Linda shamed me into gardening--quite rightly. She'll be along to deny it, but I know a hint when I hear one.
The lawnmower wouldn't start--which has to count as one of the top ten annoyances of modern life.
I'm sore--as usual I overdid it on the first day. But the whole cleaning out the garden should only take about 3 days, versus the 3 weeks at our old house. We stuck to flowering shrubs in the front yard, and one long narrow strip of garden in the back. I pulled two wheelbarrow loads of weeds out of the gravel driveway on the side of the house.
It was all very satisfyingly zen.
Intention and results.
How often does something happen because you intend it to happen? I mean, my intention is to write a fantastic first couple chapters to "Takeover." So will that happen because that's my intent? I'm waiting for inspiration, the kind of overwhelming feeling that overtook me when I wrote the first chapter of "Led to the Slaughter" or the first chapter of "Deadfall Ridge."
I want it so badly, it's going to happen, right?
Some things have a long incubation. I knew for years that I wanted to write a Donner Party story with werewolves.
On the other hand, "Tuskers" was a spur of the moment thing, a lark, a response to something someone said on Facebook. My vampire trilogy actually went against my instincts that the vampire thing was overdone.
Sometimes I wing something and it turns out. Other times, I stall. "Castle LeMagie" and "Ruby Red and the Robots" both got more than halfway done before I ran out of ideas. Which means, the stories weren't strong enough, I guess.
You don't actually know before you start, but you can get a clue. Usually I try to ascertain if there is enough paint to cover the walls. That is, if there is enough content to make a full book; themes and characters and plot. I think there has to be enough speculative material to carry a story. The story itself doesn't carry the story.
While I'm waiting for inspiration, I'm noodling around the edges with "Takeover." A little bit of sensory imagination and description. If I can get the action edge in there, I might have something.
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12 comments:
Still here. Floundering for the impetus to write something with teeth (and legs, arms, and a gut-swollen torso).
I throw a few words out there on http://davecline.wordpress.com/ now and then.
Been helping others with their work -- quoting you often, in a haphazard sort of way. POV is a big one. Active voice another.
I believe I've finally climbed that hill of writerly understanding to pause and look back over the berms and tussocks that I've bested. It's just a small hill. Mountains remain. Yet every word I write these days comes filtered through a writer's eye. Every sentence, dusted for prints.
I feel the need building. A kernel gestating within, an alien seed perhaps. Or an avocado pit sprouting tendrils tethering out through my fingertips to alight with intent upon my keyboard.
Or not.
Hope your health is returning. Hate to see the end of you, just yet.
I've taken a long pause. Sometimes a long pause is needed to get some perspective. I know I can write books, but to what end? When I sell 1500 of one book (because of a promotion), and then sell only 10 of the next, it makes me wonder if anything works, (except said promotion that is extremely exclusive.)
I don't like rewriting. I have at least 11 projects that need rewrites.
I've always had self-imposed deadlines. The truth is, without deadlines no one is clamoring for my work.
You say you want "to write something with teeth" and my thought is that you've just blocked yourself from accomplishing anything. On the other hand, as I've said, I know I can write a book, but maybe I need to challenge myself.
Thus...I haven't written anything in four months. Not sure if that is a solution. (A bad book in four months is still more than a good book never written...)
Due to my lack of creative writing time, writing something without teeth (or meat or meaning or impact) feels disheartening. I've already done the toothless versions. If I spend the time I want the effort to result in something substantial. Yeah, maybe that condition precludes ever creating anything; I keep talking my way out of projects. I've got like 10 partial projects that I can't find in my soul to finish, knowing they'll be just as mediocre as the others. Catch-a-22.
I think you have to let that go. You can always tell yourself you're not done until you're done.
I read a description once of a "failed book writer" and even before I became a writer that made no sense to me. A book writer is a book writer, and who says what is a failure and what isn't?
Sales? Fuck that. Critics? Doubly fuck that. My own little voice? Well, I'm fucked if I know what I'm fucking doing...
So write what you write.
I'm betting you second guess everything you write. It's a fine line between reaching for something better and throwing out what is good. My only way around this is to write straight through without rewriting, then letting time pass and going back.
Trouble is, I hate going back.
I believe, at this point, I follow Elmore Leonard's pattern of polish as you go. I've found an abrasive critic and if I only feed small pieces of meat to him, he doesn't spit the entire thing back into my face. I try to return the favor.
I've always had a quality issue. Goes without saying, I'm sure. Lately I've truly tried to up the micro-quality -- focus on the style and readability -- I think I'm making progress.
It's not the public acceptance that I crave, it's the self-critique where I can re-read a piece and not immediately want to fix it. I think I've got plot and theme and story down. The piece lacking was always the writing itself. That is on the mend. Now I just have to find the right project and the time to invest.
What if you wrote a pure sci-fi novel? Utterly outside of your prior works?
"What if you wrote a pure sci-fi novel."
Just did. "Fateplay" was published last month. It's probably my favorite book. It's the one that's sold maybe ten copies.
I know what your saying about writing, but what has surprised me is that what people notice is story and plot. The writing itself is sub-conscious, at best. That doesn't mean it isn't important.
I certainly don't have "plot and theme and story" down. That's what I struggle with. The writing is just something I just keep trying to improve on.
I read Fateplay, remember. I'd call it a tech-fi with fantastical aspects.
I'm talking other planet, space, or distant future -- azimov, heinlein, clarke or foster. Way, way out there. Complete otherworldly world building.
Per the writing, I agree. It's the story, the characters and plot that are remembered. But, if the writing is not up to snuff -- the story won't even get read. It's the first 1000 words that I judge. Sometimes even the first 250. If the writer's chops are dull or clumsy - nix. And that's just what my writerly ability has resulted in -- getting nixed. Hopefully, I'm correcting that inadequacy.
Fateplay is about as SF as I'm likely to get. I'm just not scientifically endowed.
To me, the more I concentrate on the words, the slipperier they get. They start to lose value.
I rewrote my first book so many times that a friend who had read earlier versions said, "You've taken all the life out of it."
I purposely went back and wrote what I called "sloppy" (dull or clumsy would work too), in the vernacular, and then gave it a light once over.
Now it's a fine line between finding the right words and moving them around until they lose value.
In other words, there is at least as big a danger of over-writing as underwriting.
I recently read a perfectly composed first chapter of a book. It had everything--and nothing. It didn't compel me to read the rest of the book. It was a set-piece, beautiful done and yet--
I think it's a matter of feel really.
I think the trick is finding some project topic that I can stick to.
It's one of those top questions 1) does this interest you enough to see it through to the end?
Because my time is limited, if I lose faith/desire 1/2 way through -- six months from now...
You must have 500,000 words waiting in the wings. My 100k words, invested in never-to-finish stories (although time well spent learning), is an outcome I'd prefer to avoid.
None of it wasted. I call it "having enough paint to cover the walls." Unfortunately, you can never be quite sure. I've started books as a lark that carried strongly to the end, and others that I thought had strong underpinnings that died out.
My advice to you, as always, is to quit second guessing yourself and just write.
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