I think of myself as a fast writer. I also think of myself as Roger Federer.

The novel I’m currently writing, working title To Walk Humbly, is about one-third finished — 135 pages and 28,887 words since I first put word to paper (pardon me, screen) on March 25. So let’s see, that’s 28887 words/167 days = 172.97604 words per day. I mean, yuck.

I can write fast, mind you. When I’m cookin’, I can write fiction as fast as I can type. The problem is what to write.

You’ve seen the cartoons: Frustrated writer sits at typewriter next to wastebasket piled high with crumpled pieces of blank paper. Add your own caption. I’ve seen the same cartoons and, foolish me, I thought that was how it’s done. Obviously it’s not or they wouldn’t be drawing cartoons about it. (Well, maybe it is if you’re Joyce Carol Oates, but not if you’re Frank Joseph.)

I spent three months doing historical research before I even started writing the current novel, in a quest to prime the pump. That certainly was useful and necessary, but when the day came that I thought the pump was primed, nothing trickled out. I started to get anxious.

Then I had a brainstorm. I’d brainstorm! Linda Morefield, a member of my writing group, graciously agreed to participate and one fine day we sat on her screened porch and talked my story out. Linda played sounding-board while I did most of the talking. That was OK, that was fine, that was actually great, because after about 90 minutes I was on fire. I went home and started writing this novel.

It petered out quickly. I started feeling like the guy in the cartoon again.

Frustrated, I started writing in longhand on a yellow pad … and that, folks, was the breakthrough.

See, the stuff I want to write about is floating around in my mind but it’s incoherent. Writing it down stream-of-consciousness-style does not cause it to cohere. What it does, I think, is summon into existence a virtual brainstorming partner — a Virtual Linda if you will.

I have filled a yellow pad with this narrative. It is truly a narrative — messy and disorganized, just like my mind. There are no plot trees or character charts or lists or any of that organized stuff writers are advised to do — just whatever happens to be bubbling in there when I do this exercise.

For what it’s worth, I do this writing using a treasured fountain pen my son Sam gave me as a birthday gift when he was about 11. And green ink. I am not superstitious by nature, but Dumbo is my favorite movie.

Does it work? Yes, for me, and sometimes very quickly indeed. Yesterday afternoon I wrote in longhand on the yellow pad for no more than 20 minutes, then turned to the computer and cranked out some 1,200 words of fiction in about two hours.

So try it, you writers out there. If it works for you too, I’ll put the word out. If you have your own trick for getting the words to flow, let me know and I’ll put out that word too.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. I need to interview people who went to Hyde Park High School in Chicago in the mid ’50s. If you did, or know someone who did, please contact me at 301-656-8753/frank@tolovemercy.com.