Shonda Said
The Midnight Writer
Have you ever been about to shut down the laptop for the day and go to bed when a sudden insight into a scene overtakes you, so you think with excitement, well, I’ll just sit down and add that part or make that change, it’ll just take a minute, and then you get into the work in progress, and look up to discover, holy hell, it’s ninety minutes later?
Yes, it’s at once irritating, satisfying, annoying, and exhausting. That damn muse has no sense of time.
Speaking of time, time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
E Cubed
Energy, exploring, and expectations.
The more I write fiction, the greater I understand that much of my writing is about exploring what I’m thinking and understand (and then trying to explain and share it by putting it in a story), and managing expectations about writing.
Some days, about one in fifty, I think, I don’t want to write. It’s mostly because I weary of my routine and want a time out. This typically happens when multiple energy levels – creative, physical, intellectual, mental, and emotional, let’s say – simultaneously drop to low levels. That puts me in a black place. That’s when I must dig deepest and longest to sit down and start typing those first words. If I can make it through a paragraph, I’ll persist and write several pages.
I know this. That’s when managing expectations enter my personal equation. Like everything else, my writing efforts reside on a spectrum. I know there are days when the words leap effortlessly through mind and onto media (and I love those days, and thank the Universe for the experience). On the spectrum’s opposite end on those weary, turgid days. Not only do I not want to write, but I’m also pretty much a much larger asshole than I am on other days. My tolerance, patience, and bonhomie seem completely drained on those days.
I also know that regardless of my approach and expectations to writing (and editing, and the rest of the writing process) on those days, I can rarely tell the difference in the end product. I edit, revise and polish too much. I tend to write the bones down in a flurry, and then more leisurely add details, bridges, and expansion. For instance, the first line of a new chapter begun the other day ended up being the first line of the sixth paragraph by the time I finished the chapter. That line was the part of the scene I first saw, but then the light grew wider and brighter, and I saw more of the scene, and entered the characters and their expectations and participation more deeply.
I know all of these things because I’ve explored myself and my approach to writing, and what I like and dislike about my processes. And then I write and post about it because that helps me clarify my understanding. Sometimes, other writers respond, and let me know, “Hey, me, too,” and that helps, too, because I see that I’m just another normal, fucked up writer. I might even be human.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Bernard Said
I’ve discovered this, too. Writing the early drafts is like chugging beer while revising is like sipping a glass of wine. Each provides a unique pleasure.
Prologue
It’s probably just me, but I’m concerned when a seven hundred twenty-two page novel begins with a thirty-eight page prologue.
The Intersection
I dreamed about my work in progress last night, specifically about the story-line now being addressed. My mind, being what it is, inserted me sometimes, so that I was part of the story. My mind, being what it is, would see that I was dreaming about my writing and including myself as a character, and then try to untangle me from the fiction being written. “I’m the writer. I’m not supposed to be in this story.” That would lead to dream-confusion among the dream participants (dreampants?) about what was going on. It was really…interesting.
Which, after awakening to think about it, demonstrates an intriguing intersection between who I am and how much I put of myself in my writing. Even when I deliberately decide to have a character do or speak in ways that I wouldn’t, that choice is based on what I’d be doing. My characters are composites of other people, but I’m essentially imagining how those folks would respond. I don’t know, though. I don’t have a secret window into their lives. I guess at what they’d do, twisting their responses into madness and lies, and courage and hypocrisy, betrayal and honor, all based on what I think I’ve heard them say and do, and the character’s arc. You all know how unreliable we are as witnesses. We color it all.
But in there, in the intersection between my dreams and imagination, and my choices and decisions, is where my writing takes place. Sometimes it’s a large intersection – or even a roundabout, with too many cars traveling too fast, all trying to change lanes and enter and exit at the same time – and other times, it’s two small animal paths meeting in a quiet field. Whichever intersection it is, I sort it and write.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Unique
You ever type or write a word, and then look at it and look at it because it seems like it’s wrong? But then you check, and, yup, that is the correct word and spelling?
I hope you do. I don’t want to believe I’m the only one that does this. I don’t want to be that unique.
Michael Seidel, writer 