Plantser

There is much banter in the writing industry about the terms “pantser” and “plotter.” I believe they were coined by the NaNoWriMo community. To be a “pantser” is the write by the seat of your pants, to have no set route and to go where the story takes you. To be a “plotter” is to have a comprehensive outline, to know where you’re going and how you’re getting there before you even start writing.

I’ve tried it both ways. NaNo 2014 I was a pantser. I basically had a character idea and some settings ideas and I went from there. It was the seed to my novel, and I’m super glad I just did it. But to be totally frank, the result was… unsatisfying, to be diplomatic about it. For my second and third drafts, I was (/tried to be) a plotter. Even though I loathed writing outlines and the process was disheartening and soul-sucking compared to just writing narrative, I was sure that the reason my first draft had failed was because I didn’t know where I was going when I started.

Well, my second draft, while being much better than my first, was still far off the mark of what I want to eventually end up with. I don’t believe that it benefitted from an outline as much as I had learned a lot from the first try, but after I finished it, I didn’t have that perspective. From where I was standing, it looked like I had a second draft that was much better than my first and it had had an outline: ad hoc, ergo propter hoc. But I was several chapters into my third draft when I realized that I was going at my story from completely the wrong angle.

And I realized that writing the outline had contributed to cementing this wrong angle in my head.

Not to mention that starting over after writing a comprehensive outline was… well suffice to say that I was more ready to give up writing forever than to write another comprehensive outline. More than that, though, I wasn’t sure yet where the story was going to go. I kept trying to work on an outline and getting stuck on things that I couldn’t predict. And I was getting very frustrated with not writing narrative—the only fun part of writing. (Hashtag my own opinion kthxbai.) So I decided to start writing and see if it went anywhere.

The beginning I wrote was both strong and terrible: strong because I think I started in the correct place, narratively, and terrible because it was disjointed and semi-coherent. That was partially because I was in a semi-panic while writing it and as a result was having terrible aphasia. I kept not being able to find words, so instead using the much more formal words for things than my narrative voice justified. But I said fuckit and kept writing, because it felt like running away from a predator: didn’t matter if I tripped, I fucking got away.

As I write more, my voice comes more easily; the sequence of events happens more naturally; and as ideas come to me I feel very free to incorporate them if I want to—no restrictive outline to stick to like glue. As a result I really feel like this draft is where I’ve been wanting to get to all along. I still feel like it is almost certainly not the final draft. Much polish and sanding and restoration will be needed once I’ve finished writing it. But I may have finally found the thing that I won’t have to rewrite from the ground up.

Anyway. I recently read a term that I had previously not heard of: “plantser.” This is a hybrid planner-pantser. For me, that means I know the starting point, I know the themes, I have a cast of characters (some of which may not end up making appearances), I know the twist, and I know what Cassidy needs to do to “win”—but I don’t know the exact journey she takes to get there, and to be honest, I don’t know if she wins or not, yet.

So, put me in the plantser camp, because I need a little structure—a little, but not too much.

Word count: 10,916 (⪤)

•••Hey, did you know? I’m fostering kittens! Come follow my tribulations on my kitten blog! Paw-Purr-azzi•••

Giving good feedback

Neil Gaiman has a quote: “Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” When I first read that, I didn’t understand it at all. Since embarking on crafting usable feedback for my good friend and partner-in-pen Becky, it’s make more and more sense to me.

It’s a rare thing to read a book that is exactly what you would have written, if you had written that book. You might have had the protagonist make different choices; you might have used more (or less) figurative language, you might have incorporated more teddy bears. Whatever the case, a lot of the joy and value of reading a book that is not your own comes from those things that you would have done differently. It gives you a different perspective on something you feel you know.

When you have the opportunity to critique a work in progress, and your goal is to give actionable feedback, I think the hardest thing is to not try to force your critique-ee to do what you would do. Although sometimes it feels true, it is not accurate to say that yours is the only right way to do a thing. When you say “I wouldn’t have used this word here,” think to yourself, “Is that because this word is being used incorrectly, or because of my personal aesthetic choices?” If the word is used correctly, then that’s a good sign that you’re projecting your personal narrative voice onto the project you are critiquing.

When you’re picking out perceived problems, and you suggest a solution for it, you run a high risk of becoming attached to your solution. If your critique-ee decides to keep it the way it is, or change it in a different way, you may be inclined to take it personally, or even be disappointed that the “story you want” isn’t getting written. (Tangent: this is why I don’t understand commissioned stories. How could it ever be exactly what the commissioner wants? /tangent.)

As a critiquer, I am absolutely addicted to giving suggestions. I have found that I can’t not give suggestions, most of the time. If I see a word or phrase that bugs me, I leave a comment like, “reword this. Maybe something more like this?: [ . . . ]” I do that because I’m worried that if I don’t leave a suggestion, the full meaning of my criticism won’t be clear. Will she think I mean it’s awkward, or that the words don’t mean what she thinks they mean, or that they convey a different message than she was going for? I could say “reword for clarity / definition / mood” but... my tendencies are to suggest solutions. And I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with that. The key, very important thing, is to not become attached to my suggestions. For that purpose, I try to give not-great suggestions that get my meaning across. Something to point an arrow in the right direction but not push the author through a portal that leads to the destination.

One way to keep yourself in check when giving feedback, if you’re finding yourself trying to rewrite the story in your own words, is to always leave your feedback in the form of a question. “Did you mean to make so-and-so sound like an asshole here?” “Is this the definition of this word as you understood it?” “Are you sure giraffes are adding something to this scene?” “Could you be using more teddy bears?” And so forth.

I think it’s very important to be criticized, as a writer. You don’t spot your own biases and erroneous beliefs if no one calls you on them. You never have a reason to think about things differently. It’s incredibly hard not to have your feelings hurt by critique, but even so, it’s possibly the best tool in your belt. You’re so, so lucky if you have people in your creative circle who can give good, meaningful feedback. As a person receiving criticism, it’s important to take what they say into account. But, to paraphrase the Gaiman, they don’t know exactly how to fix it. Only you can write your book. As givers of criticism, it’s important we remember that.

So, if something doesn’t work for you in the WIP you’re critiquing, sometimes a vague “this doesn’t work for me because…” is plenty. Sometimes a person wants to find their own way up the mountain; they just have to know the mountain is there.

Tips for overcoming writers' paralysis and cultivating enthusiasm for your writing

Long title is long!

I was at the gym yesterday and I was finishing up my stretches. After stretches, I do ab workout—situps, crunches, leg-lifts, or jackknifes, depending on the day. Yesterday was jackknifes. After that, weights, then a half-hour of cardio. And I was lying on my back, looking at the wasp nest in the highest tippy-top of the cathedral-vaulted ceiling and dreading every single step of it with my whole self.

I probably don’t need to tell you, but dread is one of those ingredients in a workout (or any other chore) that really dominates the flavor and ruins the dish.

So I thought to myself, “Self, stop it! Why do you dread this so hard? You know it exactly. You have done it so many times you could do it in your sleep. Dreading it only makes it take longer; and when that’s not true, it sure makes it seem to take longer!”

“But, Self,” I protested, “What should I do to dispel this awful funk? You make it sound easy. I assure you, it is not.”

