Tuesday, February 7, 2012

A Couple of Things

I haven't written a word of my work-in-progress all month. Yes, we're only seven days into February and yes, I have been ill almost every one of the last seven days (damn you, virii!), but still. One likes to tell oneself that one writes every day.

Although I haven't put any words onto paper this month, I am thinking a lot about the story. That's how I've been writing this book, it seems: planning each chapter in my head and then writing it down and then thinking for a few days or a week or two about the next chapter and how that chapter continues the story but also leads to the ending I want. I'm doing a lot of outlining in my imagination, telling myself the story over and over and seeing how it all fits. This is not my usual method, but this is not my usual type of story. This book is more about examining attitudes than about working out a plot. We'll see how that goes.

One problem with a book of this type is that I find myself in about the dead center of the narrative and I need to keep the story moving forward but there isn't any particular action required of the protagonist and his foil character. I need to have a couple of things happen in terms of timeline (the male lead needs to have knee surgery, poor guy, and the female lead needs to return from Africa to America), but neither of those things are really EVENTS, so I've been thinking of ways to make those plot machinations into significant character moments, places where I can dig deeper into these two people's souls or whathaveyou. I have some solid ideas, I think.

So that's me, thinking about my work-in-progress but not so much adding to my wordcount. I also have a couple of manuscripts out on submission with small presses, but the publishing world moves at its own pace and I haven't heard anything back yet. I am still trying to figure out what to do with my odd little philosophical detective story. Try to find an agent? Try to find a small mystery publisher for it? Call it a fun time had and move on with my life? No idea.

I'm also thinking a lot these days about the idea of writing for publication, and how less happy I was when I was working with agents and worrying over every stinking word I wrote, trying to decide if those words were marketable. That was some stress, I tell you. It's more fun writing for the joy of writing than writing with the hopes of selling something, really it is. Though of course I'd love a publishing deal and I haven't ruled that out. I think the book I'm writing now has Pulitzer written all over it. I think that about almost every book I write, though.

But the publishing world is odd, and engaging actively with it does things to you, and they are not always good things. A friend of mine, whose writing I greatly admire, writes nontraditional books that don't strictly follow the "transformative journey of the hero" template. Her stories have more indeterminate endings and she often explores the parts of life that happen after all the excitement has died down. She has several books out, and more coming out soon, from a small publisher. They are respectable books and the prose is lovely and the thinking is deep and original but they don't sell by the truckload. My friend could sell truckloads of books if she wrote to the popular outsider-turned-hero formula, I'm sure. I don't know if that would make her happy, though. It's a puzzler.

But that's the writing life, for a lot of us: filled with unanswerable questions and no guarantees of anything except that we'll keep writing because stories are our art and we're artists, yes? Many of the artist friends of the Literary Lab have written stories for our Variations on a Theme contest, and we are slowly making our way through them (I've been ill, I repeat) and we'll announce the lovely chosen entries soon. I am once again amazed at the quality of writing and that you guys sent us these stories. You have no idea how cool I think it is that I'm connected--even by such an untouchable, anonymous thing as the internet--with a bunch of people who share my art, who will write despite the lack of guarantees and answers, because writing is what we all do. That's supercool. Keep it up.

14 comments:

  1. We're definitely artists, of a sort.

    I've had trouble with stories like that as well, where nothing is really happening. I throw them away and write pulp instead. I can take all the overdone plots and anti-literary stories and put all the heavy, deep philosophy into them that I want. That's my middle ground.

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    1. I think that as long as the narrative remains active and forward-moving, the characters don't need to be jumping through flaming hoops of rancid sausages or whatever. Like Henry James said, a young woman standing alone and immobile beside an empty table is an event worth relating, as long as you create context and meaning for that moment of stillness. Toward the end of The Ambassadors when Strether leaves Paris and spends a day walking around in the country, you get the most glorious pages in the novel, with Strether seeing--for once in his life--what life actually can be. A significant chunk of inaction that is nonetheless a significant event.

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  2. A couple months ago, I wasn't writing at all. I was catching all sorts of flack from my critique group because I wasn't bringing anything to the table. So I started going to a local coffee shop (not very original, I know) every morning for an hour or two and just writing. Sometimes it's one of my WIPs (yes, I have several), other times I just take a blank sheet of paper and start freewriting. My output has increased dramatically and some of it is pretty good. And my writing group is happy. I haven't been seeking publication for some time and am not in any hurry to do so (except for the anthology, of course!). I'm happier that way.

