So, I’ve been avoiding writing like you wouldn’t believe. I have a couple of problems.
a) having turned out a bit of prose that I’m fond of, now I feel like I can’t sit down to write unless I’m going to turn out good stuff. So if I’m just not feelin’ it, I feel like I shouldn’t even try.
b) I’m deep enough into my story that it’s now possible to contradict myself or to introduce an element that ought to have been better foreshadowed. As a result, I look at every little piece that I write and feel like I can’t possibly move on until I’ve pawed through the whole thing to make sure it has all its details in order.
So, having this, “Ack, I can’t possibly write ANYTHING because I’ll just need to contradict it later” crisis, I sat down and read some Bird by Bird today.
So, I loves me some Anne Lamott. And, you know, she has an entire chapter on “Shitty First Drafts”. Followed by an entire chapter on “Perfectionism”.
Attend:
“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her.”
“I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”
“Perfection is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here - and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.”
‘Kay, so we’re understanding each other right? We’ve come to something that we’re going to have to accept about this exercise. Which is that, it’s not gonna all be gold. And also, there are probably going to be times when I’m going to have to change what I’ve already written in order to make where I’m going make sense, or ramble for a couple of pages before I know precise what it is I need to say. Yuh-huh.
On that note, I have 400 words of rambling to go do.
Totally, the number one reason why this experiment is working for me is because of the feedback. So far the feedback has been good, but I mean more than that. When I’m writing in a vaccuum, I struggle with the pacing. How long has it been since I described something in rich detail? Have I now used too much detail? How many pages ago did something really gripping happen?
When I’m writing in 1000 word chunks, it feels like my novel is developing a heartbeat. Every installment we have some information, and then a question. A lull and then a peak. And I can guage by the feedback whether the peak was peak-y enough and whether the information was forthcoming and non-teasing enough. When this is all done, if I read through it and find that the 1000 word heartbeat is too fast or two slow, I’ll have a pretty good sense of how much to add in or take out.
And, yes, I realize that, no matter how many words, a one week heartbeat is reeeeally slow.
Last night I went to Saskatoon’s 08 BarCamp and went to a session on Twitter. I confess, I really only picked that session because I was stalking Katherine. And also, that I hadn’t been on Twitter because I could already foretell how much time I’d be wasting on it.
There was some discussion about people who do the “eating a cheese sandwich” updates, and do you really care? And someone said, “we’re such social creatures. Deep down, you probably do care.” I like that. I totally agree. I mean, I probably do not need total instant feedback on the lives of everyone in my network. But this last year at home has really taught me how much it’s the little things, the day to day things that keep you connected to people. When I was in the office every day, I could ask “what’s new” and get told how someone’s Tim Horton’s coffee cup had leaked that morning, or how their son was potty-training or how their neighbour’s daughter said the funniest thing. When I stop in to visit once every two months or so, I ask “what’s new?” and I get, “um. Not much.” And then occasionally something like, “Oh! I got married since we last talked.” Because people think that there’s not much point giving me small stories, if I’m trying to catch up.
The problem is, I’m not trying to catch up (though I probably thought I was) I’m trying to connect.
So anyhow, in the interests of getting our feedback loop tighter and smaller, I’m going to be Tweeting my book 140 characters at a time.
Kidding.
Well, this week marks a pretty great milestone. This is the week I wrote a couple of paragraphs and it didn’t feel like pulling teeth.
I know I have this story to tell, and I know what the points are that I need to tell, but previous weeks’ writing has involved a terrible mashup of email-checking, blog-surfing, painful sentence writing and obsessive word-count-checking (argh, after an hour of working SO HARD at avoidance, all I’ve got is 20 more words???).
So yesterday, I sat down and, well, I only wrote like 600 words, but they were 600 words I enjoyed writing. 600 words where I didn’t notice the time passing. Where I came to a point that required me to research something (horses), and after surfing a bit I thought, “I don’t want to waste time doing this. I want to get back into the story”. So some of the details are still sketchy, but the plot is moving. Yay!
So says Mark McGuinness at Lateral Action.
No, he’s absolutely right. And the reason I’m linking to him is this:
Even before he raised his hammer, Michelangelo located the phantom shape inside a specific stone out there in the world - not inside himself. He didn’t run around for years doing other stuff, telling himself his statues were safe and sound inside him, and ‘one day’ he’d get round to taking sculpture classes. He began with a lump of rock and usually a commission. Both of them supplied by a rich, powerful and very demanding client - just in case he needed any extra incentive to put the hours in.
See? Now you guys are my rich, powerful, very demanding clients.
And I’m the author who’s going to get down to it now. Update #4, coming later today.
Dudes, installment 4 is totally sitting in my drafts list, done and such. But it needs a final look-over and I’m putting that off for Monday morning, then I will post it for Monday afternoon.
You know, I was going to be fierce with myself about posting it before going to bed Sunday night. But this particular Sunday night I’ve been up since 4:30 am, and my son went to bed upset about something he didn’t want to talk about and I have a job interview tomorrow morning (whoever originally advised that you should apply for jobs you have no hope of getting is a very funny man).
So I’ll edit this thing and post it as soon as I’m home from the interview.