“Fear not, Self,” I laughed, “There is a solution! Behold!” I flourished my cape. “When you started coming to the gym, you were infused with feelings of accomplishment, pride, and self-power. These feelings have waned as the gym routine has become mundane, but in truth, the fact that the gym routine has lasted long enough to become mundane is an indication of exactly how accomplished, proud, and powerful you should feel!

“In short, do not focus on the mundanity, the sloggishness. Focus on the things that made you start coming in the first place! The way it draws into focus the ways in which your body is succeeding at being strong, beautiful, bendy—what have you. After all, what are you anxious for? Have you elsewhere to be? I think not. Now is your time. Enjoy it.”

Well, it got me through the rest of the workout, and I realized that the same technique can be applied to most things we dread. Staring at the blank page, fingers poised over the keyboard, thinking, “I know I was gonna say something… what was it again?” we have started looking at our writing as an obligation, a chore. What if we spent a few minutes right before we start writing to remember exactly why we write? If we can recapture the feeling of the joy of creation, the freedom of crafting a world to our own specifications, the way it used to be an escape rather than a prison, then writing will be a breeze.

Yesterday, after my workout, I was victim to a sustained headache and stomach ache and did not return to the world of creation, but I’m going to try out this technique today and see if it works as well for writing as it did for finishing my gym routine. Happy writing, everyone!

Word count: 2,778 (૚)

Omigosh omigosh omigosh plane ride tomorrow!

So, faithful readers, I have to admit my blunder. I realized on the 15th that I had completely failed to buy the plane tickets to Seattle. I had begun the purchase; I got all the way to the end, in fact. It escapes me that I didn't complete the purchase. I honestly don't know how that happened, because every screen of the purchase process was familiar to me. I guess I must not have clicked that final, fateful button. So, flying to Seattle got a whole lot more expensive. I am so pissed at myself.

On the upside, I did not fail to reserve a room, which I was doing concurrently to buying the plane tickets. So at least when we get there, we won't be wandering the streets begging for alms. (Actually guys, do you have any alms? Considering our tickets cost 134% of what we were anticipating, we could really use some alms. Anyone?)

We're going to do plenty of fluffy touristy things, but we'll also spend a greater-than-normal time just driving around, looking at architecture, layout, neighborhoods. I'll visit the University of Washington campus. Ride the monorail. I need to try to get a sense of living in Seattle in just 48 hours. I guess it's a good thing that Cassidy has only lived there for a week.

Well, Wednesday I was struggling with my outline and chatting with Rachel, who kindly gave me an in-depth critique of my second draft… which I had subsequently put off reading because I was finding the first few notes too emotional to deal with. I didn't think it was perfect; far from it. But the things that got picked on were unexpected, and I didn't have my armor up. So, I put off reading it until I was finished reading all my research reads—and then I conveniently forgot to read it once I was done.

So I was struggling with the outline! and realized that I hadn't finished receiving the critique from my second draft. So I sat down Wednesday and Thursday and reread my second-draft with in-line comments, then read her editor's letter. Having given myself time to know that what I was going to read wouldn't make me feel good and wouldn't be all the things I expected them to be, reading them was a lot less hard than I'd feared. I didn't agree with all of them, but those that I didn't agree with have been made somewhat irrelevant by the changes I already know I'm making to the narrative.

I finished reading all the critiques and started hammering away again at the outline. I made some progress, and I continue to be happy with the development. I'm starting to get invested in just the outline, where before it felt a lot like pulling teeth. And I'm realizing some more things that need to research. Like: If someone took an alias a long time ago, how does a PI trace that person back to their original identity? We all assume that without something like witness protection, we'd have a very hard time picking up a new identity, but honestly, how would you know if the guy in the next cubicle used to be named Harold Muller and wrote fliers for the IRA? Seriously, I'm asking.

On an unrelated note, have you guys heard anything about the London rents crisis? This is the only thing I've seen about it, but based on this it seems pretty messed up.

Until next week!

Still. Reading.

So, July has begun. My high hopes of having a third draft by now are flapping, shredded, in the wind. My hopes of having a third draft sometime this year are hiding behind things, hoping to not get stomped by hard-hearted reality as it thunders past.

I finished The Maltese Falcon (67,000 words, by the way). 179 pages (the other 10 were discussion questions) never took so long to read, ugh. The book is good, and tight, and I enjoyed it, but it would never have gotten published today. The book starts off with the physical description of the protagonist, followed immediately by the physical description of the secretary, followed immediately by the physical description of the femme fatale, followed immediately by the physical description of the protagonist’s business partner… there were step-by-step descriptions of how Sam Spade rolls a cigarette, how he sits up in bed, how he eats. I can’t imagine how long the book would have been if Hammett had been forced to cut those descriptions, like he would be if he were trying to get published now. The prose is utilitarian and without flourish. You can clearly hear the whisky-and-cigarrette-smoke-ruined voice reading the book; growling, begrudging, yet trying to hide the fact that he’s enjoying himself.

It was a relief to finish the book, and I immediately tried to check out The Big Sleep, but of course it was checked out of the library. Instead I checked out a copy of K Is For Killer, a book that was picked on by Hardboiled and High Heeled as dealing directly with women filling traditionally men’s roles, their independence, and the theme of the “wrong body” that pervades the female detective genre. I read it in about three days and found it highly enjoyable, and when I finished it, The Big Sleep was still checked out. What to do now?

I read for pleasure for a few days, but today I was just starting to get an itch in my britches to start writing again. Just in time, I got an email saying that The Big Sleep was back in stock—thank god! Who knows what may have happened if I had started writing, all willy-nilly. Perish the thought.

My third draft is going to be very different from the second; all in good ways. It’s not going to be quite the reinvention that happened between Cassidy0 and Cassidy1, and I’m very happy about that. It is in my nature to look at my experiences and average them, and make predictions based on them. Like, “The first time I ever wrote a second draft, I completely rewrote the whole book from the very ground up.” So, obviously, that’s what every subsequent draft will be… until I have a larger sample size to draw from. Now, I’m looking at keeping most or all of the same characters, tweaking their roles minimally, tweaking their personalities considerably, adding scenes aimed at developing characters and themes, and generally grab the steering wheel and aim the car back onto the more acceptable, less self-involved road (where the “self” is Cassidy). It’s fascinating to me how a book can be vehicles for themes and messages that aren’t visible to the naked eye; one must unwrap them, one thin layer at a time, like an onion, to arrive at the pungent nugget of truth underneath.

Maybe it’s just true that, when you’re writing, you see the jewel of the message you’re trying to convey. The words are the wrapping paper. Your finished product is never going to look like that jewel, but that’s okay, because if it did, it wouldn’t be interesting—it’d be a necklace with no neck; a mustache with no one to twirl it. The reader needs to arrive at the jewel on their own to grasp the full impact.

Anyway, I post this and I begin The Big Sleep, as one. Happy reading to us all!

Well, this has been anticlimactic

Just as I embarked on my third draft journey, I received the feedback from my writers’ group that I had so craved. While it has been overwhelmingly positive, the things that got picked on surprised me, and to my surprise, stung me quite a bit. I don’t want to go into them at this point, since I haven’t even mustered the courage to finish reading all of it. I know that intentions matter little when writing inclusive fiction—just because you don’t realize you’re furthering a negative stereotype or trope doesn’t mean you shouldn’t correct it when it happens. Still. I feel a little picked on, which I know is something I need to get past.

