Fans Ask, The Blizzard Answers
A reader asked: How do you write three books at the same time and keep it all straight in your head?
Are you kidding? This is why I’m a blithering idiot, why I trip over things, walk into walls, hold conversations on three different topics simultaneously, and run red lights. Most of the time, when I am working on a novel, I exist upstairs in my head twenty-four/seven. This is not necessarily a good state to be in. It makes one miss out on a lot in life. For example, the sun sinking into the horizon and turning the sky into a beautiful painting, the bonding and revealing conversation you could have had with your best friend, the opportunity to have a romantic dinner with your spouse, and the dog rolling in raccoon poop. Okay, well, that latter part might be okay to miss. Writing is much harder than we make it appear. Writing is a full bore, total commitment. Once I begin a novel, my friends and family can expect me to become the worst hermit on the planet. I might come out once in a great, great while, but my immediate goal is to finish the damn novel as fast as possible because there is usually another idea looming right behind it, or maybe a dozen ideas chasing me into insomnia. I always think if I hurry up and finish the book I’m working on, I will get a reprieve and actually be able to hang loose and enjoy life for awhile. This never seems to happen for me.
I’m currently working on five books at the same time. Fortunately, these are all non-fiction. I could never write three, or five, fiction books at the same time without screwing all of them up. I’m good, but I’m not that good. My brother once said, “My sister is the only person I’ve ever known who can watch television, listen to the radio, read a book, and have a conversation at the same time, and know exactly what is going on with each venue without missing a beat.” This is not a blessing. This is a curse. It makes me feel over-driven, like an over-achieving dork, or something. And it is exhausting.
Writing a novel in general is exhausting. Holding all those characters, plot points, themes, conversations, and ideas in your head all the way to the end is tiring. I take copious notes. I’m always taking notes. In the car, which is why Rabbit usually does the driving, while I’m cooking, while I’m cleaning, in the shower. I’m always scribbling notes. These notes are usually disjointed bits of information that I scribble out in partial pieces because if I write it all out in the complete thought I had, I might as well just go write the damn book. This would mean that I would be writing for about twelve hours a day, and then some. Trouble with these notes is, if I am taking notes on multiple books, and it takes me a year to get to one of these books, the notes are so disjointed by that time that I don’t know what the hell it means. And…there is the growing problem of being able to read my own writing, which is getting more and more horrendous with each passing year. This isn’t due to the aging process. (I’m not that old…yet.) Rather, it’s due to the fact that I am trying to write faster than my brain can think, which is scientifically impossible. Still, I try. I sometimes have to ask my husband what the odd scrawled symbol amongst my notes mean, to which he usually replies, “How am I supposed to know?” Or, “It looks like a big circle with a jagged line hanging off one end. Is that supposed to be a letter? In our alphabet?”
Lotta help he is.
Now, some of my C. D. Blizzard fans know that I write under multiple pseudonyms. More’s the pity. For years, I tried desperately to hide the fact that I was a genre-jumper. According to publishers, being a genre-jumper is the kiss of death and will cause fans to go into rages and be disappointed. I haven’t found this to be so among the fans of mine who do know I am a closet genre-jumper. So, when you read that I have written all these multitudes of novels, don’t expect to find them all under my maiden name of C. D. Blizzard. Also, my C. D. Blizzard fans are shocked and amazed to read my blog and discover that I have a wicked, if not offbeat, goofy, cheesy, and downright stupid sense of humor. Do not be fooled by my life lessons and humorous blogs. C. D. Blizzard writes some very punch-you-in-the-gut fiction. There is nothing mamby pamby about a C. D. Blizzard novel at all. My C. D. Blizzard aspect only tackles the serious, the tough, the gutsy, the topics most publishers cringe at and most other writers won’t touch simply because most other writers are trying to get published. You see, the publishing industry, for the most part, has nothing to do with having a voice, a message, or needing to say something. Publishing is not about changing the world, for the better. Publishing is about money…how much can a publisher make off you? If your book does not fit into their paradigm of what is hot, readable, acceptable, and “safe”, a publisher won’t touch it with a ten-foot barge pole. Unfortunately, I have not ever been able to squeeze myself into that tight little box the publishers want to shove most writers into. Instead, I write what’s foremost in my head, and if it has a serious punch, so be it. Sometimes the world needs a shake-up, wake-up call.
So, back to the question of how do I write more than one book at the same time and keep it all straight in my head? I just do the best I can.
C. D. Blizzard is the author of the novels Blackwater, Broken, and Profile.
