelling 'Barbecue party at Kate's on Saturday! One in the afternoon to eleven pm!' or whatever details are necessary.
But because I don't have the panache to pull that off, I use everything else that's available to me -- Facebook, email, cell phone, home phone, handwritten invitations, you name it, if I have their information for it I'll use it if needed.
Generally I start out with a Facebook event. Those who aren't on Facebook get an email. Those who don't have an email address (yes, those people do still exist) get a handwritten invitation with multiple ways of contacting me dropped by my own hand into their personal mailbox, or, in some cases, given directly to them. This is usually done at least a month and a half before the event is slated to take place, if not a month and a half before the RSVP deadline.
But guess what? It turns out everyone gets an email address, than a Facebook, Twitter, and Skype so they can stay in contact with friends and family (and of course to stalk every available redhead they meet who isn't me).
And then they never check the bloody things!
Do you see how stupid this is? Having a Facebook does nothing for if you don't check it at least once a week. Same goes for your email. And your cell phone. And your answering machine at home. I should not have to come personally to your house, sit you down in front of your calendar at gunpoint and demand to know whether or not you can or will come to the party. That's all I want -- a yes or a no.
I don't care if you say no. I might be a bit disappointed, but at least you had the decency to tell me you wouldn't be able to come instead of never saying anything and making me have to guess.
Because you know what?
It gets darn frustrating when every single person you invite has that exact same reaction. I can't plan to have a good amount of food (which is basically mandatory to all parties) if I have thirty-five freaking wildcards.
If you're not going to check your Facebook or your email and you're not going to reply to texts, voicemails, or handwritten invitations, you might as well go live in a cave because you're too important and self-fulfilled to need any other contact with any other humans and no, you're not allowed to bring your laptop with you because you obviously don't use it anyway no matter how much you say your life is wrapped up in it. If it was, I would have gotten a reply to my email/Facebook invite within a week of my sending it out.

Historical Accuracy Fail

I quite like Facebook's idea of displaying photo albums you've been tagged in from months or even years ago. So often we forget the good times and dwell only on our current depressing situation. Going back to a friend's photo album from nearly a year ago and remembering all the fun you had at a particular event really brightens one's day.

This is what Facebook recommended for me today:

Photo by Kate.

This was taken at West Edmonton Mall and I believe it's meant to be a replica of one of Columbus' ships. My friend and I were there with her youth group and we both spotted this at the same time. (Then, of course, we both had to take pictures.)
It pretty much made my night. You'd think the people in charge of a historical display would know better than to put a plastic IKEA-style trash can on a seventeenth-century ship.

The Golden Rule Of Novel Revision For Music Nerds

The Golden Rule of novel revision for music nerds who have just discovered buried musical treasure is this:

Never, never, never, never, never succumb to the temptation to Google song lyrics, paste them into iTunes' Info > Lyrics feature, and then read them the next three times you listen to the song so you learn them.
Not only does this halt all eating, Facebooking, and similar novel-revision-related tasks while you are learning the lyrics; this dramatically slows down all future productivity once you have them memorised and want to sing them while writing about deadly plagues and Y2K-like computer viruses. This is very difficult when you are listening to a rock song with an odd lyrical rhythm that demands your complete concentration to get the timing right.

Heed this advice and your novel is far more likely to survive the harsh uncharted territory of revision.
You're welcome.

How To Write A Novel: A Step-By-Step Guide

For anyone who might be wondering how to write a novel, here's a step-by-step guide to the process (updated November 2010 during the writing of my most recent novel).

