My Experience Writing for My First Vocal Challenge

This whole Moleskine Little Black Book Challenge has been such a trip! As of this writing I have 7 entries accepted, and 2 more pending (including this one), with 2 days left. I would never have believed you a month ago if you'd told me I'd have 9 entries into this challenge!

Never had I ever finished writing a fiction story before, despite having started many over the years. My first entry, "Up the celery slide" was a slightly fictionalized account of an actual dream I wrote out and posted on Facebook last year. It is fiction, technically, but when I wrote it I didn’t have to create the scenes, I just had to remember them. It’s very stream of consciousness because the words are literally what I wrote when I woke up, with just some light editing and a few details added for texture and to satisfy contest rules.

I didn’t even have to make up the part about the little black notebook in it, because there was already a notepad there in that spot in the story — I just changed it slightly. It was 96.4% actual dream, with just a sprinkling of fiction.

Regretfully, though, I’d read an early advertisement for the challenge and didn’t check the full challenge until after I submitted the story. I didn’t specify that I’d gotten $20,000 in the story, just a pillowcase full of currency — and then I woke up and didn’t have the money, so technically no one ended up receiving it. I was afraid it might not really qualify in the end for the contest, so I set out to write another story that definitely did.

This time, because I was actually trying to write fiction, something past-me knew I couldn't do, I felt the full weight of my 1998 Rutgers Creative Writing Class blockages come up. But I remembered what Elizabeth Gilbert said about fear, and told my fear it was welcome to sit next to me and watch me write, but it wasn't going to block my fingers from typing what wanted to be typed.

And, to my amazement, I watched myself open a new document and write the first line "Adam moves silently through the aisles of the bookshop, avoiding the squeaky floor plank next to the stairs." I remember blinking at it for a few minutes, wondering how on earth it had gotten there. *I* hadn't written it, but I obviously had! Who was Adam? Where was this bookshop? Why was it a "bookshop" and not a "bookstore", and what was the difference? Why was he moving silently through it? And I felt like the only way I was going to find out was to keep writing, so I did! I was shocked to find at the end of the first paragraph there was a ghost greeting my main character! I was worried for him, but he handled it well. And I don't like scary stories, so she's a benevolent ghost.

I think ghost Agatha is actually Adam's great-grandmother, Adam's father's grandmother, but you don't find that out in any of the stories. As much as I wanted to tie her back into the rest of the stories in the collection, it hasn't happened yet, and now I'm down to 40 hours left for the challenge.

I had been reading "Bookshop After Hours" to a friend, trying to see what worked and what didn't, and she said, "Well I don't know how ghosts communicate, but — " and I was like, neither do I! I realized the fantasy genre probably isn't for me, as much as I am drawn to reading it.

Of course, the next story I write has an orca that comes to Adam's Uncle Tom in a vision. I don't know how orcas communicate with humans either, or what their grammar would be like if they were to speak English, but I gave it a shot.

The truth is that "The Legend of Elsie" was a story that came to me months ago, before it got cold out. I was a poet-in-residence at the time, staying in an Airstream on a property full of "scope for the imagination". I called Elsie a "probably fictitious orca" and it was my first actual attempt at writing fiction in more than 20 years. I sort of finished it, but had no idea what to do with it — it was incredibly dark and weirdly philosophical, and I couldn't imagine a market for it. So, fast-forward, I edited a lot out of it, and gave it to Adam's Uncle Tom for my 2nd intentionally written fiction story, and 4th challenge entry (there's one about my first 30 days on Vocal in between).

And I had another story planned for the third one where Adam and Tom come back together and talk about everything, but I pulled my back out again and it didn't get written.

Laying in bed in those dark days, with a pillow between my knees, I started writing "Bea Weaves a Healing Dream" on my phone. Eventually I was able to get out of bed and made myself the standing "desk" pictured in the story (the same one I'm currently using to type this) and got it finished. It's a story about an actual conversation I was having with my friend Nick, talking about the kind of healing retreat I need in real life. I think I did a good job with it, and I hope people that can help fund healing sanctuaries read it. You can check out this podcast where I talk about it, too.

