I'm Writing a Novel

My spiritual director has been hounding me for years to dedicate more time to writing and take it seriously. Like all writers, I knew that was necessary, but found reasons to distract myself from that reality because writing is hard, even when you’re somewhat good at it. She reminded me that at the end, God will ask how we used the gifts he’s given us. Ouch. I’ve met with her for almost 10 years, so she knows me pretty well. She helped me discern that writing is more than just a hobby. I need to treat it as a vocation. And I need to step out of my comfort zone and focus on something that’s been gnawing at me for years.

Nonfiction is my comfort zone, despite the stories that have flooded my head for years. I relate deeply to von Balthasar’s concept of treating your life as a Theodrama, because in the end, we are all somewhat actors in a play with an unmoved mover who spoke the universe into existence. And novels are a reflection of real events. So what’s my excuse now? Well, my own perfectionism, I guess. That’s an easy trick for the enemy (which is a mishmash of my own natural inclinations, the fallen world, and spiritual forces) to hit me with. So I’m going to disregard that and keep going. Also, writing a fictional story with an engrossing plot line and story arc has felt daunting to me. But now that I’m starting the process, it’s flowing quite naturally. I’m sure I’ll hit some snags and dry spells, but for now I’ll keep writing.

Pantsing and Plotting

I learned two types of novel writers: pantsers and plotters. Pantsers write by the seat of their pants without knowing where the story is going. Plotters plot out every detail before writing. I’ve always been more of a pantser (my thesis chair tried to get me to write out an outline of my thesis because it went all over the place). But this time I’m incorporating more a balanced approach. I’m letting the writing guide the story as I write it, while also taking time to plotting out the structure as the story matures and moves. The story arc has changed and morphed from its original beginning in my head, but as it changes I make notes of areas I need to expand on, characters I need to introduce, and plot lines that need to be introduced. With this workflow in mind, I thought I would share some of the tools I use to accomplish this. I’m only about 3,000 words in, but this experimentation stage has allowed me to see what foundational elements work for me.

Digital Process: Scrivener 

Thankfully we live in the golden age of writing programs that allow us to avoid Microsoft Word and other traditional word processors. These programs value simplicity and writer-focused needs over a traditional word processing structure that values an all-or-nothing approach that makes you fit into their specific rules. I don’t have to expound on Word too much, because we all know (or at least those born before 1995) the struggle of using it.

For the actual writing part, I’m using Scrivener. I had a copy of this program years ago and tried to use it for my thesis, but it didn’t click with my particular situation for heavy essay format heavily influenced by technical writing. I instead needed a program that incorporated structured documentation. Scrivener felt too unstructured and unorganized for my use case. But for writing a novel? Fantastic. It allows me to have specific sections for character layouts, chapters, scenes, notes, research, and other areas that allow me to plot out and write my story.

It combines plotting and writing into one seamless system, with enough wiggle room for organized chaos. Scrivener is a digital version of a desk setup: you have your notecards on one side, your notes on the other side, and other pertinent information on another side. Then in the middle of your desk is the actual book itself. Putting chapter sections into individual folders is also a killer feature that makes it worth it over Microsoft Word. Have you ever tried to create a new section in a Word document? Even after years of advanced Word use, it still takes too long to organize sections and pages. Good luck moving sections into new chapters.

Scrivener also has a typewriter feature for focused writing. This has been useful for me when I don’t want to see all my options and notes available.

Once you’ve finished your draft, or if you want to export specific sections, you can compile your novel together in a manuscript format. We’ll see how that goes when I eventually get there. Who knows how long that will take…

Analog Process: A5 Three-Ring Binder and Notecards

Of course I can’t have a fully digital process. As I’ve harped on multiple times on this Substack, I have to balance my digital tools with analog tools. But I don’t want my analog tools to distract me from the actual writing part of the process, because it’s easy to use my tools as distraction.

My analog structure almost mirrors the digital structure in Scrivener, but I use analog tools for plotting and planning the story arc and characters. This structure has allowed me to switch contexts between plotting and writing. When I need to turn away from writing, I turn to my notebook and notecards.

I am using an A5 three-ring binder (ironically called a Plotter) for notes, character descriptions, and setting descriptions. I started out using note cards, and may go back to using those as I come up with more ideas, but for now A5 paper has been a good size for me. A binder system works well for easily moving sections and ideas back and forth more so than a traditional fixed notebook.

