strange kind of day to discover

 journal, the wages of honey, writing life  2 Responses »
Feb 012010
 

Right this very second, I'm supposed to be writing.

And my body is doing its damnedest to convince me we're not capable of sitting still1 or (horror of all horrors) dragging words out of the murky recesses of my consciousness and slapping them down in some laughable approximation of narrative order. My eyes are sagging in their sockets, my shoulders are starting to climb up around my ears, and my legs keep attempting mutiny by standing. Get up, my mind is whispering. Give it up. Do something easy. Like watching TV. Or reading — there's that juicy book you're in the middle of, just waiting for you. Or what about scrubbing the bathtub? ANYTHING BUT THIS.

All because I'm not quite sure what happens next in this short story, and apparently DECIDING is too much to ask.

Honestly, some days I think if you just accomplish staying in the chair, you've won an epic battle.2

  1. at the desk — apparently lying still on the couch or the bed, reading, we're definitely capable of :???: [↩]
  2. Although words and/or plot wouldn't go astray right now. Any second now. Whenever you're ready, words, plot. No, really, take your time. [↩]

just keep going, dammit

 away come away, journal, the wages of honey, writing life  6 Responses »
Jul 292009
 

Last Saturday, a friend of mine said he might take a break from the novel for a bit, because he wasn't sure quite where it was going, and he didn't like it very much at the moment. And I told him that meant he was most definitely Not Allowed to put the novel aside for a bit. Put a novel down when you don't like it very much, and you run the very real risk of never picking it up again. And the only way to be quite sure of where the novel is going is to actually write it, and see where it takes you. Plenty of time to assess whether it went in the right direction once you've gotten there.

(For those planning-type writers out there, that last snippet of advice is going to sound heinous and dreadful and like telling small children they should totally just run out into the middle of a busy road without looking first, everything will be fine, and for that matter strangers present no danger whatsoever and while we're at it, in the interests of making sure you fit in at school, have you considered smoking? I can only say I'M SORRY, but I don't plan my stories in advance. In fact, writing them in linear fashion is still kinda new to me, and something I'm struggling with, and if I could come up with a substitute analogy for you pre-planning types I would. Honest.)

Anyrate, the point of all the above is this: I have totally spent the past two weeks avoiding my novel. Because I'm not sure quite where it's going. And I don't like it very much at the moment.

I've had all sorts of reasonable and legitimate excuses. Edits on a short story needed to be done.1 Then when those edits were done, there was no point picking up the novel again because edits on Pledged should be landing on my desk soonish, and if I picked up the novel again I'd only have to put it down again. So I picked up a short story instead, because I don't have any finished short stories to submit and perhaps I could work on that. Only I've just hit a point in the short story wherein I'm not sure quite where it's going, and I don't like it very much at the moment AND ARE YOU SENSING A PATTERN, PEOPLE?

Because I sure as heck am. And, quite frankly, I don't like it very much.

The thing is, the middle of a story is always hell. (I have even heard the pre-planning types opine this, although presumably for different reasons.) This is partly why it's not-very-affectionately known as the muddle, among other names.2 And every single time I attempt a story, without fail, I have to learn this lesson about the muddle anew. Every single time I have to remind myself that it's not okay to put the thing down, the key is to get past this section, however I can. Slog through the words until I find a way out; leave a note "And then something genius happens!" and skip ahead; consume some stimulant of choice and stay up all night; try whatever trick has worked in the past and even a few that haven't, because every story is different, but whatever you do: just. keep. going.

So. Time to figure out a trick that will work for the novel.

  1. Okay, that one actually is quite reasonable and legitimate, but in the interests of full disclosure I'm including it. Because it was the excuse I jumped on to start this whole avoidance caper rolling, after all. [↩]
  2. My novels always earn themselves appellations like THAT EFFING CAR-CRASH OF A NARRATIVE around this time. For full impact it must be delivered through tight lips and with narrowed eyes and followed by the phrase WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT IT ANY MORE. Which is promptly followed by brooding silence and then, just when my friends have tentatively moved on to another subject, interrupting them with an angst-ridden yawp and the desperate plea MAKE IT WORK WHY IS IT BROKEN PUT IT BACK TOGETHER FOR ME! [↩]

everyone needs somewhere to run to

 a crown cast off, shaping lily, the wages of honey, writing life  2 Responses »
Jul 232009
 

I've finished the first round of edits on "Shaping Lily" and sent them winging on their way back to the editor — who will doubtless send them straight back with a "Good work! You fixed exactly a drabble of the stuff that needed fixing…here's the stuff you didn't fix back again so you can have another go at that, and while we're at it here's some more!" Because edits are never done in one pass, and fixing one niggle always makes other jagged bits stand out. Writing is in the re-writing, as someone (actually probably various someones) famous has already opined.

Last night, instead of turning back to the poor oft-abandoned faerie novel as I should have done, I worked on a short story. Poor faerie novel: it has been picked up and put down so often it's surely going to have some serious continuity issues. And probably a good few narrative drive issues into the bargain. (Poor me, who will need to fix them!) All my stories get abandoned at some point, because my brain likes to switch to a different problem when I hit the middle of the story.1

Tonight… tonight I cannot decide what to work on. And I am getting distracted by Apple Dictionary only being in American English. Why is there no Australian English dictionary? Or at least a British English dictionary? I DO NOT SPEAK OR SPELL AMGLISH, APPLE.

  1. The one story which was written without any periods of abandonment, even minor ones, is Shadow Queen — although it did have its periods of stalled work while I grumbled and glared at it and muttered under my breath about recalcitrant plotlines. [↩]
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