John Also Said
Power On
Hey writers, hope you’re all doing well as this calendar year slides to the final days. Hope you remember that no matter what happened this year, you can go on and on and on, even when the days drag you down, people bury you for dead, and the routines become too much to endure. Have a mug of coffee, a cup of tea, a sip of wine, a quaff of beer, a piece of chocolate, meditate, read, exercise, walk, take deep breaths, do whatever you’ve found that helps you pick your ass up and put it down in a chair or bed or wherever you write, so you can stare down the blank space one more time, and let the words out. However you do it, you must do it, you must find the way to keep going, to keep trying, to write like crazy at least one more day. But whatever you do, and however you do it, always remember, if you’re using a computer, ensure you back up your work.
Clearing the Cache
He bought a fire pit and bottle of wine for Solstice, and filched a log from the neighbor’s stack. He lit the log and drank the wine, taking a sip each time the he fed the fire a rejection letter. One hundred sixty-five letters, two hours, and a bottle of wine later, he felt much better.
The cache was cleared. Good things were going to start happening for him now.
The Limit
Sitting up, I looked around.
Rain and fog had subdued the sunshine outside. My butt was numb and my eyes were tired.
I’d just finished editing the sixth chapter today. Lifting my coffee cup, I discovered nothing but dried residue inside.
What the hell?
I hadn’t been working that long, guessing it was two hours, but it was focused and intense. I loved what I’d written. I remembered being in such a zone when I wrote those chapters. It was just last June, June 2018. I’d hesitated to begin them, working around them for a few days before telling myself, just write them. Just do it.
So I did, and they worked out well.
I want to go on, but I’ve hit some limits. Other things require my attention and presence, and why be greedy? It’s been an excellent day of editing like crazy.
There’ll be more tomorrow.
The Anxiety of Not Writing
TG Christmas has passed.
I appreciate that so many enjoy and celebrate Christmas. I do, too, in my way. It’s not actually Christmas that dismays me, but those places closed for the holiday. I don’t begrudge people that, but with the closed coffee shops, I miss my writing. More critically, I get anxious about it.
My anxiety when I don’t write is that what I’ve written is crap. Panic rises like Yule log smoke. It reminds me of a friend.
He’d been a football player, a wide receiver in high school and college who tried out for the pros and didn’t cut it. As a wide receiver, he was expected to be fast and to be able to run and run and run. So that’s what he did. Every day, he ran five miles.
He continued his habit after he didn’t make it as a player. He’d become a high school assistant coach by then. He moved on from football when he was thirty, going into serious business to make serious money.
Still, he ran five miles every day. He told me that he runs every day because he’s afraid that if he stops running, he’ll lose the ability.
Yeah, that’s not me with my writing, but I understand his thinking.
I thought about writing at home on Christmas day. Alone in the office in front of my laptop, I thought, I can write now. I’ve tried it before.
Picture this.
The cats troop in to see what I’m doing because I’m typing. Typing attracts the cats. Click click, click, they hear. What’s that, a mouse? Curious to see, they crowd around me.
These cats, all male rescues, don’t get along. Within seconds, they begin complaining about the others’ presence, locations, or existence. “What’s he doing here? I want that space.”
“I was here first. You better leave while you can, hairball.”
“Who are you calling hairball, hairball?”
“You both would be well-advised to get the hell out of here before I turn you into a fur coat.”
“Oh, you think you can?”
My wife will typically come in then, jumping onto her laptop to surf the net and play games, and read the news.
The news must be shared. “Did you read what happened?” “Did you read what so and so said?” “Did you see this video? I think you’ll like it.”
I can tell her that I’m writing, and she tries to respect that, but as writers know, writing often involves sitting silently, staring at nothing or studying your fingernails or looking at something else on the net while the muses get their sierra together. So she’ll then say, “Are you writing? Or can I ask you something?”
Of course, nothing can be done about the cats. I can send them outside, yes, but I’d pay for that later.
So, no, I decided not to write.
This left a void. Into that void crept my imposter fears, my insecurities, doubts, uncertainties, fears, and anxieties. It’s amazing how fast, persistent, and subtle they are, how they move in with little noise. Then, suddenly, my head is filled with their sound. They’re like a destructive, pessimistic flash mob.
All this isn’t why I began the practice of daily writing. I started writing every day to finish stories and novels. I write everyday to learn and improve my writing skills. I write everyday because the muses deliver scenes, dialogue, and concepts. Their deliveries excite me, and I want to pursue them. I want to write to understand what I think, and I enjoy writing, conceiving and imagining, story-telling and resolving, visiting these places and events that mushroom in my thoughts.
It’s all complicated, isn’t it? Better to just write than to consider it all. Hold your breath and jump in, and see how far it goes.
The coffee shop is open. I have my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Merry Christmas.
Ho, ho, ho.
A Reminder
I was down yesterday when I began my writing and editing session. I’m still editing Book Five in the Incomplete States series, An Undying Quest. Halfway through it, I was bummed about what I was reading. I thought, man, I have some work ahead of me to fix these issues.
I didn’t feel like addressing those issues, so I made notes, and continued editing, working on subsequent chapters. When I did, I discovered that those chapters addressed the holes and plot issues, and fixed them.
I was friggin’ astonished. Thinking back to then, I remembering writing and arranging the chapters. I hadn’t realized I’d done this. By that, I mean, I knew that the story went sideways at that point. I knew it as a deliberate choice. I didn’t appreciate how sideways it went. I do remember thinking hard about it, recalling Part One of The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner, 1929), a book that I strongly admire. Back when I first read that novel in sixth grade, I remember gritting my teeth and thinking, “WTF? This is crazy.” Finishing Part One was challenging. But everything is illuminated (sorry, Foer) with the subsequent parts. So I thought, be brave. Do it.
Now, after editing it, once I grit my teeth through the doubted chapters, the rest are magically explained. It comes together.
It’s not the first time I’ve done something like this. A friend, after reading one of my novels, said that he’d created a list of questions about things that bothered and confused him, then he said, “I was amazed because you brought it all together.” I loved that feedback.
So, I’m hanging with it as written. We’ll see if it makes publication, or what changes come about from outside feedback.
Meanwhile, it’s a powerful reminder that when editing, go through the whole damn manuscript before addressing any major changes. I specifically decided to edit the entire series before having any of them edited or read by another because the series is organic. Events opening in the first chapters of the first book are resumed in subsequent chapters and books. Changing one means hunting down and addressing those changes in other chapters and books. It has multiple points of views and storylines. It’s a complicated exploration. Events and decisions are rarely fully explained, as I like inviting readers to take the information and conceive the answers.
The series was originally conceived as a single, fat novel. I felt breaking it apart into eras of growing awareness and development lends itself to telling the story. I was also aware of my wife and her friends’ complaints about holding up large books to read, yes, even in this era of digital publishing.
Time to write and edit like crazy, at least one more time.
