Determined to knock out this first draft by end of fall, I’ve been sticking to a 500-words-a-day regimen. Even while traveling. Airports, I’ve found, are terrific places to write. Especially when you arrive three hours early in order to beat rush hour traffic, as was the case today.
The John Wayne Airport1 is particularly conducive to this practice, what with its comfy gate-adjacent seating, exceptional lighting, plenty of electrical outlets—not to mention the Acai bowl place that even sells Brazilian cheese balls—one of my favorite things.
I’m homing in on 35K words with this puppy, feeling my way through it one crisis at a time. All three of my POV characters have made life-changing decisions—and have suffered consequences in the short term. My job now is to grow those consequences so they overlap, somewhat like a flaming Venn diagram, where the overlapping portions burn cigarette holes into the story.
My genre of choice is family saga.2 What I love most about writing into these themes is when my characters rise from the ashes of their own destructive impulses to a paradigm shift so great, it circumvents their perceived needs. Squirmy caterpillars into a Monarchs. Lowly tadpoles into cacophonous toads.
The danger I run into at this point though, is writing episodic “oops” scenes that don’t escalate or overlap. Think of the writer’s version of doom-scrolling on social media. The death knell of substance. Since I’m now at that point where the overlap becomes more important than the individual character fuck ups, I think I need to slow my roll. Tap into intuition and human experience earned by living in this crazy world sixty-three years. The ineffable “oh, the humanity” confluence. Does that make sense?3
Anyway, another 500 words in the books, and my boarding time still 40 minutes away. I think it’s time for an airport cheese ball!
Why do airports in California have so many names? John Wayne, Santa Ana, Orange County—pick one!
I sort of loathe the term. I mean “saga” oozes long, drawn-out tedium, does it not? I want to invent a new term. Something that evokes metamorphosis, necessary calamity, psychic drama.
Or did I simply wake up too early today in service to beating Los Angeles work traffic and engaging one of the better Lyft drivers—yes, there’s a method. Note, planes are not allowed to fly until 7:00 am out of Santa Ana, so getting to the airport before 6:30 is imperative, and should you have an evening flight, beat the clusterfuck by arriving mid-afternoon, lest you get trapped in the post-Disney family exodus.
I love getting these glimpses into your process.
"My job now is to grow those consequences so they overlap, somewhat like a flaming Venn diagram, where the overlapping portions burn cigarette holes into the story." Damn. That's so good.
Mid-daft—my smart phone named it: daft. Hah! Too overwhelmed with life I am mid-daft, not mid-daft!