Soaring

Every morning I take an early hour's walk before settling down to do my daily duties. The other day they had predicted snow and rain but when I checked at 0630 it was still clear so I dressed warmly and set out to put in the time.  The breeze grew brisk as the cold front was passing through, driving cardboard boxes, papers, and endless drifts of leaves before it and impeding my headway as I set out.

As I was returning I spotted a dark shape rising over the tree line between me and the South River, soaring toward my position.  It appeared to be a turkey buzzard, quite common hereabouts, taking advantage of the stiff wind. His route was toward me but varied as the wind quartered, drifting effortlessly to this side or another, only to return to his main course.  At times, when the breeze was right, he would hover motionless, suspended fifty or more meters above the ground, with only his pinions adjusting his flight. When the wind lessened the buzzard swooped to the side, diving to build speed then rising again to catch the wind from another direction.  I admired the ease with which he followed his search for his meal, the delicate control over elevation and attitude with tail and wing.
Eventually he passed over me and disappeared to the north, disappearing behind a row of houses; gone, but not forgotten.

My current experience with NaNoWriMo is similar to that buzzard's flight.  The wind of plot forces my direction, ever forward and never looking back to find that morsel that will feed the story.  Just like the buzzard, my story diverts on occasion, but always, always returns to the main thread.  Sometimes the emotional feeling of the story rises and falls, the characters grow more complex, or the situations simply arise from the activities they are performing.  I know that somewhere ahead lies resolution of one or more of the subarcs, but its shape and size are as yet unknown.  The NaNoWriMo wind is at my face, ever pushing to complete my task, to build the story, to achieve something I have, before now, thought impossible.

It is wonderful to feel that wind beneath my wings.

#SFWApro

The Game's Afoot

Last week I despaired of participating in the annual NaNoWriMo debacle, wherein writers are forced to face the limits to their physical and mental capabilities by attempting to write a minimum of fifty thousand words in a single month.  To understand how daunting this is you must know that I am a deliberating short story writer who plans every step while trying to define the shape and size of a story at the outset before deliberately filling the empty pages with words, words, words, I thought the idea of attempting, e.g planning, something so long as a foolish venture.

[Flashback] At this year's CapClave Jamie Todd Rubin and I presented two approaches to writing.  My approach consisted of plans and careful plotting while Jamie's Pantser approach was flying by the seat of his pants.  Although there was a certain similarity in the tools we used, the philosophical approaches we chose were quite apart.[/ Flashback]

Frustrated (as usual) by my incomplete novels, the recent impossible demands for editorial revisions ("... but not just now, please") and having made yet another contribution to the collaboration, I decided to throw caution to the wind and just let the words come out as they would.  Perhaps that would clear the mind and allow me to find out what this "pantser" crap was all about while climbing the NaNoWriMo mountain to see how far it might take me. If nothing else it would give me an excuse not to actually work at writing something "good."

I was already three days behind when I made this decision so my hopes were not high that I could eke out more than a page or two - three at the outside - with nothing more than a skimpy outline of a thirty-five scene progression I'd put together years ago when my dreams were larger than my talent. I had no idea of plot, of setting, or background as I read the first scene, which was, in its entirety: "Introduce the characters and give them a purpose."

Thus I began writing a rollicking fantasy quest that soon seemed to be taking place on a distant planet and with steam technology, alien ruins, and ...  I really don't know what comes next because the rest of the progression is replete with non-specific titles e.g. "First conflict" or "New character introduced."  Within two days I'd caught up to the demanding word count and, much to my surprise, was actually having fun as the story told itself to me without forethought.

Which makes me ask myself; have I been a closet pantser all this time?

#SFWApro

The NaNoWriMo Worm

The NaNoWriMo month has come again, like Jason knocking on the door with a creative chainsaw in hand, demanding another fifty fucking thousand words of tribute - OR ELSE! The last thing I need at this time of year is this annual dollop of writerly guilt added to the angst-ridden heap already cluttering my virtual desk.