I found myself reacting to some of the feedback with, “But... I feel like that’s true to the genre,” which made me realize that I’m actually not all that well-versed in the hard-boiled detective genre (previously mis-identified [by me] as noir, which is a whoopsie made by the film industry, check it out if you’re interested) despite reading many contemporary examples of same. As they say, you can’t break the rules until you know them.

I picked up a couple of academic-style books about the Hardboiled genre, Unless the Threat of Death is Behind Them by John T. Irwin and Hardboiled and High Heeled by Linda Mizejewski. So far, I’m about 82% of the way through UtToDiBT (that’s a fun acronym), and it’s really opened my eyes to what’s “important” about the genre. The tropes are fun, but they aren’t what makes it literary. It’s surprised me on many levels: one, how close I came to a lot of the marks without having been aware of them. Two, the fact that there are a lot of different ways to write correctly within this genre. Three, the best things about literature are present in the best Hardboiled and/or Noir novels.

Discovering this stuff has really raised the bar for me. I’m simultaneously invigorated and goddamned terrified. I have seriously considered straight giving up. I have reminded my writers’ group that wunderkinds are bullshit, but it seems like the inventers of the genre all wrote literary-level novels on their very first try. I have a hard time imagining juggling all those balls, to be totally honest. But, if I think through the process, I have realize that either, they actually got very lucky without realizing it (which actually is a thing that happens), or they had this in mind as they wrote, and possibly shoehorned some things in which might have felt very unnatural to them at the time in order to get that level of literary value. Dashiell Hammett may have had a notecard that said: “Theme: contrast the repetitive with the extraordinary with the singular” and then another notecard that said “parable: Flitcraft? Features: flying shrapnel, breaking machinery” and looked back at these notecards as he crafted the dialogue—certainly a final-draft problem. The Maltese Falcon didn’t spring forth from his forehead, fully formed. It was designed, and he took as much time writing it as it took to get it as close to right as he could. (And, to be fair, it wasn’t his first work in the genre.) Hammett, Chandler, Cain and other authors within the genre were all striving throughout their careers to master their craft—more than just telling stories, they were telling the Human Story, even if those who fancied themselves authorities in the world of literature considered detective novels to be pulp fiction.

Writing is a marathon, not a sprint.

I was reading UtToDiBT earlier and was suddenly overcome with the urge to fill out some notecards before I forgot all the brilliant things that had just occurred to me. So, instead of being OCD and forcing myself to keep reading, I went and got my notecards. I filled out six notecards with two character’s starting and ending points and the events that trigger the changes. I am happy that I did this. Now I’m done and am going to go back to reading. I’ll notecard again if the mood strikes me. If not, I’ll roll right into HaHH. After that, I’m going to be reading at least The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. And then I’ll feel at least a little more secure in asserting that something that may be considered a “bad” thing to do falls within my genre.

I may even feel empowered to do it differently.

June first! Back to the novel!

Yesterday, I was chafing against the “rules” keeping me from starting to edit my story again. I had over-filled my video game and TV meters, and was craving a creative outlet. I was sincerely frustrated, and felt thwarted in life in general. Luckily, I realized fairly quickly the cause. (That sort of existential crisis can seem world-ending if you don’t know why you’re having it.) The fact that it was May 31 and I was a mere twenty-four hours from being able to pick up my manuscript again gave me a lifeline.

In May, I had hoped to resume my four-day-a-week gym schedule, but alas, it was not to be. Branden and I went this past Saturday, skipped Sunday for sleep reasons, and today I attended the gym all on my own. I’m shaky all over because my muscles aren’t used to this kind of exertion any more. My stomach is upset, I think because I’m hungry. But for the first time in weeks, my back isn’t in searing, terrifying pain. The shakiness will subside, the hunger is treatable... I’m so glad I went.

Today has been a good day, so far. In addition to the gym, I ran a couple of errands and have knocked out about half the chores I need to do today. Although I could extend myself and finish them all before starting to write, I decided that starting the process is more important, more fulfilling. Also, if I can lasso the muse while she’s hanging around, I have a much better chance of actually being able to do something today, rather than staring bleakly at the page wondering where to begin.

Once again, I have high hopes of note cards and cork boards, and it seems slightly more likely to happen this time if only because everything is already there, waiting for me, not floating in the ether. But I don’t care too much if it doesn’t happen, because trying to force a certain method will only end up stifling me instead of helping. So I’ma let it flow as it flows, we’ll see what ends up happening. I may start out simply making notes in the margin, as it were, like “develop setting here” or “you could fit in more worldbuilding here.” I think that I may have the most luck trying to make a scaffolding for future edits, rather than trying to make the edits themselves. My idea, originally, before I knew what revision was, was that I would read a scene and rewrite it from scratch, telling the same story but in new words. Don’t know if that would help me. OMG I’m so out of my depth. At least I’m not getting graded, right?

My goal is to have my third draft, Cassidy2, done by the next Writers’ Group meetup in the end of June. I think it might be possible? I might also be proposing that I could have the Ark done by the end of June. We’ll see. Wish me luck!

Hiatus continued

I have deeply enjoyed my month of break from my novel. Indulging in self-loathing-free video game time has been a blessing. I’ve forgotten what my novel is even about while at the same time seeing, at a distance, some of its weaknesses and realizing some ways to make it better. Also, I’ve had the beginnings of an entirely new and different idea percolating in my head, which is pretty huge for me, considering.

We had our writers’ group meetup on Sunday. Branden had finished his draft and posted it all in enough time that everyone had read it for the meetup, so it was “the one” for both of us: the meetup that would prove most helpful because the beta readers have finally seen the whole picture and can review based on that. I really, really need to get better about writing down questions in advance for my group, because I always think some up and then forget what they were by the time group rolls around.

In lieu of my own questions that I thought up, I sent out a link to a list of “fifteen questions to ask your beta readers.” It’s better than nothing, but a lot of them were sorta iffy considering that my girls have been reading this draft since January and the beginning is probably a bit hazy at this point. Still, I sent it out and hopefully a couple of them will be able to get back to me with some answers. I also know that at least Rachel is planning on rereading it and giving comprehensive feedback, a service for which I really, really should be paying her, and am intellectually and spiritually indebted to her for insisting on providing it for free. (The same goes for anyone else who would do that for me. Thank you, in advance, so very very much.)

Which brings me to the fraught topic of feedback. I love feedback. Can’t get enough of it. In particular, I love critical feedback; meaning that I really like it when people can tell me what things they didn’t like or that didn’t work for them. That’s because, I know that my book isn’t perfect, that it’s very far from perfect. I’m trying to train myself out of the habit of poisoning the well before a meetup and saying “I’m aware I could be worldbuilding more” because that tells people that they don’t need to mention it—even if they were going to. I want to hear them tell me this, because if I tell them in advance, then I can’t know if it’s something they would have mentioned. And without people telling me what didn’t work for them, I don’t know where to start. Is that thing that really irks me something that my readers really enjoy? Or vice-versa? I have a very hard time working with “everything was great, I loved all of it!” at this stage, when I know it’s not finished.

Happily for me, I did get a fair amount of critical feedback. Not as much as I would have if everyone had read it all of-a-piece before the meetup like they did with Cassidy0, but definitely a starting place.