Once I have my ideas and notes written down on paper, I convert them into their respective folders in Scrivener. I then have everything I need contained as I write my story.

Overall I’m happy with this setup and plan to use it as I move through this process. I’m sure it will change. But I’m hoping it will keep me motivated to keep placing words onto paper. Stay tuned!

Silence, Desolation, and Typewriters

I have been horrible at keeping silence lately. It’s probably one of the reasons why I slipped down into the desolate hole I’ve been swimming in this summer. But I know God is swimming there with me in the murky water. And I’ll come out stronger after this trial. Struggling with silence doesn’t necessarily mean I talk a lot. As I began struggling, I bombarded my senses with Google searches, determined to find a solution to my problems. But all I found was more desolation and worst-case scenarios.

Looking back, I know I should have paid attention to what was in front of me (making doctor appointments) and waited in silence in the meantime, letting God give me strength and wisdom. But like the stubborn person I am, I wanted to use my own will to hack my way into a healthy future. But that mindset always leads to a crash. God didn’t cause the crash to happen, but he allowed me to learn a difficult lesson.

My experience is one drop in an ocean of overstimulated internet users determined to doom-scroll their way to a hopeless future. But that’s not how we’re wired. Before the Web 2.0 phenomenon, we lived with more boundaries. I’m only going back to Web 2.0, because life was still vastly different when the internet was ported through a 56k modem. As someone born in 1989, I feel like I uniquely have one foot planted in the old ways and another foot in the new. I remember the natural boundaries set by limitations of our technology.

Our bodies and souls long for silence. We think we can find peace and consolation in the noise, as I did, but God is nowhere to be found in that space. Most of the time, the noise you hear is filled with anger, anxiety, and fear. It’s full of opinions that most of the time don’t apply to you. And if they do, you shouldn’t pay attention to them most of the time. The external stimulus can then overstimulate your soul to where it’s constantly agitated, continually questioning who you are, what you need to do, why you’re in the situation you’re in, and on and on and on. Once you get to that point, your ability to hear the voice of Love itself diminishes.

“In order to hear the voice of God, one has to have silence in one’s soul to keep silence; not a gloomy silence, but an interior silence; that is to say, recollection in God. One can speak little and be constantly breaking silence.” -St. Faustina

The noise in your soul will then affect your thoughts and actions in life, as it becomes more difficult to discern what choices you need to make in the present moment.

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to touch souls.” -St. John Paul II

Popular typewriter YouTuber Joe Van Cleave ended his recent video with the observation that we now have an abundance of tools to create and write, but now we are struggling with the lack of mental space to sit down and produce. As a writer in the 21st-century, I agree with his statement. The issue is not finding ways to produce, but creating boundaries to free up space in our minds to write what is on our heart. Being a writer, even when you know deep in your heart that it’s a vocation that you bear responsibly to carry out, is a difficult job that taxes your mind and body. You write because there’s no means of escape for the thoughts in your soul. It’s embedded in you and must come out. But you have to recognize the truth of yourself before you can write. And it’s much easier to distract yourself from than confront that truth. The tools we use to write are also the tools we use to distract ourselves from the uncomfortable truths inside of us. We have the enormous responsibility of disciplining ourselves against the enormity of information and distractions that bombard us in a way no other generation has had to deal with before.

This is part of the reason why I love typewriters and pen and paper. You have no means of escape to confront what is in front of you. You must write. You must look into yourself to discover how you fill up the page. Because the page must be filled. And you can edit later. But you can’t edit on command like you can with modern technology. You must contemplate what you want to say, and have the courage to pound it onto the page, knowing it’s staying there. Then you can contemplate your words again and ask yourself how it can be edited. And you can’t click to the next tab, because no digital metaphors of entertainment exist in these tools. Of course you can look at your phone, but as you do, the tools are still there staring at you, waiting for you to complete your task. This discipline strengthens your ability to be a writer.

So what do we do about this? How do we create boundaries to fulfill our calls? After this season, I will have to ask myself some hard questions about how I use tools in my daily life. I have prided myself on asking myself these questions for the past several years, especially during the pandemic, but I am human like everyone else and can slip into the portal of endless noise that rattles my soul. My soul and mind faltered. Pride comes before the fall. But I am overcoming even stronger than before.