It isn't as if I haven't been productive. I just wrote a humorous short story while struggling with a collaboration and cranking a dozen new sentences into a revision requested by an editor, as well as going over galleys until my eyes began to boil.  These things take time and each carries a time-bound load of obligation to be discharged. Yeah, that and the random rantings I commit that add to the unfinished draft pile-o'-guilt.

Each year at this time I have a moment of cold reflection and wonder whether I have the fortitude, courage, or willingness to embark on developing more of the fledgling novel I attempted last year (and the year before, to be honest.)  Write, write, write the NaNoWriMo cries while my own worm of time eats at my temporal gut: would the level of risk in expending a month of time and effort on a single novel really worth it?  What is the value of risking that my fifty or a hundred thousand burst of words may never be read by another soul?  

Consider the economics of the situation: would the same amount of time and creative energy be better be spent writing short stories, one or two of which might eventually see publication?  At Rio Hondo Paolo Bacigalupi observed that unless your joy comes from the writing of a long work you should not consider doing it.  But to me, at least the prospect of spending a month writing something that may never touch someone's heart appears pointless.  I have no illusions that any draft I may create during the NaNoWriMo period will be in any way superior to another's or even that it might convey some unique insight on the human condition. Contrariwise, I have more than a reasonable expectation that my quota of fifty thousand words might be more elegantly employed in writing (and editing) short, incisive works.

So, at this point of my life I face a choice: to continue to write short stories in hopes that a few might eventually find market, or to spend my remaining time writing, marketing, and promoting a longer work.  There are not years enough for both so I must choose, and soon.  NaNoWriMo has started and I am already three thousand words behind.

The worm of time consumes the moments remaining and I must use them wisely.

#SFWApro

Population Growth

Where do these people come from?  I start off with a simple story about one (1) named character and set my protagonist off to perform a role, which brings the protag into contact with another, who must naturally be given a name as well - if only so they can have a conversation.  But there are consequences to having a secondary character as either protagonist or antagonist.  These newly introduced characters evoke their own back stories, which give rise to even more characters, more names, more interactions and then they, cascading is a chain reaction, explode into universes and societies, fabled reputations, lies and unpleasant truths, conflicts and peaceable reconciliations.

The simple tale has unleashed a tsunami of consequences.

Yet one must deal with this emerging fictional population. The most economical way some writers deal with it is by assigning names in relation to that player's impact on the tale.  Protagonists always have full names and carry fully detailed descriptions, secondary characters may get first or last names, and sometimes switch between these modes while getting short shrift on the descriptive element.  Characters of minor importance are graced with a single name, nickname, or only an insignificant descriptive passage e.g. "...a gray clad figure, casually glanced."  These nominal clues inform the reader in subtle ways, such as realizing that a fully named character in chapter one must be important even though that person may not appear until much later in the book.

These secondary, tertiary, and other characters often proliferate, scurrying across the pages, exposing themselves briefly before disappearing. Who knows their origins?  Did they emerge spontaneously from the Planck layer of a writer's subconsciousness or are they simply ornaments that decorate the plot? Regardless, they flit around the pages like silverfish in an old pulp mag, bothering the hell out of the curious reader and leaving only the chewed and ragged edges of their impressions behind.

And sometimes, to the dismay of the author, they rebel, grow, and make the story their own.

#SFWApro

(Im)Patience

Autumn has arrived and with it my annual bout of guilt regarding NaNoWriMo, wherein one promises publicly that they will write at least fifty thousand words in a month. This is supposed to simultaneously   spark one's creativity and eliminate one's internal editor from restricting the flow of words.  Perhaps some who engage in this masturbatory bout of self-abasement manage to create the beginnings of a novel or even finish one.  However, for many, the results are to fall far short of the goal, only to look back and wonder what they were thinking to produce such a stream of drivel that now must be edited again and again before it even achieves mediocracy, much less literary acceptance. I annually fall into this category.