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    1. Writing every day is an excellent habit. Before my favorite Chinese restaurant closed (and eliminated my favorite booth in which to write) and my favorite burger place remodeled to increase capacity by cramming twice the seats into the same space and eliminatnig tables big enough to both eat and write, I would write for an hour every day at lunch. It's a swell way to remain connected with your stories. I'm still trying to work out where and when I can write every day. Some days there is simply, honestly, no place to sit down in this neighborhood. The coffee shops runneth over during the lunch hours here.

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  3. I go back and forth between writing internally and actually writing. Lately I've been in the actual writing stage of my WIP, which I started back into in late December and have grown it from 16,000 words to 43,000 words. Now that I'm at the halfway point, I'm taking time to read back through from the beginning to make sure I'm on steady footing for the rest of the novel. (NOTE: I'm not.)

    But still, this is a satire about the end of the world, and it's damn fun to write. Reading back is less fun because the mistakes are more glaring, but those I can fix. (NOTE: Maybe.)

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    1. Ah, so you're working on that book now, are you? From what you've said about it so far, it sounds like a rollicking good time. I'll bet it's fun to write, though comedy is hard damn work.

      If you can see the problems, you can fix them. Awareness is the biggest hurdle. The rest is just mechanics.

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    2. I can't wait to read that one, Rick. :)

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  4. If there is no action think about the "WTF" stuff that is going on. Obviously you need to get through something to the next part of the plot. Throw in some stuff to get the MC and reader wondering what is going on? It holds people to the plot as well as action does.

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    1. Actually, I think what's needed now in both storylines is a moment of stillness, of suspended animation, like when you hold your breath while the trapeze artist is doing a quadruple flip in midair without a net and seems to be spinning in slow motion.

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    2. I read the suspended animation portion of my Cyberlama book to my writer's group on Sunday and 87 year old Norm told me it was boring. Still, I'm keeping it in. I'm all about those moments!

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  5. Scott, thanks for the insight into how you are writing this book! I'm finding myself thinking a lot more with Cyberlama, as opposed to writing and then revising. It has been interesting. And, YES, I'm quite impressed with the entries I'm reading so far. Really, I am shocked by the fact that I have been impressed by nearly all of the ones I've read.

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  6. Thanks for this post, Scott. I am trying to work on novel #2 while novel #1 is on submission, and it does mess with your head. I think just having gone through the query process can mess with your head. You start to think of what will grab someone, what will be marketable, and sometimes you lose the characters and their story. You're trying to force them to be something they have no intention of being. I hear them telling me to take a breath and listen. Just listen. And then write it down.

    But it's hard to get the rest out of your head.

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    1. When I first started writing queries and having books on submission, my brain was burning up inside a weird frenzy that lasted a couple of years. Nowadays I feel far less frenzied. When I write queries (which is rarely but sometimes I'm moved to) I quietly think about the novel and not about the agent at all. Agents aren't people I try to impress these days. If they don't like the book or can't sell it, that's fine. Same with the small publishers I'm subbing to. The books are what they are and I'm not going to try to grab anyone's attention. I refuse to buy into the frenzy again.

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  7. Lots to think about here, Scott. Thank you for writing this. First of all, about thinking and writing, I did that with Scales. That book was mostly written in my head, and it's why it took 11 months to write because I had a lot of crap going on in my head during those 11 months - most of it publishing junk, which is entirely and devastatingly distracting. I wish to move beyond such a distraction, but being published pins you up against a wall, of sorts, and it's really difficult to squirm away for a moment to write another blasted book.

    I feel like Scales was written up against that wall, me terrified as I scribbled furiously into a notepad in my trembling hands. But, like I said, most of that time was spent thinking about the book. That's where all my writing happens except for the brief moments I'm typing. They really do feel brief compared to the giant amount of time spent in my head on the story and characters.

    You know I'm rooting for you with the small presses, and since your detective book is pretty much my favorite book you've written, you do realize I will not let you shelve it, right? It must be read by many. It must, I tell you.

    I think my way of NOT writing for publication is my short stories. I want them out there, but since I've decided to put them all out there on my own, it makes a world of difference. My short story collection will always be my strange little safe haven. I don't care if they never sell a copy, and that's the difference between my novels and my short stories. Wherever that leaves me.

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