eimarra | (no subject)

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Sorry I haven't been posting. Yes, still tons of notes on WFC. More on NaNo. Random thoughts.

But I've had deadlines for work, and that has to come first. (Everyone wants their copyeditors and proofreaders to meet deadlines, right? True for nonfiction as well.) And then I've been having this frustration at the lack of balance in my life -- by which I mean I don't get everything done that I want to do. That couldn't possibly be because I'm trying to do too much, right?

Anyway,

bonniers and

marfisk have helped a lot with my levels of frustration. Then last night I had an epiphany. Maybe a minor one, but it meant a lot to me.

The first part had to do with Paperback Writer's blog. I love her "way of the cheetah" posts, but it occurred to me that she's not a cheetah. Cheetahs sprint. They're fast, but they have no endurance. Obviously, PBW has that. She writes every day.

The second part is from a thread on FM a while back, when I made a comment to Mar that I prefer to work with an idea when it's new and shiny. Sure, who doesn't? Well, I found out that some people actually like to ignore new ideas on the theory that if they're good, they'll come back.

The third part is that I have a short attention span. That's one of the things I like about my work -- I get lots of different topics to work on, and I provide different services. I can switch off to refresh myself. Works well for me. Well, except for when I have a copyediting project that carries on for a long time, a chapter at a time, meaning I'm still getting material long after I've ceased to be interested in the project. It's still a topic I like (usually), and I do the work well when I make myself sit down and do it. But I don't want to. I hate it, dread it, procrastinate doing it, and suffer lots of angst over keeping on keeping on.

Enter my writing. Short stories aren't a problem. I get the idea, I write them. I may get unhappy with how long it takes me to edit and submit, but the idea is complete. Novels . . . well, I've won NaNo twice. If I sit down and write, work very hard and very fast over a short period of time, I can get a lot done. If I try for steady output over a long period of time, I get that same feeling of "Aren't I done with this yet?" I can do it, but there's a lot of mental effort involved in each session of writing.

I have this one series of books -- three of them, but they're not really a trilogy -- about how each one of a trio of sisters learns to deal with her own form of magic after their father (a war wizard) is killed. They're planned; they're plotted; I've done the worldbuilding. But I haven't written a single word of them yet. Part of my mind feels like they're complete, as though I should be able to pick them up off the bookshelf and read them already. What's up with this writing thing?

So the solution to being frustrated about my writing right now is actually to keep going on it, to use what's left of that initial enthusiasm to get that first draft down as fast as I can. The long-term solution? The way to find balance? Those I don't know, but I'll work on them. When the mood strikes. ;)

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A couple of random thoughts, not related to each other and possibly of no use whatsoever:

There's nothing wrong with being a short story writer, if that's what works best for you. Or with letting the novels sit while you work on short stories to learn your craft. Or with only working on the stories for a while, then going back to them later.

Sometimes there's a lot to be said for just keeping on. That's how I get to the tops of mountains. Halfway up, I'm tired and my feet are starting to hurt, and I just want to make camp and give it up right there. It's hard to put one foot in front of the other, but that's the only way to get to the top.

But of course rest breaks are necessary. Take off the pack, stretch, have some hot mint tea and trail mix, before I hit the trail again.

I hear you about getting bored with things. That's why I liked the technical writing -- new project every couple of years kept me on my toes. But even that got old. I've made major life/career adjustments every few years and that's kept me much saner. The time I tried to fight through, I wound up seriously depressed and nearly wrecked our marriage, among other things. I expect the serious-writing thing to wear out before too long, too.

--bonnie

There is nothing wrong with being a short story writer, true. But that's not what I feel I am. If I were, I wouldn't have these wonderful ideas that need whole books to explore. At least, that's my perspective on it.

As for keeping on, I am nothing if not persistent. One of the members of my thesis committee in grad school likened my grad career to pounding my head against a brick wall. (One of the reasons I'm not afraid of harsh crits is that I seriously cannot imagine anything worse than some of the personal attacks my committee leveled at me. I think that's one of the reasons I haven't been able to let go of all the bitterness. They weren't critiquing my work; they were critiquing me.) So I can keep going, even if something seems pointless.

And I know that one of the dangers of writing a book is coming up with excuses not to finish, so I've done som real soul-searching to try to make sure that's not all I'm doing right now. Is it possible that I'm fooling myself? Yes, but I do know I have the short attention span.

I know everyone has a different style of working. Lawrence Block, I understand, does all his plotting in his head, then checks into a hotel room for a couple weeks and bangs out the entire novel. Other writers spend a whole day honing a single sentence. I'm just thinking that maybe my writing style is closer to Lawrence Block's.

Right now, I have to finish the newest story. Then I'll go back and (no matter how painful) struggle through Anri and the Christmas Tree Farm. But maybe -- just maybe -- if I get a two week break with no paying work on deck, I may see if I can get one of those other novels hammered out.

Hm. Well, it's possible that you have these long ideas, but you aren't technically or emotionally ready to handle them yet. One writing book I'm fond of calls it trying to "pole vault over a necessary developmental stage." YOu haven't been writing for all that long. It's to be expected that you would have false starts, experiment with techniques that aren't good for you, and go throough crises like this trying to figure out what really works. It might (or might not) be helpful to focus on shorter works for the time being, not as a permanent strategy.

Short works also give you more immediate gratification.

Yes, there's the danger of making excuses not to finish. But on the other hand, forcing an ending doesn't work either. And there's also a difference between product and process. If your process requires mulling time, or slowdowns, or any of that sort of thing, you'll have to have breaks that will feel like making excuses not to finish to the part of your brain that's used to pushing through. Not Forgetting took almost six years of pretty much steady work. It was four years before I got a thing you could call a coherent completed draft, and it was 225,000 words of chaos and redundancy. It started in the same white heat of passion that produced Joey, and after that it was a slog. Part of it was that I didn't know what I was doing, didn't know how to approach revision, didn't know how to figure out what I was writing about.