I've never gone by the nickname "Bea" but I find it suits me, and once we get to go out into the world and meet people naked-faced again, I may start introducing myself as Bea!

And, yes, I did actually buy little black Moleskine notebooks to stage the cover for this entry. And that pen on the cover is for an actual business, too — it belongs to my ex-husband. Call him for all your blade sharpening needs!

So for my 3rd intentionally written fiction story, and 6th challenge entry, I sat down to write another story with Adam as the main character. I tried to have him make big changes in the world in a magic notebook, but the last place we saw him was drunk in Bookshop After Hours, and every time I'd go to write the next lines he was just laying there wrapped in blankets like a human burrito. I wrote that story, and took it apart, and couldn't make any headway with it. I'd gone days without finishing anything and I was getting discouraged. So I wrote a poem about what it was like to be stuck with a character that wouldn't show up for me, just to get things moving again.

And it worked! As soon as I realized I was trying to make Adam say and do things that weren't authentically him, the story shifted again, and I was finally able to finish it.

Adam and Tom get some more character development, and I pulled my real life friend Camilo into the story (and I did actually give him one of the notebooks). The magic notebook is still in the story, but instead of Adam writing in it directly, which wasn't working, we have given it to Camilo, and then Adam reflects on how it didn't really work for him to be writing it, which was an authentic thing for him to say about it. I love how Adam is flawed, and self-medicating, but is working to be a good human, and I wish he was real because I want to give him a hug.

And then, I thought I was finished! Other challenges had been announced, and I felt like I was done writing fiction for a while. The story wasn't done being told, though, because I immediately started writing again! The next story, called "Adam Tries to Help" starts off with Adam calling Camilo on the phone, because he knows Camilo in (Adam's fictional) real life.

This story was my first blending of fiction and real life. The story features photos sent to me by my friend Camilo of natural building projects he's done. There's also a heavy dose of social commentary, because that's how I roll!

And pretty much as soon as I hit submit on "Adam Tries to Help", I started writing "Adam Helps, and Heals". This one is set 4 months after Adam wins $20,000 in the writing challenge. And he's 136 days sober! I'm 800 words in, and I keep switching tabs between writing that, and this, every time I don't know what happens next. And I'm getting stuck for the same reasons that I got stuck before! I keep trying to make Adam do and say things that just aren't authentic for him. There are 37 hours left in this challenge, and if I hadn't already spent so much time on it, I might just give up. I'm determined to get it done, though, so I'm going to get back to working on it.

1809 words in, 31 hours left, and I have no idea how the story finishes. Oy. I'm still trying to make Adam more enlightened than he is, and now I'm working out my old relationship stuff between my characters, too. No idea how "Adam Helps", either, other than he donates the $20,000 he wins for the Moleskine Little Black Book Challenge to this healing sanctuary that Bea Dreams.

My desire to make characters say and do things according to my agenda, but wanting it to feel authentic make writing fiction hard. I'm going to have to put it away for tonight, it's just not working.

So here, I leave you with a cliffhanger, dear reader! You'll have to look at my main profile and see what shows up after this story.

I'm going to go ahead and submit this now, and call it a night. It's time for a mental cracker so I can come back and read this with fresh eyes tomorrow.

I may re-watch another episode of Bridgerton. Oh! Probably the reason there's a big relationship mess in my story is that I've been watching shows like this! Maybe I'll watch a natural building documentary, instead.

But, oh — hey, if you like Bridgerton, check out Dawson's Creek! Dawson is full of relationship over-thinkers and nosey relationship ruiners! Big helpings of angst over young love while exploring what we think society expects of us. Be careful, though, I'm still trying to fix my brain from binge watching it 3 times in this lifetime.

(Just thought I'd sneak an entry in for my second Vocal challenge!)