Thematically similar: I think that it is a reflex, when one finishes a creative work, to immediately believe that it is terrible. I don’t think it’s something you can control. You’ve been spending a massive amount of time and internal energy on a thing, and suddenly it’s gone—it’s almost like you’ve broken up with someone. Things rush in to fill that gap. There’s emotional backlash. It’s normal. It’s also very important to realize that it’s a physical reaction, not a truth. You will probably never believe that your work is as good as it could be; as good as it looked on the shelf of your brain. Your readers never saw it in its original packaging. They will never know how far short you fell. They will also never look as closely at it as you have. Don’t make their minds up for them in advance. Can you imagine how bleak the world would be if a story was only told when the writer was 100% satisfied with it? Beowulf wouldn’t exist.

You will probably be able to read your book with a glow of pride some years after you’ve pushed it out of the nest. You’ll like the nicks and dents. In the end, that’s part of what makes it what it is. But even if you hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns, you should still push it out of the nest. Someone will love it.

Next Monday, I will be dusting off Cassidy1: rereading, making notes, etc. I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to start making changes. I’ve never gotten to a real second draft before. I’m nervous. Wish me luck!

And on the sixth month, I rested

Yes, yes, yes, I did it. I finished my second draft, also known as Cassidy1, on April 30 at 9:00pm, having written 5,767 words that day in order to finish. I’m not 100% happy with the end, but so what‽ that’ll be a Third Draft Problem. And now, I put it in a drawer for a month, to be reread and revisited on June 1.

In the meantime, what will I do?

Branden and I made a date yesterday to write with some of the Writers’ Group girls. I forgot, when I made the date, that by the time it happened, I wouldn’t have anything I was working on anymore. I still planned to write something, if only just to develop a few of the ideas I’ve had for other NaNo projects, or maybe 1-page short stories, but instead I caught up on Tumblr. And really, that was fine. I think I want to take this month to give my creative plumbing a small break. It has been a solidly long time since I was able to play Don’t Starve—especially without guilt.

Now I’m looking down the barrel of my actual-second-draft, let’s call it Cassidy2, and I’m quite nervous. I’ve never done an edit like this before. On the one hand, it’s much smaller scale than Cassidy1, but on the other hand… I know how to rewrite. I’ve never tried to restructure what I’ve already got. I expect it’ll take a much shorter time, because it won’t have the agonizing hair-pulling angst of creating something from nothing, but on the other hand, I am in the habit of looking at my work as “right the first time.” It’s not that I’m necessarily convinced that it couldn’t possibly be better, it’s just that once I’ve written/drawn/designed a thing, it’s very hard for me to imagine it being any other way than exactly how I made it. So, I have a tendency to resist even very helpful suggestions, and coming up with them myself is practically impossible.

But learning how to do this is part of being a responsible artist. I feel that anyone participating in art will get better unless they are actively resisting it—and even if they are, it will probably happen anyway. But something like editing is a thing you can fail to ever learn to do, because it is a defined activity that is separate from creating. It is by no means a requisite to writing. But it is a requisite to writing things you want other people to read and enjoy. Recognizing your own imperfections and being willing to revisit and refine your work… well, I don’t really have to tell you why it’s a good thing. You already know. Even if you’re like me and you always do everything right the first time.

Final word count: 56,603 (�)

When the story goes in an unexpected direction

So, last Wednesday, when I had my writesplosion, I was writing a scene that had been in my head since I re-envisioned my book and began Cassidy1. Only, when I originally mind-wrote it, it turned out very differently. So, when I finished writing it ’for reals,’ I found myself unsure of where to go from there. I toyed with the idea of redoing it in the way I’d originally conceptualized it. Eventually, with much courage and grace, I decided to leave it as it was for now and see where it took me. I can always come back and change it later if the path fades away, right?

So, unlike Robert Frost, I am taking the road less traveled. So far, it’s helping me to further ensure that the agency is in Cassidy’s hands and things aren’t happening to her, and it’s actually helping me figure out how Cassidy solves her mystery in a way that doesn’t include a villain monologue.

It does sorta feel like jumping without a net, though. Straying from the outline means that anything could happen now. Will the climax I have envisioned come to pass as the book is written now? If not, what will happen?

At times like these, I think it’s important to keep in mind several things as you go forward.

1. How do you take this and use it to reinforce your character’s... well, character?
2. How do you take this and use it to reinforce the themes of the book?
3. How does this new development work towards developing or resolving the main conflict of the book?

As long as you answer these three questions, it seems to me that you can wander as far as you like from your outline and always find your way back.

Well, it’s a short one today. Sorry, adoring fans. ♥

Word count: 36,789 (辵)

Snail crawl

Well, I wrote a bunch on Monday when I was so motivated. But once I’d finished the scene, I found myself back where I was: not sure where to go or how to get there. It was disheartening. But, having a writing binge (purge?) did help me keep my boot on fear’s neck.

I realized something: I hadn’t thought through how Cassidy was actually going to solve the mystery. There are two simultaneous mysteries going on (as there should be; see this for a good guide on how to structure a story), and I had thought my way through one of the cases entirely—the one Cassidy doesn’t know she’s solving. But the case she was hired for, I hadn’t completely figured out how she’d solve it. And now that that time is basically nigh, I’m having to figure it out as I go.

Pro-tip: don’t do this. Mysteries are hard to follow when you’re reading them. They are no less so when you’re writing them.

I’m also finding that shucking things off as #ThirdDraftProblems doesn’t actually make them non-issues. For example, Cassidy’s amnesia. This draft, I’ve mostly ignored it. Sometime recently, I realized that in my efforts to make Cassidy a mostly-well-adjusted human being in spite of her amnesia, I had managed to gloss over it completely. Because of that, I’ve managed to make it seem like she didn’t care. Because of that, I haven’t built any tension relating to it, which makes releasing that tension super hard. Even if I can stick my fingers in my ears and go “lalala I totally built that tension already by now in my third draft,” I don’t know how I’ve built it, therefor I don’t know the most powerful way to release it. Le sigh.

One of my techniques during NaNoWriMo to come back and write with momentum the next day was to stop writing right in the middle of a scene. That way, I’d be excited to finish it when I came back to it. This time around, I haven’t been very good about that. Scenes feel like capsules. When I get to the end and say “now what?” I spend quite a while going “I don’t knooowwww” and despairing. I think I need to go back to the basics and review the last thing that happened in the story.

1. What did Cassidy learn?
2. What did the readers learn?
3. What changes did these discoveries cause?

If thinking about these things doesn’t set off a spark, trying to occupy Cassidy’s head and figure out what she thinks the next move is will probably also help.

Taking myself out of my normal writing environment has also helped me at least start my writing engine on a day-to-day basis. Monday, it was as simple as sitting on my porch in a reclining lawn chair for a few hours with my laptop on my lap. (It helped that it was 80° outside.) Between that, Starbucks, and the library, I definitely have options. Going out helps discourage me from playing video games, since my desired setting while playing Don’t Starve is to have a show on in the background. Being separated from my TV helps me shut off the impulse to play games mindlessly until something better comes along.

So, I am going to finish Cassidy1 in April. This is going to happen. Hopefully early April. I’m ready for my month-long break between drafts and to tackle some of those #ThirdDraftProblems we’ve all heard so much about. Wish me luck, okay?