1. Turn computer on. Wait fifteen minutes for the dumb thing to boot up.
2. Open iTunes, some kind of web browser, and Notepad (for plot hashing, of course).
3. Open several tabs in the web browser -- one for Facebook, at least one for your webmail, one for your Blogger dashboard, and anywhere between one and... dozens to catch up on your blog reading.
4. Read your email. Catch up on your Facebook news feed and read notifications. Ignore twelve FarmVille requests.
5. Look at list of twenty people that you really should email back.
6. Decide that you'll reply to those people later. After you've made your quota.
7. Read blogs for a half hour.
8. Refresh Facebook.
9. Get up and go to kitchen to get food. Find nothing of interest. Return to computer and refresh Facebook again.
10. Consider actually digging out flash drive containing novel.
11. Read more blogs.
12. Refresh Facebook. Write status bemoaning lack of inspiration.
13. Scroll through iTunes, trying to decide on music to listen to.
14. Remember you wanted to search for a song on the iTunes Store.
15. Search song. Add to wish list.
16. Click on interesting-looking album at the bottom of the page.
17. Preview entire album.
18. Add ten songs to wish list.
19. Click on interesting-sounding song nearby.
20. Add three more songs to wish list.
21. Check wish list.
22. Decide to buy some songs.
23. Check wallet. Find no money. Sigh and return to iTunes library.
24. Scroll a little bit more, looking for a musical selection of interest. Find nothing.
25. Go back to Facebook. Hit 'refresh.' Get no response.
26. Spin circles in desk chair for five minutes.
27. Threaten computer with hockey stick. Computer calls your bluff.
28. Bite back nasty words and check how much money is in the 'MacBook Savings' envelope.
29. Sigh. Pound desk in frustration.
30. Ctrl-Alt-Delete and kill off web browser program.
31. Wait ten minutes for computer to realise 'End Program' actually means 'End Program.'
32. Reopen web browser and all tabs.
33. Scroll through iTunes library a bit more. Narrow your current listening choices down to five different albums.
34. Get flash drive with novel out of drawer/bag/pocket/trash can.
35. Refresh Facebook.
36. Plug in flash drive.
37. Spin more circles in chair as you wait for computer to load flash drive.
38. Start playing a song in iTunes. Decide you don't want to listen to that song now. Start playing a different song.
39. Open file on flash drive that isn't at all related to novel.
40. Come up with brilliant plot twists for nine other stories you're putting off until the current one is finished.
41. Oh yes, the current novel. Go back to drive contents window.
42. Refresh Facebook.
43. Remember you wanted to update profile picture.
44. Open resource-hogging photo editing program.
45. Scroll through three folders looking for photo you have in mind. Realise it wasn't as good a photo as you thought.
46. Scroll through eleven other folders looking for suitable photo.
47. Stumble across those lovely family portraits you took three months ago and never did send to your grandmother.
48. Email photos to grandmother.
49. Do some light editing on about a dozen photos.
50. Get bored with photo editing. Decide to write.
51. Go back to Explorer window of flash drive contents.
52. Click on 'Screenplays' folder.
53. Open two screenplays-in-progress.
54. Reread them and remember why you abandoned them in the first place.
55. Correct spelling of main character's name in four places.
56. Close files.
57. Go to 'Novels' folder.
58. Open novel file.
59. Wait three minutes for Word to open and load file.
60. Refresh Facebook.
61. 'Like' two posts and comment on another.
62. Look at four or five profiles, chosen largely at random.
63. Read another blog.
64. Check email.
65. Refresh Facebook.
66. Get up and go to kitchen.
67. Look for food. Find nothing of interest.
68. Make stop at washroom.
69. Return to computer.
70. Refresh Facebook.
71. Think up potential simple math problem for a different story idea.
72. Write out problem in Notepad file, using spaces to line up columns perfectly.
73. Solve problem.
74. Forget what answer to problem was for.
75. Realise that computer seems sluggish.
76. Look at Taskbar to see what programs you can close.
77. See novel file. Bring that window to front.
78. Hit 'Enter - Tab' to start a new paragraph.
79. Watch blinking cursor for a few minutes. (Optional: Spin a few circles in chair.)
80. Decide to write blog post about lack of inspiration.
81. Refresh Facebook.
82. Write blog post.
83. Revise blog post. Extensively.
84. Publish blog post.
85. Notice typo.
86. Edit blog post.
87. Refresh Facebook.
88. Publish newly edited blog post.
89. Go back to Facebook. Realise the idiots changed the layout. Again.
90. Spend twenty minutes trying to figure out how to update your status.
91. Write angry status update about stupid Facebook developers.
92. Check email.
93. Add three sentences to novel.
94. Refresh Facebook.
95. Start playing a different album in iTunes.
96. Play air guitar, air drums, and/or air keyboard to seven rock songs in a row.
97. Refresh Facebook.
98. Pick a new album to play in iTunes.
99. Decide to actually take a stab at writing this time.
100. Start writing. (Hint: See if you can introduce a talking fish or a random fireball or something. That will help with this exercise.)
101. Get lost exploring random unrelated-to-plot thought in main character's head and manage to scrounge up 6,000 words by bedtime (meaning four AM, of course).

There you have it. Repeat this schedule every day or two and you're bound to come up with a novel eventually (as long as you work on the same file every time).
You're welcome.

A Rant

If there's anything I absolutely can't stand, it's this: some acquaintance of yours (not a best friend or anything) posts a status update on Facebook. It's witty, it made you laugh, and what's more, you have the perfect comment for it. So instead of simply 'liking' the status, you comment on it, certain that they'll get a laugh out of it, if nothing else.
Five minutes later, you happen to glance at your home page again and find that your carefully crafted comment was deleted.
It wasn't offensive, it wasn't inappropriate, it wasn't insulting to anyone in any fathomable way.
So why did it get deleted? Is it merely this friend's 'polite' way of dismissing you without actually removing you from their friend list? Are they trying to eradicate you from their life without having to tell you to your face that they hate you? Is this bloke such a control freak that if your comment isn't exactly the one that he was expecting when he posted that status, he deletes it so as not to 'muss up' his page?
Perhaps I appear to be overreacting too soon and I suppose you, dear reader, are perfectly justified in thinking that. To that I say this: one incident, even two or three, is forgivable; even more so if an explanation for it is provided.
Having every. Single. Comment that you ever post on anything of this friend's deleted, however, is not. Especially if you only comment on something he posts once every three months or so. (Deleting obvious stalker comments is a completely different discussion.)
If they didn't want to be your friend, why did they accept the stupid friend request? Obviously they have some kind of major problem with you, why didn't they just click 'Ignore' and spare you (not to mention themselves) this kind of aggravation?
And if you happen to be one of these selective-reality-obsessed chronic comment deleters, this is all I have to say to you:
If you don't want people to comment on it, don't even post it on Facebook in the first place.