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lagilmanIt's flocking freezing here on the midsection of the East Coast, and while normally I'd love it to death, there's no snow to go with it, which is bumming me out. Too cold to snow. How wrong is that?
So I should be working, but maybe because it's so cold and there's too much static in the air, I'm skitterbrain this afternoon. I can get 100 or 200 words written, and then my brain sees something pretty!shiny!bright! and pounces, and we're off in another direction...
Part of it's because I leave for London on Thursday, and my act isn't even
moderately together. And my folks are heading for Malta on Monday and we're
trying to arrange brunch tomorrow despite my mom's legendary overthinking
of details. And there's all this Work Stuff that needs to get done and filed before then...
Focus. Right.
I need more cafFiend. Or less. Or something.
So instead of working, I'm thinking. I've written a scene in R2: In Search of A Working Title that started out pretty good okay. And then as I was writing it I could feel it starting to go off-course. And I know it's happening and I sort of almost know how to fix it. And if I go away and look at something else for a few minutes, odds are pretty good the course correction will come to me. The trick is not to force myself to keep writing once I realize that it's not coming out the way I wanted it to.
I know that one of the great pieces of advice given to writers is to write the entire story out first and let the internal editor come out later, after it's set on the page. They'd tell me to keep writing, that I might discover it actually wasn't bad at all, that it was just my self-doubts telling me it sucked. And mostly I'd say that's excellent advice. Don't stop to second-guess yourself.
But...
here I am, writing and writing and listening to the internal editor as I go. Which Advice tells me is exactly the wrong thing to do. Only -- and this is important -- in my case she's not the backseat driver telling me I can't drive. She's more the OnStar voice telling me I just missed a turn but if I hang a left and then another left I'll be back on course.
I suspect a lot of this has to do with the fact that I've spent fifteen years thinking about storytelling with the editor up-front and center most of that time. She's not a dummy -- and she knows (at least I'd like to think she does) how to guide the writer-side through tricky spots (or, ideally, keep them from becoming too tangled from the get-go).
I had a lot of trouble with this, writing the first book. Not that everything had to be perfect the first or even third-go-round, because lord (and my betas) knows it wasn't. I can write sucky prose as well (badly?) as anyone. But the more I tried to turn the internal editor off, the more difficult it became to sit down and work.
Had I ruined myself as a writer, spending all those years on the other side of the desk?
But what I've realized is that, as in my goofy-ass example above, this particular internal editor is a navigator, not a doubter. When I turn her off, I have to stop and consult the maps myself, and the writer-brain is really not good with maps.
Honestly, the doubting-in-the-work comes directly from my writer-side, and she's loud enough for both sides. In fact, often times it's the editor-side that tapes her mouth shut and lets us get on with it.
(as I've said before, I'm not a schizophrenic, just... really crowded)
Anyway. That's how it works for me. Which flies in the face of really good advice. Sometimes, you have to do that.
And none of that may have made any sense to anyone else. But it clarified a few things for me.
Addendum: Or, you know, I could be completely full of shite. 750 words written today, although I'm hopeful for a second wind later on tonight. And, in parting, these words from P.D. James:
"I never start until the whole of the story is very clear in my mind, and indeed down in the notebooks," she said. "I know the suspects. I know what their motives are. Despite the careful preparation, I never get exactly the book I thought I was writing."
Savoring Old Murders, Spinning Tales of New Ones
New York Times, January 10, 2004
By MEL GUSSOW
So I should be working, but maybe because it's so cold and there's too much static in the air, I'm skitterbrain this afternoon. I can get 100 or 200 words written, and then my brain sees something pretty!shiny!bright! and pounces, and we're off in another direction...
Part of it's because I leave for London on Thursday, and my act isn't even
moderately together. And my folks are heading for Malta on Monday and we're
trying to arrange brunch tomorrow despite my mom's legendary overthinking
of details. And there's all this Work Stuff that needs to get done and filed before then...
Focus. Right.
I need more cafFiend. Or less. Or something.
So instead of working, I'm thinking. I've written a scene in R2: In Search of A Working Title that started out pretty good okay. And then as I was writing it I could feel it starting to go off-course. And I know it's happening and I sort of almost know how to fix it. And if I go away and look at something else for a few minutes, odds are pretty good the course correction will come to me. The trick is not to force myself to keep writing once I realize that it's not coming out the way I wanted it to.
I know that one of the great pieces of advice given to writers is to write the entire story out first and let the internal editor come out later, after it's set on the page. They'd tell me to keep writing, that I might discover it actually wasn't bad at all, that it was just my self-doubts telling me it sucked. And mostly I'd say that's excellent advice. Don't stop to second-guess yourself.
But...
here I am, writing and writing and listening to the internal editor as I go. Which Advice tells me is exactly the wrong thing to do. Only -- and this is important -- in my case she's not the backseat driver telling me I can't drive. She's more the OnStar voice telling me I just missed a turn but if I hang a left and then another left I'll be back on course.
I suspect a lot of this has to do with the fact that I've spent fifteen years thinking about storytelling with the editor up-front and center most of that time. She's not a dummy -- and she knows (at least I'd like to think she does) how to guide the writer-side through tricky spots (or, ideally, keep them from becoming too tangled from the get-go).
I had a lot of trouble with this, writing the first book. Not that everything had to be perfect the first or even third-go-round, because lord (and my betas) knows it wasn't. I can write sucky prose as well (badly?) as anyone. But the more I tried to turn the internal editor off, the more difficult it became to sit down and work.
Had I ruined myself as a writer, spending all those years on the other side of the desk?
But what I've realized is that, as in my goofy-ass example above, this particular internal editor is a navigator, not a doubter. When I turn her off, I have to stop and consult the maps myself, and the writer-brain is really not good with maps.
Honestly, the doubting-in-the-work comes directly from my writer-side, and she's loud enough for both sides. In fact, often times it's the editor-side that tapes her mouth shut and lets us get on with it.
(as I've said before, I'm not a schizophrenic, just... really crowded)
Anyway. That's how it works for me. Which flies in the face of really good advice. Sometimes, you have to do that.
And none of that may have made any sense to anyone else. But it clarified a few things for me.
Addendum: Or, you know, I could be completely full of shite. 750 words written today, although I'm hopeful for a second wind later on tonight. And, in parting, these words from P.D. James:
"I never start until the whole of the story is very clear in my mind, and indeed down in the notebooks," she said. "I know the suspects. I know what their motives are. Despite the careful preparation, I never get exactly the book I thought I was writing."
Savoring Old Murders, Spinning Tales of New Ones
New York Times, January 10, 2004
By MEL GUSSOW