Word count: 35,150 (襎)

But what about when writing becomes a burden?

On Wednesday, I managed to write about 1,500 words towards my story. It wasn’t torture, it didn’t hurt; I was shocked at how much I’d built it up in my head to be this extremely “difficult” thing.

But after Wednesday, the tide ebbed and I was once more stranded on the high ground of inspirationlessness. I know as well as anyone that “waiting for inspiration” isn’t a valid strategy to writing, but I’ve been feeling almost abandoned by my muses. Thinking about writing has been frustrating, and frustration has made me feel veritably glued to my couch. Not only do I not write, I also don’t do anything else I need to do. Everything seems unapproachable, unattainable, and frankly, pointless. I really wanted to give up, but I stubbornly couldn’t accept that I could walk away from my novel, which had so much promise and so much time sunk into it, and a bunch of people whose opinions I respect waiting for it.

But not being able to walk away from it felt like a chain. I was feeling worthless, which made it worse... I’m sure most of you know how this goes. Getting stuck creatively can feel a lot like depression. (Not being a mental health professional, I’m not sure when something crosses the border into depression—does sadness have to be a part of it? I wasn’t feeling sad, at least not for lengths of time. Weekends were great. I still enjoyed things. Etc.)

Last night, as I was falling asleep, my mind wandered to where I had left Cassidy... and then it wandered farther. I “wrote,” in my head, the subsequent scene. I have greased the axles of my writing wheels and today, I’m excited to write. Nonetheless, I’m going to post here what I think regarding When Writing Becomes A Burden.

Writing can feel like a burden for a variety of reasons. I think a major one is: Life Is Happening. Something major is going on in your life that’s sucking a lot of your energy and the idea of spending any of that precious resource on “frivolous” creative endeavors simply seems overwhelming. You lost a job or got a new one. You ended a relationship, or began one, or your relationship changed. You had a baby or got pregnant. You got sick or someone you care for got sick. Whatever. You are out of emotional bandwidth. In my opinion, this is the best, most legit, reason to suspend a creative endeavor. You need to take care of you. Sometimes, when whatever it is that is sucking your bandwidth resolves, you can’t pick up your project where you left off. That’s sad, but it’s a fact of life. Unless you can recapture your headspace of the time, I would say, don’t stress it. Move on to something new.

One that I’ve struggled with a lot before Cassidy came along and introduced herself, was I’d have a tiny idea fragment—a character, a setting, a one-sentence summary—that simply didn’t have enough substance to grow into a full story idea. I would have a lot of creative energy and no targeted creative outlet. It’s easy to say “when you get like that, write something, draw something, do something,” but it’s just as frustrating when you sit down and open a text document and type “I hate this why can’t I write” a hundred times. Or scribble the same noses, eyes, lips you’ve been scribbling for years. Writing or drawing with no direction doesn’t usually feel good, at least not to me. It feels futile. And it’s a little sad because, before Cassidy, I hadn’t had a fully formed creative idea in years.

Getting to the point where writing feels like a burden while you’re still in the middle of your project is the worst, though. That’s where projects die. And it’s mostly because, working on a project is like climbing a mountain. It gets really hard. It is really easy to turn back, because behind you, the mountain has flattened out. You’ve gotten bored with it, you’ve had some other ideas, you want to do something else for a while. But I firmly believe that that voice—the bored voice, the lazy voice, the frustrated, tired, distracted voice—is a defense mechanism that is no longer useful to you as a modern human, and listening to it is nothing but destructive. If you hear that voice, that’s okay. It’s impossible not to. Hear it, listen to it, and like a teenager to her parents, reject it. Say “Okay, I’m tired. I’m frustrated. I’m bored. I hear you. But I’m working on it anyway.”

That voice will fade, the more you tune it out. And if you’re working towards an end, you might have days where you delete everything you wrote. But the next day, you’ll do it better. As long as you gave it your best try, you’ll feel accomplished—much more so than if you did nothing.

So stick with it. Fill your personal library with finished projects instead of fragments. Give yourself room to take care of you, but hold yourself accountable when your fear/frustration/boredom is trying to exert power over you. You can do it. You are powerful. And remember, you make your own inspiration.

Word count: 32,710 (翆)

Don't get bogged down in word count!!

Writers' Group was yesterday, and as per usual, it was great and awesome. For once, WIP-feedback was both gratifying and greatly needed (on my part). I was feeling really stuck and couldn't figure out where I wanted (or needed) Cassidy to go. If a book is a ski hill, I felt like I was standing on the top of the mountain where the bottom of the mountain is the reveal/climax/what have you. (I realize this is the opposite of the imagery we were taught in high school. Go with it.) Once I start sliding down that hill, the descent will be fast and blurry and kept in line with only a minimum amount of control.

And I was (/am) at only ~30k words.

My initial goal for my second draft was between 75 and 80k. My first draft was almost exactly 50, it being NaNoWriMo and all. I was baffled: how could my second draft be so much shorter‽

Of course, to answer that would be begging the question. There is no proof that my second draft will be shorter than my first draft. I can’t know that until it’s finished.

Secondly, if my second draft is shorter than my first draft, there are a lot of things I’ve left out of my second draft that I intend to go back through and re-insert: for example, worldbuilding; fleshing out her “missing year”; mood setting; a few other things. Referring to things like that, I’ve come up with my own personal hashtag: #ThirdDraftProblems. I’m super douchey about it, too. I do the Jimmy Fallon hashtag gesture and everything.

But even so—even though I know I’m leaving things out—I am still feeling paralyzed because I feel like I’m zeroing in on the end too fast. And this is not a problem I should concern myself with. Why? Thanks for asking!

They say you shouldn’t include anything in your story that doesn’t contribute to the development of the plot, the world, the character, or some combination of the three, and I strongly agree. That being said, there is probably an infinite amount of things that do contribute to the story that we choose to leave out when constructing our first, or second-first, drafts. If it ends up being short, then it probably feels short, and you’re missing the opportunity to fully flesh out your character or your world or sometimes, even the plot. There are things that you can include to make everything feel more rounded and complete. For example, in my first-first draft, I had a scene where Cassidy talks to some baristas at a coffee shop which had resisted the tide of franchise coffee shops that had swept the nation. They were insufferable hipsters, which was fun to write—but more fun was realizing that, due to the nature of her memory loss, Cassidy didn’t know how coffee was made. One of the baristas made reference to ‘slingin’ bean juice.’ After that point, Cassidy assumes that coffee is, literally, coffee bean juice, and wonders how one juices a bean.

That scene didn’t have an encore in my second-first draft, but I still love it. I want to include it, if I can. I’ve even invented the café where it would take place. But I have a feeling that, this time around, it may not make it in.

Unless the story needs lengthening. Or even rearranging, or whatever.

I realized something else at Writers’ Group that I had been honestly ignorant of until then. I’d written my first-first draft with an eye to snarky humor: serious story but told with a humorous voice, like Gun, With Occasional Music. This time around, though, I haven’t been doing that nearly as much. There are funny moments, but I haven’t done nearly the number of similes that one associates with the noir genre as I did in Cassidy0.

