The Plunk and Play Method

My youngest daughter is a piano player. Oh, she's not the willing sort. In fact, many times she's wanted to quit. (And, in fact, for a year she did.) But whereas when my other three children quit, they never returned to even look at the keyboard, my youngest was always drawn back to the piano. When she was angry or sad, plunking on the ivories revived her spirit. So, just recently the whole family begged her to start lessons again.
The funny thing--and I watch it every week--is she will moan and groan about the new piece her teacher has given her. When she does finally sit down, she'll spend many agonizing hours figuring out the different parts of the song. After a couple of days, though, she'll be whizzing through that song, playing it as if the notes were an extension of her soul.
Until the next lesson. Then the process begins again.
I was reminded of this process on Sunday night as she played the latest Russian waltz. I hate Sundays (It means the end of playtime.) But this past Sunday was even worse, because I was at a juncture in my story in which I didn't know what to do next.
Monday I got up thinking of my daughter struggling with her new piece and how she eventually figures it out. I sat down at my computer. But instead of opening the story and beginning at the beginning of the chapter --my normal routine-- I wrote down whatever was inside my head. Some thoughts were for the beginning of the chapter, some dialogue was for the end, and some stuff didn't even go until the end of the story. It felt strange--a lot of plunking here and there. But, Tuesday, when I went back to make sense of all the parts I'd plunked down, I was whizzing away. Whereas I normally need all the time the kids are at school to reach my daily writing goal--this week, with this new process--I zoomed through the material. My soul was singing. I actually got up and did a little dance.
Okay, to be honest, this wasn't an entirely new process. I've taken workshops on letting your conscious flow through your fingers, writing whatever comes to you. But that always seemed a little New Agey for me. Besides, if I wrote whatever came to mind, there would be so many random thoughts involved-- we need more dogfood, Book Club Expo is right around the corner, I loved John Nathan's book on Japan --that I'd never get to my story.
I tried a modified version of this stream of consciousness writing with My Half of the Sky. But again I was almost afraid of it--more prone to sticking to some school lesson I must have been taught and which was now a part of my genetic make-up: begin at the beginning. But this past week, after whizzing through my writing --and even having enough time to go buy dogfood before school got out-- I've now been converted to the Plunk and Play method.

**Congratulations to my dear friend, Becky Levine. She just landed a contract with Writers Digest to do a book on the value of critique groups. It's due out end of next year. Yeah.

**The 20th Annual San Francisco Authors Luncheon (http://www.kidneynca.org/) is October 11th from 10am. Yours truly will be helping out with this function which benefits the National Kidney Foundation. This year's featured authors are Tobias Wolff, Nancy Snyderman M.D., Curtis Sittenfeld, Jacques Pepin, Diane Johnson, and Andre Dubus III. It should be a great luncheon. Come say hello.