Talent vs. dedication

Gabriel: I didn't get much done today.
Me: Are you in trouble with yourself?
Gabriel: With myself?
Me: Yeah. That's the only person I'm ever in trouble with.

And its true. I am my own boss. My own motivator. I am the force that keeps me going.

I want a place where boss-me and worker-me can get along. But they're always fighting. Jupiter-dominated, creative, crazy, adventurous, irresponsible worker-me wants to write about all sorts of silly, fleeting things. Or about important things that just can't get done right now. Worker-me wants to write about all the books I will write. About all the characters I create, step away from, and then meet again with well-performed surprise.

But Saturn-ruled boss-me wants to see the numbers. What is the word count so far? What is the daily goal? Where is the schedule?

When will this part be finished? And the next?

Worker-me is so ambitious, but also very slow. And so, I am always in trouble with myself. Always inwardly fighting to develop some sort of idea of productivity and success.

The definitions are still a little shaky, but mostly they center around groundedness and peace, and fame of course. Ah, fame.

There is a little gauge in my head that lets me know when to put myself in trouble. Boss-me gets angry with worker-me for not doing enough.

But worker-me is insightful and cunning, and will often question boss-me's vision, demanding that boss-me redirect the efforts. I suppose its a functioning relationship.


P.S..........

This is the little frog that lives in our front yard. Isn't he cute? Very elusive and very fast, he can sometimes be seen hopping around the planter boxes by the door. He doesn't really like being spotted, but he kindly let Gabriel take his photograph.

Get distracted

Many writing maladies can be prevented. Editing may present the cure, but Writing deserves prevention. I have the tendency to over describe. Adjectives on top of adjectives and six-clause sentences. Lovely? Maybe. Important? Maybe not.

When I pack up my Mead journal and head to a picnic bench on campus (pretending to be a student hehe) or to a coffee shop or a touristy beach, I write A LOT better.

Isn't that odd?

I thought writing was about cabins in woods. I had my cabin in the woods. It worked pretty darn good for productivity but not so good for the understandability factor.

When people are laughing, eating, drinking, mixing, texting around me, I find that I write only the most important things. Only what the character is thinking in that moment. My character can't pick out every little detail in the scene, because that family over there is fighting about when to go back to their hotel and that girl is waiting for her boyfriend and that floatee is flying away and that cappuccino is ready...and...what was I saying?

Oh scratch that detail! Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Focus. Only the most important things.

In case you were wondering,

I haven't posted in a while, because I didn't want to let you in on my dirty little secret. But now that I've come to terms with it, I have to tell you what it is: I'm rewriting my first book!

I want to feel terribly embarrassed by this, but I worked through the self-hatred in a matter of days. Awful days they were though, lemme tell ya.

My go-for-it attitude got me in a serious bind. I've already told you about my rookie run-in with word count, so here comes another newbie mistake:

For my second draft, I fine-tuned the voice differentiation of my two narrators. For the third draft, I reworked a few scenes. For my fourth, I took out a scene, and I added one. For my "fifth draft," I've decided to rewrite the whole thing.

I'm editing backwards! Going from small to big! What the heck is up with that? But I'll still have to get back to fine-tuning. My revision process for this WIP is a mountain. I am my own Aristotelian Arc.

Had I been a reader of blogs before revising, I may have come across one of Natalie Whipple's endlessly helpful posts, like Stages of Revision or my personal favorite, When I go hardcore. I would've known that it is super silly to fine-tune something you might later scrap, but honestly...I should've known that anyways. I was plagued by the belief that my story couldn't change, that what happens is what happens, an ailment Natalie has also written about. Thank goodness I'm not the only one.

Won't I always have this problem? Won't I always be able to write better at the end of a project then at the beginning? Couldn't I just write circularly, chasing my wisening tail round and round and round 'til I've got one story that took one seriously repetitive lifetime to write?

No. I will resist the temptation. Too long word-count and backwards editing are not why I am rewriting. The real reason is because of my ultimate newbie mistake.

When in first-draft mode, I couldn't pick a genre. For the life of me, I simply couldn't get myself to stop saying, "YA Fantasy." Was my WIP YA? Or was it fantasy? I couldn't decide! I didn't know my reader's age or their favorite section of the bookstore. I teetered between teen and adult. Between YA and fantasy. My book teeters too.

When I finally did decide on YA, I had a third draft that read like bad fantasy. Not bad metaphor fantasy. But bad information dump fantasy. I know. But I just couldn't leave it behind. Well, I'm tougher now.

And so, I begin again. I'm doing it forwards this time. I've spent the last few months doing a lot of research about what it is to write a novel. The amazing part is that I'm excited about this. This time around, I know the story so well that the voices and characters aren't being as overwhelmed with the lore and conspiracy. The back story is staying where it belongs and the writing is fresher for it, just like YA should be.

I'd like to hate myself for this absolute ridiculous, but I don't. Its all experience. Its what I want to do.

listening to my music

In my on-going quest to perfect my process, and redefine it for my current work-in-progress, I experiment.

I have read of authors who listen to music while writing. At first I thought that was just crazy. It would be terribly distracting and would inject the wrong mood into a story. Now I am using it as a tool. Today, I turned on Pandora and wrote out a scene that has been giving me trouble. If a song didn't seem to fit with the mood of the piece, I would click dislike, and something else would come on.

I challenged myself to the music, like Finish this part by the time the song is over. Certain songs would truly help me focus. I'd forget the real world existed until the song was over. Then I'd look down and discover I had written a page.

The type of music is key. I chose from my indie/folk/country stations : The Be Good Tanyas, Over the Rhine, and Sufjan Stevens for example. They are all artists who embrace whatever odd inflections find their way into their voices, who really know how to blend vocals and instruments until they are inseparable. They helped me to just release the story swirling round in my brain, to not seek perfection. To just get it out.

Had I listened to synthed mainstream pop, I may not have been similarly inspired. I may have been afraid to make mistakes. Who knows, though? Maybe sometime I'll see what Lady Gaga can do to a scene. But only if she's right for it. Only if she fits.