(<Aside> I just wrote Cassidy0, or “Cassidy prime” for you non-math-nerds out there, because I got sick of saying first-first draft. From now on, first-first draft will be Cassidy0 and second-first draft will be Cassidy1. No, it’s not easier to type, but it makes me happy. So there. </Aside>)

I asked my friends, as we were nearing the end of the discussion, “So okay, is it funny?” and everyone’s face sorta fell and they looked uncertain, and I immediately went over my writing in my head and realized... it really isn’t funny. As I said before, there are individual scenes or lines that are funny, but by and large the situation isn’t funny, the dialogue isn’t funny very often, and even Cassidy’s internal monologue usually isn’t funny. That actually makes me a little sad. I like the noir humor; it’s part of why I wanted to write a noir novel to begin with. Plus, I do feel like the noir humor is part of what makes the genre what it is; without that, it’s just grit. The humor is what shines a little light into the darkness against which our noir hero battles. I mean, the very word “noir” simply means “black.” We need to lighten it up, don’t we?

I’m going to file that under #ThirdDraftProblems.

Word Count: 29,449 (猉)

When writing gets hard

As regular readers know, I (like all writers) struggle with writer’s block. In the past, I’ve strongly believed that it was all about fear of doing it wrong. Well, I don’t think I’m wrong about that, per se, but yesterday was a humbling writing experience.

As I said in an earlier post, I am in a critical spot in the story: building tension without giving too much away; getting my heroine personally engaged without going so far that I have nothing left to crescendo to. I sat down to write, and I did. But every word I wrote was agonizing. I was sure I was revealing too much, or being redundant, or having Cassidy make leaps of logic that were not actually intuitive... I tell you, it’s very hard to write a mystery from the point of view of someone who doesn’t know what’s going on, but is actively trying to figure it out. I feel like you try so hard not to make her seem like she knows more than she should that you trend towards not allowing her to know things that she would know. It’s hard to balance while you’re in the thick of it, and I find it very stressful because, at least for me, sometimes things get set in stone once I write them. It’s very hard to uproot a false assumption, or a “great idea” that isn’t actually so great. I didn’t want to go down the wrong path; it would be very hard to find my way back.

I’m not afraid of making mistakes; I’m just afraid of not being able to fix them.

At moments like those, if you screw up, the best possible outcome is cascading-change edits down the line. Last time I had cascading-change edits, I started writing from the beginning (which ended up being a very good idea). I’m just not sure I’m up to doing that again.

But... maybe.

</tangent> Anyway. I wrote around seven hundred words yesterday, and I spent all day doing it. I spent much of that time with my head in my hands, and another large portion just reading my story over from the beginning. I felt like I was spinning a spider web... not spider-me, just normal-me. (You try spinning a web, see how well you do.)

After I found the lifeline I’d left myself earlier in the book, I wrote myself out of the corner I was afraid I’d become trapped in. Then, exhausted, I asked Branden to read it.

His reaction:

This is really good. I really like where you’re going, I think you did a great job with building tension with derp-derp-derp, and redirecting the flow... yeah, great job.

I felt my body doing the weirdest thing... I was smiling, not in control of it at all. And this weird sound was coming out of me. It was the absolutely dorkiest “hurr hurr hurr” sound. It was surreal.

I am rarely worried about whether or not my writing will be pleasing. It’s probably because I’m a narcissist, but I’m pretty confident that the people who read my writing will not ridicule it. Anything more than that is just ego, and while I try to get it just right, I don’t labor over it too much. It’s rare that there’s a crucial moment, where you can do something actually wrong with real, lasting consequences. And it really made me realize that there are a couple of different kinds of writer’s block, as well as a couple of different kinds of writing.

Volume-writing, the kind you do during NaNoWriMo, helps me get over the first kind of writer’s block. But not all writing is created equal: without the precision-writing, you build no tension, you experience no release, you end up trapped in a post-modern existential nightmare wondering if it was supposed to be this way or if you just suck. And it’s easy to get blocked with precision-writing, because it’s not as easy to fix a mistake if you make one; it makes your fear seem justified.

I will say, though, I did almost step off the path that I wanted my story to follow, and I caught myself one word in. Maybe precision writing just takes practice, like everything else. Maybe mistakes aren’t as easy to make with precision writing.

Anyway, I’m sure I will ruminate on this more throughout my writing endeavors. Thoughts on this topic? or any other? Let me know in comments!

Word count: 27,494 (武)

Happy Friday, you jive turkeys!

Yesterday, I was really jazzed because, after my embittered blog post about the insufferability of writer’s block, I went on to write 2,186 words. I’m entering a part of the story where the only map I have is “tension construction site this way, bring hard hat.” In my first draft, I didn’t do so well at building and releasing tension. I shied away from anyone doing anything too terrible, because people are people and despite having a lot of evidence to the contrary, my brain can’t really accept the fact that people can be absolutely bestial to each other—which makes it hard for me to dream up ways to do that.

It’s actually a bit of a departure from my style to not be able to write despicable characters. Usually, I find that I go way too dark when I imagine narratives. People don’t have normal money problems; they’re prostituting themselves to afford their single bean of a dinner. But with this story, I have to go back through and actually insert cussing. I have to take whatever it was I was going to say, and reimagine it a few shades darker. Otherwise, it’ll come across as pathetic instead of villainous. It’s a weird problem to have, for me. But I think I’m getting there.

I think tension comes from extremes. For example. In our everyday lives, we feel tense about things, and justifiably so. Will the test cover the things we studied? Will we get the promotion? Will I test positive? Did he get my email? Is she mad? These things can cause great tension for us, personally. But if you have a friend who’s telling you about the things that are causing them stress, you’ll feel sympathy for them, but probably no sympathetic tension. BUT: If getting a failing grade on that test means your friend not getting into grad school, or graduating high school—you will probably be hanging on the results. The bigger the stakes, the more tension is built within the conflict. In the context of most stories, bigger stakes usually means more physical danger. (Don’t get mad at me, people who like domestic drama. Those are good too.)

So, how do we balance the danger and the mystery? Too much danger and we give away the answer. Too little, and we feel no tension. It’s a balancing act. For this, we invented the “delete” button—because the nice thing is, we don’t have to do it right the first time. We are performing with a net.

Word count: 26,430 (朾)

A new experience

I’m going to be going to Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins today for Neil Gaiman’s book signing. I’m weirdly nervous. I’ve never been to a book signing, and I have the impression (based on nothing, as far as I know) that Neil Gaiman is super-serious and intimidating. I feel like I’ll hand him my book and he’ll look up at me from under his eyebrows, with his face clearly saying, “and?” and I’ll stammer something hideously stupid, and he’ll shake his head and shrug and scribble something on the page, hand the book back to me and shout, “NEXT!”

But that’s cause I’m crazy and I know it, clap my hands.

In an effort to make sure that I actually get there on time, I’m writing both my blog and my story before checking my comics, Tumblr, and deviantArt. Usually those last two are “where I get my inspiration.” I put that in quotes because it’s always avoidance behavior, and I pretend it’s inspiring, and that’s a harmless pretense most of the time. Today it wouldn’t be, so I’m delaying it until I’ve gotten my “important” stuff done. Go me?

