Wabi Sabi: My Process

When I began Wabi Sabi, I had just finished participating in the November NaNoWriMo. I loved the creative challenge, of course. The story I had written in November I wrote very quickly. After all, the NaNoWriMo program goes on for 30 days, the month of November. I've written first drafts of novels very quickly in the past, but not that fast. The NaNoWriMo novel I wrote in 13 days. So when I decided to write Wabi Sabi I knew I wanted more time than 13 days, but that I wanted to do it in less that 3 months.

My prep for the project wasn't very much. I wanted to write I-80 from Salt Lake to Reno and that's not much more than about 520 miles. I picked up a map. I looked at a few of my old journals. I wrote down all that I remembered from my trips.

I also thought about what my characters would be like. I had only two characters. I wanted them to be both resourceful and resilient, but in different ways.

And I knew that since they were both strangers at the onset of the story, the road as well as life would have to make them grow together very, very quickly.

When I began writing I did not know these characters anymore than they knew each other. All I knew was the road. And the road was what changed them. I just said a great deal and said nothing at the same time, do you notice that?

I think there are times to plan a novel or a story and stick to the plan. Then there are times to just let the story go where it will go and as a writer, you just have to record it. This story, my Wabi Sabi knew where it was going to go from where it began: Reno from Salt Lake City.

I wrote this story long handed. I wrote with my fountain pen in my composition notebook and then did a second draft into the word processor. It took about 13 weeks.