The Proclaimer's song, I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles), gets me bouncing in the car seat every time I hear it on the car radio. I sing aloud loudly (and off-key). If you're unfortunate enough to never have heard it, I've included it at the end.
The number 500 hit me hard as I floundered for a way to get out of my rut. A friend asked me the other night, "What's going on with your new book?" I was lucky enough to get Greenwood Gone: Henry's Story published last spring, and am halfway through writing the first draft of a screenplay version, but before that--about five years ago--I started another manuscript. It began as a story about a young man (a student of mine) who was a guitarist and ends up channeling Emmett Till. When I got some criticism because my published book was not #OwnVoices, I switched the main character to a young female teen (I used to be one of those, a century or two ago) who suffered from depression (I did and do) who was a cutter (I never was). I've got 26,000 words down, but it's been gathering dust for a few months.
So when my friend asked, "What's going on with your new book?" I channeled Edwin Starr and his song War when I replied.
"Absolutely nuthin'."
Since I'm obviously in some muddy rut, I looked up some articles about how to get out of one... how to jumpstart my writing again. There were the usual ideas like schedule a writing time every day (I can't do that; my day is always different and I have some sometimes-daily deadlines looming over me), change the viewpoint of the protagonist (did it) or give myself a reward when I make some goals (I already do that, rewarding my sluggish ways. I'll be big as a barn if I up the number of rewards). Then I hit on one that I think could work.
Commit to writing a number of words every day.
Which is where the number 500 came in. This is a goal that I think I can keep up, at least most days, because I can squeeze it in in the morning before I go to work, if I'm not already writing some quiz or worksheet at a furious pace to use that day with my students, or I could work on it before going to bed. Initially, I thought of NaNoWriMo numbers, 1,600 + words a day, but that's unrealistic (for me). 500 words is not even a front and back page.
And then I returned to a book event I went to this past week. It was cold, but we huddled around a fire pit in a friend's backyard, discussing The Once and Future Witches. Five of us--all women--shared our opinions, our favorite lines, and then we got onto the subject of female power. One writer-reader friend asked each of us, "What witching powers were passed down to you?" When it got to me, the first thing I said was this:
"I was the middle daughter of a woman who gave up two daughters. She gave my older sister (Nancy) up for adoption, and Nancy ended up with a mother who was ashamed she had to adopt. I got parents who told me I was chosen, and made me think they looked at hundreds and hundreds of babies before they picked me. Part of my 'witching powers' was the power that comes from being incredibly wanted."
This morning, I went directly back to the idea of #OwnVoices... and I restarted my dust-covered story. Only this time, the protagonist is a teen who's grappling with their unknown biological past--along with depression.
26,851 words in my old draft. 141 in my new draft... and as James Brown sang, "I feel good."
Sioux Roslawski is a middle school teacher, a dog rescuer and a novelist. Her first and only book baby (right now) is Greenwood Gone: Henry's Story, which can be ordered via Barnes and Noble or Amazon. Sioux's blot is Sioux's Page.