This is actually indicative of huge progress for me, though. I was reading over my blog posts the other day, and had a conversation with a writer friend of mine last night, and I remembered how paralyzed I was so very, very recently. The fact that I look at writing two thousand words a day as a minor annoying chore instead of an insurmountable barrier is... it’s extraordinary, in the true sense of the word. And I know how fragile it is. I know that if I take a week off, the day I try to start again I’ll be crumpled into a little ball and discarded on the floor, emotionally. Once more, there will be a seemingly impenetrable shell around my story and I will want to not even try to crack it.

Long story short, a word-per-day goal really saved my bacon.

I can give good advice to people about getting past their writing anxiety, and it really is good advice... but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to follow. There are so many people on Tumblr asking their favorite authors, “how do I write? It’s so hard, I get so discouraged,” and their advice is always “Just don’t stop, pick yourself up again, and keep writing.” I know from experience that the people are asking not “how do I write” but rather, “how can I have something written without having to write it? Writing is hard and scary,” and the fact that there is no shortcut is baffling. How can there be so many books if there isn’t a shortcut? Writing is too hard for this many people to be doing it. What’s the secret? How do I make it easy? And the fact that when they sit down to write it doesn’t flow right away means that they walk away in frustration and say that writing is just hard.

Well, writing is hard. But if you’re writing something you enjoy, and you make the time for it, the difficulty comes from finding the right words, balancing the tension and release, making sure your story makes sense and works and is interesting—the task seems surmountable, even if difficult, but it now seems challenging, instead of hard. And it’s always scary, that’s for sure. But the more you do it, the less you feel like an intruder or a pretender and the more natural it feels. So unfortunately, the advice “keep writing” is the only advice. There’s something in your head. Get it out. No one will judge you. No one will even know unless you want them to. Write for you. Write because you have to.

That being said, I’m not sure I’m doing a good job on my story. Branden says it’s good so far, but I feel like it’s thin skin spread over bones, and surely everyone can see the bones. But it is not for me to judge the quality of my own work (more good advice), only to do the best job I can.

Fun problem: I went back through a few scenes in my story and added cussing. I didn’t previously realize how G-rated the story was before one of my beta readers pointed out that it’s kinda hard to have a gritty detective novel where no one cusses. Or smokes, or drinks, but that’s sorta plotty so I’m keeping that. Plus I address vice in other areas. (I do think it’s pretty much impossible to have a noir novel without the main character having one or more vices.)

An excerpt:

While I was waiting, I surveyed my domain. I did a daily evaluation of atmosphere; I wanted to make sure that my office gave clients what they wanted. It was on the seventh floor: a long, narrow space squished between two other long, narrow spaces on a long, narrow hallway. I had a window behind the desk that I kept a floor-to-ceiling cupboard pressed up against to block the natural light. Natural light was the gritty detective’s natural enemy, as far as Bogart enthusiasts knew. For my part, I liked to cater to that clientele; it suited my mood. [. . . ] The lampshades in my Seattle office were tea-colored, much more to my liking. I kept an ashtray on the desk and a pack of tobacco cigarettes in my desk drawer even though I didn’t smoke. If I had an appointment, I’d light one and let it burn about halfway before stubbing it out in the ashtray. The lacey curl of smoke climbing ceilingward was an aphrodisiac to people who were romanced by their own mysteries.

How goes your writing, or other creative endeavors, dear reader? Any advice for going to book signings? Let me know in the comments!

Word count: 19,394 (䯂)

You think you're nearer your destination when in fact you're slip-sliding away

So. You may or may not have noticed, but I failed to blog yesterday. I try to keep a M-W-F schedule, but yesterday... yesterday was one of those days.

In the course of my disease, there are some things I’ve learned that are going to happen. These things happen with the best, most effective medication. There is no real way to predict when it’s going to happen, but it’s most frequently on days after days that I’ve spent a lot of energy, either mentally or physically.

These “things” of which I speak are mostly days on which I can’t—or don’t—do anything. I mean anything. I laid on the couch from 8:30 am till 5:50 pm, only getting up to go to the bathroom or, at about 3:30, pour myself a bowl of cereal (technically my breakfast). I had a cut on my thumb, and the neosporin was about two inches out of my reach, and I just couldn’t be bothered to reach over and get it. I’m slightly amazed that I got up the motivation required to turn on Netflix. I didn’t open my laptop to read my comics or Tumblr.

That level of apathy is, I feel, incomprehensible to a normal, healthy person. I think that that kind of behavior is associated with depression, but for me, it’s not. I’m not depressed. There were moments, yesterday, that I was like, “Elly, you really should eat something. Elly, you could be doing something more fun,” but the fact that I wasn’t eating or having any fun didn’t really bother me.

I spent months and months, possibly years, getting really angry at myself, frustrated, and pretty freaked out when this sort of thing would happen. Then I got therapy, coincidentally with a therapist whose mom has MS, and she helped me understand a few things. These things have been key to not descending into misery and guilt.

1. Blaming and punishing myself doesn’t help anything. If anything, it makes it more likely to happen.
2. Sometimes days like that are going to happen, and the most healthy thing to do is acknowledge it and deal with it as it comes, like you would a headache. One doesn’t blame oneself for a headache, or feel guilty for not powering through it, so why should I do that with my fatigue?
3. It’s a real biochemical thing, not a choice I’m making. Not being able to force myself to get up and be productive isn’t a failing any more than not being able to grow wings and fly.

So I deal with it, and I am kind to myself when it happens, but I won’t pretend it’s a blessing or something to have an unannounced “relaxation” day.

Because it’s not relaxation. There’s a large difference between fatigue and relaxation, which is a thing that a lot of people really fail to understand. It’s a day completely lost. It’s like going to sleep on Sunday night and waking up Tuesday morning. I’m not more rested, really (metaphor aside), and that’s a day of my life that’s gone. The chili I was going to make, the shopping trip I was going to do, those things are still not done. And now there are more things that need doing. (For example, today I’m going to write 4,000 words.) And thinking about that makes things seem overwhelming. I don’t know if this is normal, but a lot of days, the only way I get anything done is to approach it with baby steps, or I don’t get off the couch.

And to me, that’s scary.

Anyway, I don’t want to focus on that, because today is another day.

I am writing as soon as I post this blog. I made a lot of progress over the week, and I’m super excited about that. My current word count is 11,180. I feel like the pacing of my story is good and that I’m going to have more than enough content to reach and surpass 50k, hopefully 75k. Of course, that’s hard to see from here, but I’m getting better at gauging stuff like that. NaNo and the revision have really helped me get a handle on pacing and how much content is actually in a thousand words.

Somehow, this story is very writable. Before I started it, I was writing a different story (which I find I can’t really describe in a sentence), and I would struggle for every word. When last I wrote, my word count was 38,640, and it felt like at least three times that, based solely on how long I spent writing it and how much mental anguish went into it. Despite the fact that my writers’ group was enjoying it and giving me kudos, I hated it more and more every time I wrote. This story isn’t like that; for all my insecurities, I still write like a house afire when I can focus long enough to do it.

And that is exciting, and encouraging. We’ve got writers’ group this weekend and I’m very excited for it, even though, as I’ve said in other posts, feedback on a work in progress is only so helpful.

So, do you have hard days? Are you making progress on your stories or revisions? Let me know in the comments!

Timers are magic

I’m getting around to blogging quite late in the day today. I’m blaming Branden for that. Because it’s more relaxing than blaming myself, because certainly it’s not more his fault than mine. I just like his company too damn much.

