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pausing to reflect on the lack of panic
Sep. 7th, 2007 12:23 amretrievers #6
Midbookitis! Or thereabouts anyway.
And pardon me while I ramble about yet another evolution in the writing of a book, possibly specifically a series book, where I know all these characters (except the ones who walk up mid-scene and introduce themselves and ask where they should drop their kit, but more on them later).
First, I had an outline, and the outline was Good, except where it was Wrong but I had a damn good idea where things went and why. And the middle sagged and the ending was rushed, but I could and did (mostly) fix those things in revision. It wasn't easy and I was on a wing and a prayer most of the time but I didn't know any better as even the most jaded of us don't when falling in love the first time.
Then things started getting complicated, plot-wise and the outline started turning mean and surly on me, and the books got harder to write, and there was much wailing and angsting and wondering how I was going to pull a working rabbit out of the hat when I had no idea where the damn hat was, anyway and who put the rabbit in the stew?
And then around book four I started to see a method in my madness. This was what I did here, and that was how I reacted there, and thus went the traumarama then, and it all felt very familiar. And once it got familiar, it couldn't be quite so trauma-making, because obviously I'd survived it before and some people thought the end result didn't suck so badly, so... maybe I was doing this Right for This Book[tm]?
By book five I had it down to a science. Mad science, yes, but a science. Like Tony B crossed with Sir Alton and let loose in Martha Stewart's kitchen with a beaker of scotch and a stewpot full of curry. And if that doesn't scare you, feel free to come over for dinner some night.
(can you tell I've been writing all night?)
And now here I am, midpoint in book six, first draft. The mad science is being internalized. I don't hate the book, and I'm not angsting, and I'm not doubting.
It's not that it's suddenly gotten any easier. I know the draft sucks. I know there are terrible plot holes, OOC behavior and worse continuity errors, and a shiteload of things I need to clarify and correct. And some of them I'll get to in the second pass, and some of them Madame Editrix will hand to me, along with my ears and tail, in the revisions. And some of them will escape both of us and the copyeditor, and humiliate me when I see it in the printed book, and That's The Way it Goes. Doesn't make me work any less hard, or worry any less much, or panic any fewer times over my competence or lack thereof to convey what the characters are going through, and how it should (please god) hit the reader to make them feel and react and learn. It's just the way it works for me and trying to change that isn't going to make the book any easier to write. And accepting that lets me get on with the getting it done part.
I'm not having fun with the book right now. It's behaving like a balky goat on a narrow mountain path (see: curry reference earlier), and I need to get me a stick to hit it. But this is also the way it goes for me when I am writing, and that's all part of the fun -- the not-having-fun, beating-with-a-stick part. Knowing this and knowing that it's a phase to the writing I go through, make even hunting for a stick enjoyable, in its own way.
This is my job. I love it very much.
Even when it's beating me with that stick.
And now I'm going to bed.
