I wrote children's books for twelve years; producing thirty two books , writing daily, winning awards, and collecting some wonderful rejection letters before general frustration and several devastating events stilled my fiction voice. I couldn't stop writing entirely, so I found comfort and publication reviewing children's books and began to teach writing to children.
For a long time fiction writing stopped making sense. Another twelve years of time investment without publication? How could I crowd it into a life filled to overflowing with deadlines? Did I want to be subjected to the cruelties of this marketplace again? Still, I yearned for fiction and dabbled when I couldn't help myself. Unable to give up completely, I picked at one novel for nearly a decade. The time between writing sessions was so long, I finally had to write character summaries to keep the cast clear. It takes consistent writing time to achieve the amazement that occurs when a story knits together elements of your life, the magic of serendipity when a plot puzzles you to distraction and then miraculously needed pieces come to you without effort; and the way you live life on another level when characters and story invade your mind. I knew I needed to dedicate time to fiction.
In early August when the craving was strong and I had more time, I heard VOICES' Second Annual 24 Hour Novel Writing Contest would take place on Saturday, September 12. Twenty-four hours of non-stop writing had to be the way to bring writing back into my life!
When September started, so did my discomfort, discounting and doubts. Saturday should be a family day. I felt too old to stay up for twenty-four hours straight, much less write. And worst of all...what would I write about? About a week before the contest, I was frantic about what I would write and I became snappish and nervous. Fortunately, I spoke with two friends who'd attended the year before who'd both been scared to death and also thought it was a life-changing experience. One of these friends, Luli Gray, the 1997 contest winner, told me how she'd entered, last year, in the midst of a depression about her writing and used the challenge as a proving grounds to discover she really was a writer. That conversation and reading her book, before breakfast, gave me comfort, inspiration, and awe at her accomplishment.
Saturday at 5:50 am, the three of us threw creature comforts (sparkling water, pillows, blankets, nibble food, favorite pens and pencils) into the car and drove through a dark foggy Chapel Hill arriving at Quail Ridge Books, our chosen site, by seven. What better place to be locked up and create than a bookstore that for years has nurtured readers, writers, and a literary ambiance? Nancy Olsen, the owner, turned on the lights and then ran out for doughnuts. Richard Kraweic, the director of Voices and our host, plugged in coffee.
We had a quick vote allowing one member of our crew, CJ Walters to write on a provided powerbook. She had Lupus and without the technical assistance, her participation would have been impossible. Many of us envied her, but the spiral notebooks created, as Kraweic says, "a level playing field."
Later I was glad to get to know Walters. Once a photojournalist who wrote "propaganda" for the marine corp, she is now writing grants for the benefit of battered women and has been fueled watching these victim gain rights, recourse, and power. Her focus was her own experiences as an abuse survivor, a subject she'd been haunted by, but never had the courage to even journal about. On the night before the contest she decided, "even though I knew it would be ugly as hell, I had to write it. I don't know who will read this, but who reads it is less important than my writing it." She looked at the night as "getting her arms around" her fragmented experiences and finding parts of herself in her manuscript.
Policy set, the thirteen writers, scouted for the perfect place to sit. A red Victorian velvet couch was appealing, so was sitting at the children's book desk, or an out of the way magazine niche. The few tables weren't appealing as they drew more than one writer. Eventually I cozied up on the red couch I'd first spotted.
The store opened at nine and I quickly realized the payment for the comfort of my couch was its location near the front register. That wasn't the worst problem, my writing was horrible. I'd begun writing up memories about the frustrations of my early sexuality. I hated what I remembered, my writing was stilted and false, and I was scared the next twenty-two hours would be just as horrible.
By 11:30 and pages of ugly manuscript, I begged my friends for a lunch break. We strolled down to the bright lights and bustle of Well-Spring. The transition was bizarre. In only five hours, I was sticky with sweat and familiar crowded Well-Spring seemed an alien landscape. My sense of time, logic, and the ability to order lunch were all suspended.
The conversation was just what I needed. My friends provided solace, soothing humor, and coaching. "Now's the point where you get giddy," they pointed out and warned, "Later you lose words. Then you begin to drool!"
Richard Kraweic wandered in and I learned more about the organization that was giving me a new lease on writing for a meager twenty-four dollar entry fee. Voices is a six year old non-profit organization which has brought writing and reading to people in prison, recovering drug addicts, the homeless, and a host of others who might otherwise never discover what it feels like to wrap words around life experiences. The 24 Hour Novel Writing Contest was begun to raise attention about literacy and to give writers like me, who are, as Kraweic says, "not fortunate enough to be able to afford The MacDowell Colony" what they need most - time and a place to write.
He explained the details of this year's contest. How a judge had yet to be determined, but both judge and finalists would be announced at the beginning of next year. The finalists will then have a short time to edit so that "the integrity of the 24 hour process is preserved." After an hour's rest, I returned renewed, saw my memory writing as a warm up, and was already thinking about shifting focus to a novella I'd dreamed about with a friend.
4:30 brought another break. This time at Geldot Chocolatier for a revitalizing latte and a couple yummy bites of a blue cheese-bacon puff-pastry quiche. My mood was light and silly from non-stop writing and the fact that my writing had turned fun, my novella was progressing, and I was eager to get back to it.
Around 6:30 there occurred the writing version of a seventh inning stretch inspired partly by treats Kraweic brought in. Writers spoke to each other for the first time and I was wowed by the variety of writing issues, backgrounds, and stories we were telling. Some had writing problems starting, or sagging middles, while others faced existential issues like questioning a once-desired writing career. Some came with a sense of what to write about, others preferred the tabula rasa technique. The range of writings were fascinating; from a series of wild alphabetic essays inspired by sitting in the bookstore's dictionary section to a novel based on Led Zepplin's "The Gallows Pole" a song from Led Zepplin's third album.
At 7 pm, our midway point, people had already left, a few had dozed, and I concluded my novella and began to write and know Wild Kudzu Girl, the heroine of my young adult novel who's eluded me for years. I was so mesmerized by her I broke only for a dull tasting dinner at Tripps, bathroom pit stops and a dash for an 11:30 latte before Geldot's closed. It was spooky to venture out in the dark and returned to the closed store, odder still to feel the night hours blur into each other, and sense dwindle away with the remaining time. Writing in a stupor of fatigue fills you with a sense of power, only slightly undercut by wondering what you've really written.
At 7:00 am Sunday morning, I was one of five or six who had made it through the night at Quail Ridge Books. The coffee was plugged in again, the doughnuts returned to the table, and I passed in my notebook. I was filled with the triumph of completion, a sugar rush from a nasty Krispy Kreme I wouldn't have touched in my right mind, determination to write more frequently, fatigue, and knowing I wanted to return for the 3rd Annual 24 Hour Novel Writing Contest.