I'm doing a lot better with Joey. You know how long the first draft of that took me. The revision pass isn't going quite as fast, but it's coming right along. I'm doing better as I take breaks to work on other things and trust Joey to tell me when he's ready for the next step.

And all that. Most of which probably doens't mean anything :)

--bonnie

But writing short stories isn't necessarily training for writing longer works. They're different forms, requiring different things, and focusing on short stories to prepare myself for novels doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I feel that I have to work at both.

Could I be wrong? Sure. That's one reason I'm trying not to give knee-jerk responses here, just as I let crits sit for a bit before I think about their validity.

Oh, and on the changing every few years: I've worried that maybe that's what I'm going through with my work, rather than just a slump because of a copyediting job that's going on longer than I'd expected. But I'm really not suited for work outside the home, and there's no way my writing can bring in enough money by itself. So with that, I do have to keep on keeping on.

I'm testing whether I can reply from my email. It'll make things easier if I can.

True that short stories are not mininovels. But you can test out many aspects of writing on a smaller scale -- points of view and tones of voice, different narrative depths, different ways of writing, all that kind of stuff. And it lets me work on something new and shiny more often :) For me, one of the big things was that it teaches me to finish things. I'm not saying you need that, or that you "Should" do it, only that I found it helpful. If it's not right for you, it's not right, and that's all there is to it.

One way to get more income from writing is to write nonfiction, which pays more and is easier to sell. Not sure if that's an option for you either.

I guess I'm a little concerned that you're railroading yourself into something that's not going to be the right thing in the long run. Keeping on is one thing. Banging your head against a stone wall is another thing altogether.

--bonnie

p.s. Yes, double yes, on the grad school. I got hit with that even at the master's level. Professors will say and do things of unimaginable cruelty, and often they're so passive-agressive that they're really good at figuring out exactly what will hurt the most. Grrr....

--bonnie

They all had to go through it, too, so of course they know what hurts the most. I'm not a big believer in "I had to do things this way, so you do, too," though.

Nasty pack animals, grouping together to attack the omega because they can. I know they're not all like that. My husband didn't have any such issues in grad school. Bleah.

No, certainly they all don't do it. But too many do, and for whatever reason -- maybe the pack mentality -- their peers too often let them do it. Bleh is right.

--bonnie

Well, I get a lot of ideas. Sometimes I jot them down if I tend to get excited about them. Grady's story was one such idea. It sat in the back of my mind for a year. Things went crazy in 2005 so I didn't get to start work on this or keep up the momentum in the beginning. So I do feel the same as you. ISN'T IT DONE YET???

I find enthusiasm in my stories while I write a scene. Or a new plot twist rears its head. Or a scene that I've played with for a while finally comes together.

Good luck!

Maripat, there's no question about the number of ideas I get. They swarm over me from everywhere -- more than one thread at FM has sparked new ideas. And maybe I'm wrong about my enthusiasms and what's going to be useful to me in developing a writing career. I don't know. On reflection, I think a large part of what I've been going through this past month is stemming directly from my work. But there are those unfinished novels that I still plan to finish, and I have to figure out the best way to get myself there.

Thanks for the encouragement!

Erin,
I don't have a lot of sound advice, since I tend to be in the same boat as you. But you have a lot going for you girl. You have stamina, and true grit. When my mom, sis and I were driving to and from our vacation up north this past week, we took this route on I-88. It was full of twists and turns all the way through, a striking difference from the straight shot of I-127 that we'd just come from. I guess our writing journeys are like that. Right now it feels like I-88, and we have to hang on to the dashboard, or whatever. Trust whoever's driving. Trust that the road will get us there, that if we hang tough and keep doing what we know we love (because we love it, or we wouldn't put ourselves through it, like you said), WE WILL GET THERE. Erin - it's all inside you. Trust the process.

Well. I thought I didn't have anything to say. Here I am with my back aching and still some words left in me to write on Nano before I put it up for the night, but I knew something was wrong, sensed it. So i poked on over here. Who knew? I'm PSYCHIC! lol - or a sidekick? Maybe it's just the Flexeril talking.

At any rate - big big hugs to you. Keep your head up. Hope work lets up for you.

Snoopy

True Grit? Wal, there, little lady . . .

The trouble, I think, is finding the process because it is different for each one of us. So this post is about my groping toward an understanding of what works for me. It's easier to trust it if it's defined. And yet I believe in Mystery. But part of Mystery is knowing what the Mystery is, even if I can't understand it. So if I know there's some ineffable process that can't be understood or explained but can be followed -- okay. But that's asking for a lot of faith right now.

Hope your back's getting better.

True, but doesn't the whole concept of trust imply something that's not defined? "Part of Mystery is knowing what the Mystery is.." Maybe as a writer you can know that, and should, but as a person? How can you ever be two steps ahead?

lol - sorry about the true grit part. I get lame when I'm trying to encourage people. It's just me.

The back's fine. *Hugs* with your struggles.

"Part of Mystery is knowing what the Mystery is..."

Sorry. There was a reason for the cap. In the Catholic Church, Mystery "signifies in general that which is unknowable." They are named, but not understood -- like Christ's suffering.

So what I was saying is that if I can at least name what I'm trying to grasp, if I can delineate its limits, even if I don't understand it, I can come to some acceptance of it. But to try to accept it without going through some process first takes a bit more faith than I have right now. Does that make a bit more sense?

I was just teasing you about the true grit. I'm sure John Wayne wasn't the first thing to pop into everyone's head. I'm just warped. But you knew that, right?

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