What inspired my writing this month: May

Things I’ve been reading, viewing, and eating

I love a good recap, so here is mine. May was a month of getting back into my novel after several weeks off. It’s been rocky, to say the least. But I have made some progress, even though small. I needed a lot of inspiration, as I always do, so I thought I’d start tracking what had me thinking about writing or pushed me toward the keyboard.

Jen Beagin

I was strolling through the fiction stacks at my library as one does to relieve stress and find comfort in being surrounded by books. When I don’t have a specific title in mind, I like to walk up and down the aisles, waiting for something to jump out at me. This time it was the pink spine of Vacuum in the Dark by Jen Beagin. All three of her books were available, and when I realized Pretend I’m Dead was her debut novel, and the sequel of sorts of Vacuum, I checked them all out, along with her all-over Instagram title, Big Swiss.

I fell in love with Pretend I’m Dead’s protagonist, Mona, a house cleaner who moved to New Mexico when she needed a fresh start away from her boyfriend. Mona is chaotic, nosey, confused, and very messy- everything I love in a first person narrator. I loved Beagin’s ability to mix humor into dark subject matters (it’s my favorite type of genre, if it even is a genre.)

She reminded me that I can really go there in fiction. That when I’m stuck in my novel, maybe I need to let loose and make something wacky happen, push each character to their absolute wild limits. It reminded me that writng is fun and I can have all the fun I want.

Yellowjackets

Here is the thing about me- I’m a sucker for an all female cast, never mind a group of girls from the 90’s. I’ve been a huge fan of this show since day one and I love reading Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya’s insightful and fun recaps over on  Autostraddle, after each watch. The acting, the MUSIC, Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis- it’s all just so good.

I learned a lot about storytelling this season, especially because I think some of the episodes were flawed.  But that’s how we learn, right? By trying to understand what they could have done better. For example, don’t make half an episode a dream sequence, please. Good TV and movies are huge inspirations to my writing process, and this female ensemble gave me some ideas that I want to weave into my mostly female cast too.

my girls

The Girls by Emma Cline

Emma can WRITE. I read this book when it first came out in 2018, but lately, I’ve been considering anything I have read post-novel writing to be worth a revisit. I read a lot differently back then. I’m absorbing books like a sponge now, hoping to soak up techniques and tips, and inspiration with every turn of the page.

Emma Cline’s writing had me seeing the world of my story much more articulately. I had some good writing sessions after reading her. I wrote a lot of notes about my main character’s girlhood and adolescence, as Cline captures being young so perfectly in The Girls.

Half the damn book has little tabs sticking out of pages. I couldn’t stick them fast enough. Some are more specific to my novel, little tidbits I want to include in my own story, or inspirations I like to use as prompts for upcoming writing sessions. But some are just damn good lines, like these:

“But even the surprise of harmless others in the house disturbed me. I didn’t want my inner rot on display, even accidentally. Living alone was frightening in that way. No one to police the spill of yourself, the ways you betrayed your primitive desires. Like a cocoon built around you, made of your own naked proclivities and never tided into the patterns of actual human life.”

“I unwrapped two cloudy sticks from their silver jackets. Feeling something adjacent to love, next to Tamar, thighs scudding on the vinyl seat. Girls are the only ones who can really give each other close attention, the kind we equate with being loved. They noticed what we want noticed.”

“I wanted him to know how she’d been laughing at him earlier, to know the exact degree of pity I had for him. How impotent my anger was, a surge with no place to land, and how familiar that was: my feelings strangled inside me, like little half-formed children, bitter and bristling.”

Stephanie Danler’s newsletter

Stephanie is a brilliant writer and teacher, so I was so excited when she launched her newsletter, Write What, to which I am a paid subscriber. In her latest post, “The Middle Third: Beats,” Stephanie discusses her experience using beats and beat note cards when she was writing the screenplay for her novel, Sweetbitter. Since I’m writing a service industry novel, Sweetbitter has been like my little bible, sitting next to my desk with bookmarks and stick tabs. I knew about beats, and my writing partner swears by sticking notecards on the wall in front of her desk, but I had yet to try it. Stephanie’s post came at the right time, a few days before I was about to open my novel draft for the first time in over a month. I had a vague outline for the next few things I knew were going to happen in a notebook. I stared at it from time to time when I was missing my book, when I knew I didn’t have time to write but wanted to feel some connection to my story. But Stephanie’s examples of her own notecards just all of sudden made sense to me. I wanted to try it out for myself.

Last week, I had a day off (Me and the Write or Die/Chill Subs crew have decided to make it a 4 day work week- go hard for four days and then have a day where we can fully step away and breathe. My new day off is Thursday and I’m aiming to get the bulk of my writing week done on this day!) Anyway, I took my outline and my black Sharpie and did what Stephanie did. I wrote big bullet points on the blank side of the notecard and smaller beats or details on the lined side. I basically mapped out all of the Fun and Games beat (if you know Save the Cat) through Midpoint and into Bad Guys Close In.

I found it very satisfying to tape them to my wall. In this third revision, I’m finally getting a sense of where the story is going as far as plot, and these notecards are giving me confidence that, even when I can’t write every day, I’m still keeping the story in my head and next to me at all times.

Cookies

I think I should just say “emotional support cookies.” My town just opened a Crumble Cookie and their cookies are unreal. They change their flavors weakly and don’t use any palm oil!! After a long day of work or writing, I just want a delicious cookie. It’s that little treat that keeps me motivated. I shop there way too much. No, seriously, I can’t make this a weekly thing.

oops