Another John Said
Laughing At Myself
I’ve been laughing at myself. When I finished the first draft of April Showers 1921, I thought, what a mess. Then I began hunting for what to do.
I found problems with structure, character motivation, pacing, story-telling… Whatever could go wrong seemed present. Very disheartening.
I began hunting fixes, slicing like a surgeon removing tumors. Draft two was finished and stalled, then three was written and discarded, followed by four. I lamented to myself, “This is like telling the history of World War II. So much happened. How do I find the right handle to it?”
That lament helped. Although I was complaining, it was true. The novel sprawled in a million directions. I needed to reduce the sprawl and improve the story.
Meanwhile, in parallel, I was reading thrillers. I was reminded of a Stephen King quote: “I showed them what can happen, and then I make them wait for it to happen again.” I’m paraphrasing. Forgive me. Maybe it wasn’t King, too, but I thought it was.
Whoever came up with that quote, it helped me sharpen my story’s focus, and tightened my grip on the sprawl.
I created some rules for myself.
- Head down. Focus, and stay focused. Work hard. Concentrate.
- Stay humble. Ride the wave. It’s a long ride, so manage your energy and emotions.
- Write better. Tell a better story. Sharpen your story-telling skills.
The last was revealing. I’d always concentrated on writing, putting words after words, fixing pacing and finishing novels and stories. Now, I decided that I needed to elevate my efforts and focus on being a better writer. That would hopefully result in a better story and novel.
It required hard decisions. Cut this arc. Modify that one. Tens of thousands of words were shred.
Partway through draft number seven. I think I’ve found a grip. I won’t know until I’ve finished and read it through again.
Done writing and editing like crazy for today. Time to go for a walk and let myself decompose.
Thursday’s Theme Music
Surprising to find that today is Thursday in this part of existence. I strongly recall Monday and Wednesday, but I think Tuesday took a header.
Prepared myself for writing this morning via a pep talk and then a walk. As I finished the latter, I told myself that I’m good, I’m cool, and then some neurons fired and I added, I’m easy.
Perhaps that was my sub’s plan to relax and fortify me. Next, the subconsciousness began playing “Easy” by the Commodores (1977) in my stream. Music always affects me, soothing, calming, exciting, sometimes even forcing me to cry. But this was a perfect, mellow counterpoint to the focus and intensity building. I need both of those, but they need to be tempered just enough to take the edge off.
“Easy” did it.
Repost: Things I Learned Writing Knight of Valor by Elizabeth Drake
Elizabeth Drake wrote about the macro-process, time, and commitment to bring out her latest book, Knight of Valor. My most critical take-aways from her post was believe in yourself, trust yourself, don’t give up on yourself, keep trying, and keep learning.
Toughest of these for me is to trust myself. I seem to get easily shaken. Elizabeth wrote, “Part of the reason this book had so many revisions was I took a lot of advice I shouldn’t have. More benign advice was to write in any order than piece those scenes together. Yeaaaah, no. Doesn’t work for me, and it created a lot more work in the revision process.” I don’t take much advice, but I read a book that I enjoy, and my brain attempts to duplicate that book. Sort of, kind of, maybe the same sort of thing, because it results in false starts and dead ends. It’s a tough lesson to learn, and one that I learn again and again.
Scoot on over there and have a read.