For me NaNoWriMo is an annual call to return to that long novel I have been "writing" for three years. The work now stands at just over 50k edited words with but one third of the story told.  The remaining two thirds of the tale exists as a detailed outline,research material, character sketches and miscellaneous plans for the unfolding of the longer, tripartite epic.  It is daunting to look at the work and feel guilty that I have not fulfilled the promise of that piece but have written an equal amount of other words and even sold some of them.

What holds me back from completing the novel is that I am, at base, an impatient short story writer (who also suffers from PSS.)   I am constantly aware that fifty thousand words is equal to the amount needed to draft  ten short stories, six novelettes, or six novellas - all of which scream to be written NOW and not when the arduous work of writing the novel's middle sections will stretch my patience to its limits.

I always yearn to be finished.   Every time I start writing on the novel other ideas pop into my head - scenes, snatches of dialogue, plots, and even settings, although that is not my long suit.  Humor also raises its ugly head at inappropriate times, drains the drama, and is usually is too funny to ignore.

So I set my loins, determined to write the novel, maybe dash off a short story or two when I need  a break, and, when the New Year dawns I will still be staring at my unfinished novel.  At that point, if history is any guide, I will vow to finish the damned thing -  that is, unless a few short story ideas pop up to distract me.

Again.

#SFWApro

Processes and Methods

I'm coordinating this blog post with Jamie Todd Rubin's so people would get a better perspective.  Last week at CapClave we gave a little (about 90 minutes!) presentation on On Line Writing Tools to illustrate how he, as a seat of the pants guy e.g. Pantser used his tools and I, a dull methodical planner e.g. Plotter, used mine.  Jamie has put part of his Evernote section in his weekly blog, which might explain how those first twenty some slides of the presentation actually looked when presented.

Both of emphasized at the outset that the audience was not to focus on the specific tools we used but rather to look beyond them to the general principles that drove our use. In the presentation we spoke a great deal of our development methods that employed the various tools and the processes we followed from conception of a story to it's publication and resale.  As I said in my Tools blog post, the most important element in both method and process was the creative mind.

What should have also been evident was that both of us, Pantser and Plotter, were both adherents of keeping accurate and timely records as we developed and marketed our short stories, even though our methods of doing so were very different.   Jamie Todd works almost entirely in Evernote while I use databases and diagraming tools - legacy of my consulting work - but both of us finish in Scrivener, perhaps the best writing program ever!

There are dozens of free and not-so-free writing tools out there to help almost any writer, but each has to find the tools that work for them, that free them of the burden and let them concentrate on the most important aspect, which is to write, write, and write!

#SFWApro

Pushing Boundaries

There comes a time in every writer's life where they reflect on their work and often wonder what they might have produced had they gone a different way or tried a different technique. This inevitably leads one to wonder if they had become stale and predictable - basically repeating the same old formulaic material time after time.  This then leads to drinking, socializing, and spending time with the family - all to the detriment of their writing career.

Self reflection is often a good thing, something too many fail to put serious effort into.   Pushing the envelope containing your oeuvre is difficult, especially when one has a modicum of recognition in the genre.  It is easy to continue to crank out material based on all you have written before. In fact, mining one's rejected material and failed drafts is an honored practice among writers - where else could you find such gems? But the recycling of tired tropes grants no one grace and can make writing a chore rather than the unalloyed joy it should bestow.

The first time a writer bravely steps out of their comfort zone and attempts to craft something new it is met with failure i.e rejections.  But so was a writer's first submissions.  Better to try a second, third, or even a fortieth time if the goal is to establish a new writing niche.  Perhaps you will discover depths hitherto unknown, a new style, a new approach to developing ideas, or perhaps you will strike the gold of acceptance by appreciative readers.

One can always hope.




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