How to show your work when writing a novel

I am a tactile person. I have addressed this before, that I am a sensation junkie. I like the feel of something – both in physicality and in vibes. I like the feel of the keys of my laptop when I am typing. I like the sensation of a pen dragging against a piece of paper. I like the bubbles in my sparkling water. Touch is important for me. 

Often when I come across writing advice, it almost always comes back to the sensory. Writers are talking about the sights, the tastes, the smells, the atmosphere, and the touch. However, sometimes we deny ourselves the sensation of touch when it comes to our writing process and organizing our materials. 

I have been telling my writing students lately that efficiency is overrated. It’s also not nearly as efficient as they’ve been led to believe. I’ve watched them try to find an essay they’ve written using the search feature on their computer to only be offered old emails and high school essays they wrote years ago. I’ve listened to them claim all their research was lost because they had all the articles up as tabs on their computer right before it died and they had to start the research over from the beginning. I was never more proud than the day I saw one of my research paper students walk into class with a binder filled with every article they were planning to use in their paper printed out and hole punched. Articles were highlighted and they had multi-colored post-it note tabs. It was a sight of beauty.

It was a physical product of their brainwork. It was real and must have made the process feel hands-on.

I have seen a photo appear on my Pinterest board from the writer Gay Talese where he showed all his idea files. The images were of file folders with different labels written on the tabs in Sharpie. I love it because it shows a veteran reporter, an old-school writer and their organizational process. However, just now when I was writing this, I went to locate it again. I wanted to refresh my memory. I thought I had saved it to a folder, but apparently I let it pass by only having delightful memories of it. And neither Google or Pinterest could help me find it. Maybe it wasn’t actually from Gay Talese, but another notable reporter and writer like Nora Ephron or Jimmy Breslin. Or maybe it was none of them and it was a photo of Austin Kleon’s blackout poetry.

I liked the photo because I remember being a reporter and keeping clips, articles, notes, notecards in those same style folders. I have copies of some of the magazines we published with my name on a byline. I have clips of articles I had written, and at the time I didn’t see any of them as special. I didn’t see anything I wrote as that special because – for one, I wasn’t a great journalist – I did it everyday. The old adage that today’s news is tomorrow’s fish wrap was still something we said in the newsroom. Considering how disposable our hard work was made me feel like my clips were not that important.

However, seeing another person’s clips is like finding pure gold. In my archive now, I have bankers boxes of files left by a former reporter when I took over someone’s old desk. They were a crime beat reporter and had left behind everything. I hauled them all to the house I was renting at the time just to see what treasures I could unearth. One Friday night I stayed up until 2 am reading though all the files. I was up so late that when my BFF drove past my house and saw my light on after a night of hitting the bars, she knocked on my door and scared the life out of me. When I told her what I was reading, she sat down on my couch and grabbed a stack of files as well.

Together, we poured over the paperwork reading reports from police officers, child welfare workers, relatives and neighbors, and printed email correspondence between the reporter and a true crime author looking for a case to write about and offering a thank you in the acknowledgements. 

This is not the same experience as just sharing a link or file with someone. 

I don’t use files like that in my writing space. I prefer binders. When I work on a novel, I will show my work by keeping all my notes in a binder. Primarily so I won’t lose anything. Now I see it as an archive to what I accomplished. I don’t always print everything – all the research and ideas – but I like to hold on to the hand-written notes, the post its, the timelines and outlines, etc. 

I don’t like not being able to find something, which is why I am so organized with my materials. And the beauty of having a tactile copy of something is it is in your possession. Whether you lose it or destroy it is completely within your control, as opposed to technology which has its own whims. 

Lately when my husband goes to the doctor he demands a physical copy of the prescription. The PAs always look at him like he’s a pain in the ass, but he knows they won’t call in/enter the prescription until later in the day when they do everyone else’s and he can get it faster if he has a physical prescription. Also, doctor’s offices are overworked and their technology fails as well. Many times we’ve been waiting for a prescription to have learned it was sent to a pharmacy we haven’t visited in years because even though every visit we offer our current pharmacy, somehow it is not always entered correctly.

Efficiency is overrated.

There is some security in having a printed copy of something. I also think the archive is precious. I was speaking to a group of students about developing a curation for their project. I explained that a curation is a collection that has been carefully cultivated to represent something. Art Galleries have curated a collection of art. I told them that they all have a curation of the archive of their life in their pocket. Their photos. Even a photo taken of a parking space is a record of their location that day – something as ordinary as going to the doctor or something as special as attending an NBA game. 

The ordinary is wonderful subject matter because it will be there to reminds someone of what their life was like at a certain time of their life: these glimmers of what their life was before. 

So I embrace the tactile. My physical planner. My many notebooks. My binders. My idea notebooks. My paperbacks lining my shelves. My beautiful, beautiful post-its.

XOXO,

B.

The image above is from my writers notebook when I was writing Pretty Girls Get Away With Murder. Now it's available for purchase at multiple book outlets, but also, on the brandibradley.com store!

Print copies ordered through the website will be signed before it is shipped!

Pretty Girls Get Away With Murder

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