Dear Diary

This time last week I was headed to the airport for a weekend in Los Angeles to attend author James Scott Bell's "Novel & Screenplay Intensive" workshop. I was ready. Up to that point I had been making slow progress on my re-writes for my civil war novel. All last year I had worked with my editor Paul in honing an outline for the book that took into account plot, subplot, character development, suspense and credibility. When we had looked at every possible angle for creating a story with all these elements skillfully aligned, we cut the cord between us and this aspiring author was then sent to go it alone and begin re-writing and implementing all the new and exciting changes I had created with Paul leading me through the finer points of classic storytelling. Of course, I thought I would fly through theses changes and be done within a couple of months with a brilliant completed novel ready to sell to the highest bidder. Let's put it this way, my enthusiasm for life is such that I am a horrible judge of time. How's that for a positive spin?

As anyone who has ever written a novel will tell you, after so many months of nailing down in outline who your characters are, why they do what they do and what lies in store for them, you naturally have to spend some serious time in contemplation watching the movie of them in your head. It was crucial for me to sit and think about everything I had developed and what it looked like in my mind's eye so that I would later me able to put pen to paper. If I didn't spend time under the thinking tree how would I know what to write? Here's the catch, all of a sudden I was napping under that tree and not spending very much time "with butt in chair" actually working.

I had begun to procrastinate and then allowed everything in my life to over run my time, leaving me with no energy left to write. I lost my balance. Now mind you, I was completely aware that I was doing this, I could see a small snowball in my head rolling down hill, picking up speed, growing in size, consuming everything in it's path. Occasionally, I would stop it's forward motion and jot down a few notes that I would not trust my mind to commit to memory, just to slow down the inevitable crash. But I was not giving my passion enough attention or importance, and soon I began to mentally punish myself for my laziness and lack of service to the priority that is my novel. I became mad that I was not Bradly Cooper's character in "Limitless" who could sit down and finish a best selling novel in a weekend, never mind he was on drugs (I never should have seen that movie). What ever my personal insult, I started to contrive a story that this lack of progress was just a part of another past failure that was going to dictate the future of my book because their was no way I was going to have the strength to break the vicious cycle and show the world what I had to offer!

Now after a weekend in LA focused soley on my passion, I am in a completely different space and I am seeing how truly unkind I can be to myself. If a dear friend came to me with the same angst I have just described for their own work and progress and a desire to be DONE yesterday, I would tell them how completely unreasonable they are being and that anything worth doing is worth doing right. Adding that where ever they are in their process is exactly where they are supposed to be. So this is how I test my rationale. Am I taking my own advice? If the answer is no..which up until recently has indeed been the case then I stop and admit that this speed bump in the road is where I have some work to do.

James Scott Bell's workshop last weekend was a brilliant new jumping off point for me. He is a divinely talented teacher and creative doctor. I am humbled beyond belief that I have found so many amazing writers along this literary path to show me the way and share their experiences, helping me bring my first commercial novel to fruition. I have read Bell's books on writing, and attended a webinar on his plot and structure theories but what has impressed me the most about him as a teacher is his ego; he doesn't have one. He is truly a servant to writers of the written word and the art of bringing those words to life on the page or screen and how we can best survive the roller coaster journey without beating ourselves up for what we think we don't know.

We can always improve and as a testament to that we had at least two prolific authors in our midst taking notes along with us and contributing to the conversation of growth throughout the weekend. Their humble presence reminded me that we never stop learning or wanting to improve and it is entirely up to us whether or not we let our past dictate our future.

Sitting in this workshop I realized I am much further along than I thought and not only am I close to being done but I am nailing my structure and character development! Where I have faltered? I can fix it! I have all the tools I need and in the end, time is truly relative. My only deadlines are self imposed and most of the time judgemental and unreasonable and do not serve my faith that God has big plans for me.

One of the best pieces of advice that I gleaned from Mr. Bell's workshop was a bit he passed on about keeping a novel journal. He suggested as he had learned from another successful author, that in keeping a diary of your novel's journey you can vent on paper all your built up angst,  nervous energy, emotional baggage as well as side bar conversations with your characters and ways to attack problems in your story. Doing this each day before beginning your novel writing clears your mind and sharpens your creativity to begin the real work on your art. Interesting, a novel journal is kind of like a blog isn't it?

Thank you Mr. Bell and welcome to my novel journey-I mean journal!

-JC Beichner

"Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow" - Mary Anne Radmacher