Pouring from a thimble

I'm a slow writer. Some days I'm so slow that in two hours I might produce 50 words. It's not always like that, of course. I might never finish a novel at that pace.

But even at my fastest, I tend to plod slowly along. I think of my most typical approach as being akin to pouring from a thimble, because often all I have in me when I sit down to write is a tiny drop of a thought or idea. I fire up the word processor and tip the thimble over, and then take a look at what dribbled out.

For the most part, I write from beginning to end, but at any given moment, my thimbleful might spill out at the leading edge of the writing, at a later point in the current scene, or somewhere else in the story entirely.

If it's too far from my current insertion point, I'll probably go right back to where I was working before. If it's close, I'll often try to find another thimble with something that may help connect the leading edge of the writing to the outlying spill.

A thimbleful might be as small as this:

    I didn't like the sound of that.

It doesn't look like much, but a statement that thin might be all I have when I sit down to write. After I pour it out, I might stare at it for ten minutes before I add something. Or I might pour out another thimble before or after and then try to build the connection between them.

As I work, I may end up with lots of thimblefuls splashed around until suddenly I realize the scene is pretty much done. At that point I go through and massage the suture points. Then I go look at the next scene or chapter and start pouring thimbles again.

Often, once I am fairly deep in a story, a thimbleful will turn out to have ripple effects. Something really small will require attention to scenes already complete. Probably not that unusual for many writers. You're working along and you get a new idea and you need to integrate it throughout the story. Some writers may make a note in a Tasks list:

    In draft two, remember that Edwina is actually Trenton's illegitimate daughter.

They make the note, and then forge ahead. Me? Not so much. When a thimble suggests a ripple, I take care of it while I'm thinking of it. I go back and touch every scene that's affected by the ripple. That actually contributes to the sense that I write slowly. I sit down, pour out my thimble, and the next thing I know two hours have pass and ten chapters have seen tiny incremental changes, but my current leading edge has grown by twelve words. Overall, I suppose I've probably produced several hundred new words, maybe more. But my sensation of forward progress is negligible.

I've tried to use a different approach. I've tried to sit down and just write, pour not from a thimble but from a jug. I've tried to hold off on the integrating the ripples. But it just doesn't work for me. I'll get rolling, write a few sentences in sequence, and then suddenly a thimbleful from somewhere else in the story will bubble into my head and I have to pour it out, no matter where it fits in. Then one thing leads to another and my best intentions are washed away. Usually drop by drop.

The one place where Pouring From the Thimble doesn't normally happen with me is when I'm writing dialog. But I'll save that for a future entry, Dialog Gushers.

I know in Sandra's interview over at Julia Buckley's joint, she mentions producing a draft of a novel in about six weeks. Oh my, I wish. We seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. So tell me, where do you land?

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Today at The Killer Year Blog, "More Like Me Than I Want To Admit."