Yesterday, I accidentally read things about Gamer Gate. I have been aware of this... shall we say travesty... since its inception, but I didn’t really know the affect it was having on real people. Then I happened upon this post by Zoë Quinn, and it made me realize that things are really not okay. I don’t feel well-informed enough to really comment on the GG situation specifically, but I want to make it loudly known that I support babes—in gaming, on the internet, and in the world at large. Yes, there are women who could be more civil and less sensitive to guys who neither intend nor actually do any harm. But a minority of rude women does not excuse the vile vitriol that has been spewing forth from the misogynistic underbelly that has spawned from anonymity on the internet.

I think it would be a really good idea for there to be some kind of real-life consequences—or, hell, I’d settle for actual online consequences—for bad behaviours online. You can’t call someone the n-word (nor most other names) in public without some amount of backlash, whether that be getting punched or getting shamed by their friends; the fact that this is not really possible online is a damned shame. The ability to verbally, mentally, and emotionally abuse someone in the context of an online game is undoing decades of work done by marginalized groups to teach children how to be good citizens and good neighbors, and it should not be tolerated by we who know better.

But how do we who know better collect any amount of influence, let alone wield it? It seems like an insurmountable problem. But I would propose immediately quitting any game in which someone calls someone else something that is racially, sexually, sexuality-ly, gender-ly, or identity-ly charged and taking all like-minded players with you. You train animals by refusing to reward their bad behavior with attention or play, and humans can be trained the same way.

But I don’t know anyone who is willing to do that, unfortunately. Even my most civic-minded friends call it the cost of doing business, which is complete BS in my humble opinion.

But I’m not an online gamer, and no one cares what I think. So I should get back to what I do know: how to fumble about scribbling words onto a page.

Today’s word count: 9,185. Translation: I wrote a hair more than 2,000 words on Wednesday, and a hair more than 2,000 words yesterday. When I publish this, I’m getting to work on today’s 2,000 words, and then I take the weekend off.

I am most looking forward to taking the weekend off.

I’ve taken the same approach to my last 4,000 words that I did for NaNoWriMo: set a timer and write as many words as possible. Race myself, essentially. It means I don’t spend a lot of time overthinking my content... which means things happen that I don’t expect. Let’s just say I’m really looking forward to my writers’ group reading the scene in which Cassidy meets BeBé.

Thoughts on online citizenship? Feminism? Writing your writing with no handlebars? Comment below!

Interrobang‽

This isn’t news to most people following this blog, as most people following this blog are either my own doppelgänger (Branden), follow the same nerdy sites as me, or are well-versed in their own right, but this. This bit of punctuation! I didn’t know that there was a way to type it. There’s apparently also a punctuation mark that is a backwards question mark and a forward-facing question mark that share the same dot, which is called a “love mark” and is meant to end a sentence that expresses love, like “Happy anniversary.” I wish there was a way to type that, but so far I haven’t found it. (There are also many other cool punctuation marks that mostly don’t have a way to type them. See here.)

Second super-fun thing: Neil Gaiman will be signing books at Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins on February 6, starting at 4pm! I think I’d like to try to get there, but I don’t know if I actually will, knowing me. If I did go, I’d bring Neverwhere for him to sign. And maybe book #1 of Sandman. Is that how book-signings work?

Having just reviewed my blog post from Monday, I can say, wow, I was loopy. That’s okay, I’ve written things while loopy that I wonder why I can’t write like that while fully intact. On Monday, after my blog, I did manage to write a little more. Not a lot; only about 200 words, but better than nothing.

I’ve been reading my tumblr and checking my deviantArt feeds till now and I think—I think—that I’m going to be able to open up my writing and write! That will be excellent. I have to say, I’m looking forward to having a finished project. And that anticipation should carry me through the rewrite.

I’m starting to identify more with Cassidy, and that is extremely helpful. I still stress about my ability to pepper clues and red herrings throughout the book, but I can’t fail until I try. What’s more is that the clues, while important, are actually much more understated than it seems they might be if you’re not really analyzing a work. I mean, a lot of the time, “clues” are just things that happen that your investigator doesn’t have the proper context for, that make sense after the mystery is solved. Only very occasionally are clues going to be the fingernail trimmings found in the ashtray, or the discarded zorro mask. More often it’s the fact that the baby’s blanket disappeared, or the friend you haven’t seen in a decade happens to drop by.

I’m trying to work Cassidy’s history into the “present-tense” narrative of the story, and I’m not sure if I’m doing a good job, but hey, that’s what writers’ group is for, right? I’m liking how the theme of the book—identity—is working its way into the peripheral parts of the story without my having meant to squish it in. That’s pretty cool. Mostly, I’m appreciating the things that happen when my brain percolates the story, and I really look forward to writing those things down. So now I just have to conquer the sleepies and the what-if’s and the what-then’s and start writing things down. I managed the first draft in thirty days. Twenty-eight, maybe. If I set myself a word goal, maybe I could manage the second draft in, say, sixty days.

That’s it. I’m setting myself a weekday word goal of 2,000 words per day. I don’t have a top limit, so that’ll be until the book is written, however long that is. On my blog posts I’ll be posting my word count, so all of you readers, you many readers, you legion of readers can keep me honest.

To infinity. And beyond! (Today’s word count: 5,129. Special character? ᐉ [typography is fun])

Finally! Progress!

Although I seem to have contracted Captain Tripps, which is true every time I get sick, I somehow managed to write yesterday. I wrote slowly and laboriously, writing only about 1500 words in something like six hours (with breaks, of course). I’m not sure any of it is worth anything; I haven’t reread it in the cold light of day. But I’m supremely glad that I wrote.

Days dawn and set and every one, I am excited to work on my story, but things stand in the way. Stupid things. Bite-sized things. I’ve talked to my therapist about this, and she and I agree that there is little for it but to just do it. Change scenery, change attitude, change implement, but really, just friggin do it. I’ve been giving myself a sanctioned break because I’ve been so sick, and I’m okay with that, for reals, and because it’s “mandated” I’ve had the luxury to feel antsy about not working on it—as though, if I weren’t sick, I’d be dutifully cranking out twelve hundred words an hour with one hand while luxuriously painting my toenails with the other. Self deception is best deception.

Every time I write I realize anew that writing isn’t so unapproachable. That’s a very good thing. I remind myself that I have no real deadlines and I should feel no real pressure, and my writing group will keep me writing (which is how I’ll avoid abandoning projects as I’ve done so many times in my life). As long as I do as much as I can, when I can, I’ll be okay.

So I finished my outline (as I said in an earlier entry) and I did a card or two for my corkboard, but once again the festering pustule that was my Inner Critic was getting so big that it was crowding out everything else, censoring my cards and rendering them neutered with regards to their power. So I had to write narrative instead, and I found once more that writing narrative serves to drain off the Critic-cyst, to relieve the pressure, and to put everything back in its proper place. Plus it means I’ll have something to share at writers’ group, hooray! I have recently realized that sharing WIPs is not as useful as sharing completed works, but I still get good, useful feedback on my prose. I just wish I could write more...

I’m going to wrap it up because I can feel myself meandering. I am still fully sick, have patience with me. I’ll be back Wednesday to say some more stuff about writing, I hope.