The existential angst of a writer.

JOURNAL:  12/14/13.

I realize that no one wants to read my existential angst about writing.  But that insecurity fills my waking moments.  (Actually, it fill my dreams too.)

If a book is written and no one reads it, does it really exist?

I think the only way I can justify continuing to write at this pace is to tell myself that I'm improving:  that someday I'll write something so absolutely wonderful that no one can deny it and that everyone will just have to read it.

It's still early, especially if I consider the start to my writing as being September, 2012.  That's when I began writing The Reluctant Wizard, after struggling with Almost Human (now Faerylander) for two years.

What is writing?  Is it the words themselves that are important -- their artistry and fluidity and uniqueness?  Or is it the thoughts behind the words?  Is the story more important?  Is it the world-building, or making characters real?

It's all the above. 

I've always had two things that impelled me to start a story -- one is just following the flow of words and seeing where they lead.  The other is coming up with a story I want to tell.

A book only works if I'm doing both those things.  I no longer follow the flow of words for very long before I start thinking of the pitfalls, or where I may be creating an unsustainable premise, or where I may be trying to write something I'm not capable of achieving.  I've discarded books after understanding that I didn't know enough about the subject.

So I'm trying both to be smarter about my choices and yet allowing myself the freedom to write.

I might be better off writing a new storyline each time, but for learning purposes and for pure satisfaction, I've been writing sequels and trilogies and series.  Which is a little crazy, since if the first book doesn't go anywhere, it's a bit like hitching your wagon to a dead horse.  Still, as I say, I really think I'm getting incrementally better with each book.

My basic strategy to get better is to just keep writing.  Fine-tune it as I go along.  I've realized, for instance, that while I can write more than 2000 words a day, that is the optimal level for me to keep the freshness going.  Writing 2000 words a day is a lot in the scheme of things -- it also means I'll probably have to go back and spend another day or two on each 2000 word chunk just to make them work.  So that 2000 words a day will probably eventually turn into a more sane 750 words a day on average.  But getting the story down while it's still alive in my mind and heart is the first step.

I've learned that I can rewrite, if I totally re-immerse myself back into a book.  That prospect looked dodgy for awhile.  And I learned that I can fiddle with the book as I go along without going off course.  My actual work process has improved, and was already much better at the start than when I quit last time.  And the technology is miraculous and has made all this possible.

This writing of 2000 words takes the whole day, though the actual writing may only be a couple of hours.  Things are always percolating under the surface.  I have to give myself time for that process to work.  (I just discovered that I only read 18 books this year!  Which is about 20% of what I usually read.   But it makes sense if you consider that each of the fifty books I didn't read might have taken 8 hours, which turns into 400 hours that I was writing rather than reading.)

I've realized that I don't need to publish a book until I'm ready.   That I can write each first draft as they come along, and go back later and rewrite them when I'm ready.

I learned that I was not that much better when I re-started as I was when I quit; perhaps worse, because I wasn't putting quite as much work into it.  On the other hand, I don't feel any older and stodgier than I was back then -- maybe less so.  I have a luxury I didn't have back then -- knowing that I can spend so much time at writing and still pay the bills. 

(I've never doubted that I made the right choice to earn a living by running a comic and book store.)

But I do think I've regained my mojo after struggling for a bit.  Rededicating myself to telling stories.  I've loosened up on the writing, letting myself write what I want to write.

Most of all, I've given myself permission to be as prolific and ambitious as I want.  Lining up a series of 4 trilogies might seem crazy -- except that I'm more than halfway through the process.

So if I consider this a long term project, I'm just doing the equivalent of a beginning writer spending a couple of years writing that first book.  Except, I have the bonus of having had a previous career where I made many of the beginner mistakes and was able to start at a slightly more advanced level.

I feel that I'm getting a little better with each book.  I'm getting more proficient.  I'm learning the relative values of the different tasks it takes to finish a book. 

For an example, each chapter I've written of this new book has the basic story I came up with, but each chapter I've tried to put one or two sort of change-ups, or flips, or curlie cues.  I don't know what to call them.  Little additions that make the story more alive somehow.

This comes from practice, I think.  I'm much more steady on my feet about pace, and yet at the same time, letting the story dictate how much dialogue there is, or how much action, or how much narrative, or how much description.

By continuing to write, I think I'm learning what I'm good at -- and doing more of that.  And what I'm bad at, and trying to avoid doing too much of that.

I think if I can keep up the writing despite my existential angst, that I'll come up with stories that not only are good enough (which is where they are now -- I think they deserve to exist and be read, but I understand  the near impossibility of convincing others of that) to something that is really super good.

It may still end up being existential, in the sense that I may write that spectacular book and only I know that I did it.

That idea, of writing something really good and no one knowing, is the ongoing angst of the whole thing.

When you're young, you can be all romantic about the notion.  You can think you're Van Gogh or something.  Little harder to do when you get a little older and realize that the universe isn't always fair.

It all comes back to the question of -- if no one reads it, will it have been worth doing?

But I won't know that until I've done it.

The phrase I used early on still applies:  Writing through the doubt.

What else can I do?