Tag: editing like crazy

Laughing All the Way

I found myself laughing as I edited today, because I was dealing with the holes.

Still editing Book Five, An Undying Quest, of the Incomplete States series, I have half of the novel edited. The thing about the holes and the society that use them is that I hadn’t planned these holes. The holes in discussion are worm holes, but small, controlled to some degree, such as the way that we control water by channeling and funneling it, and managing levels and temperatures, etc., that are located in a cavern on another planet. The people use the holes to travel to other places, and sometimes to other times, and, if they’re brave enough, to visit the dead.

As noted, they were completely spontaneous when I was writing that section, and created a history and structure on the go. Reading, editing, and revising it today, this society’s depths, history, and complexities surprised me. There’s a sense in reading it that it’s historic fiction, and that you have some sense of what’s meant by the terms and relationships because that’s your history.

I quite enjoyed reading it. Will it work for others? Maybe, maybe not. I think it was James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon) who said something like, “Tell the story, and let the reader catch up, if they can.” That’s what I’m employing in this instance.

I must admit, one aspect of the holes was inspired by a scene from Field of Dreams (1989), when Terence Mann (James Early Jones) accepts the invitation from Shoeless Joe (Ray Liotta) to enter the corn. Love that scene.

Done writing and editing like crazy for another day. Off to join the real people, the real world, and the real sunshine.

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Stopping

I’m in such an editing and writing zone, enjoying reading what I’ve written, surprised by the characters and settings. I wrote this? Are you sure? Because I don’t remember it. Yet the notes tell me that I wrote it last June. Ah, where is my mind?

Now I need to stop. Plans were made and time has flitted past with a hummingbird’s speed. I’ve been busy for hours, and sad about stopping. That’s how it sometimes goes, but I take satisfaction in that it was a good day of writing and editing like crazy.

Cheers

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The Challenge & Reward

I read so often about how hard fiction writing is. I won’t lie, it offers some challenging times. Writing will drive you mad with character and plot choices, word decisions, and problems with story-telling and pacing. It’ll daunt you with the eternal question, “What comes next?”

But when it all comes together, when you’re in that flow, whether it’s writing, editing, or polishing, when you finally encounter your results, it can be so sweet and fulfilling. I encountered that today, another moment of being surprised by what I’ve written.

It’s all not pages of gems or brilliance. I have read my writing sometimes and gagged in revulsion over what I’d written, using up adjectives to describe how sickened I felt with my attempts.

It’s so rewarding, though, when the opposite is encountered, as it was today while editing the fifth book in the Incomplete States series, An Undying Quest. There’ll be many readers, critics, and other writers who won’t like it. I know that from talking to readers. I’ve heard them say about best-selling novels, “He’s a wonderful writer, but I didn’t like the format.” Or, “She creates beautiful characters. Her writing is like poetry, but there was no ending. The story didn’t make any sense.”

Writers bring intent to their efforts to write. Our intentions as writers often morph as our brains develop insights into what we’re thinking and attempting to show. The story we were originally telling becomes another story. The ending that we stumble upon changes how the entire novel and its concept is regarded.

Through it all are the words and the mechanics of being clear, and the effort to keep the reader engaged, rolling the dice on telling too much or not enough, hoping that the readers see what you’re doing, even though you know that they will find and take away meanings that you, the writer, never saw or intended.

Our brains just don’t work the same way. Our brains depend upon our individual knowledge, emotions, and experiences to find and assign meaning to the words that we read and hear. Although we have standardized agreement about words and their definition, each of us have our own twists and tweaks.

I write about this subject often, the joy of writing, editing, and revising one’s own novel. The process is engaging. It’s a daily escape for me, and today’s editing session kept me glued to my chair and deep in the novel. People came and went as the minutes raced passed. My coffee went untouched. A loud noise finally startled me out of my focus. Then I was shocked by how much time had passed.

It was a good day. But, there are other days…

There are days when he process can drain my soul, obliterating my good mood. Sometimes ideas and words begrudge coming out. Gritting my teeth, sighing, and gulping coffee, I just keep working it and working it, knowing that I’ll re-work it later, probably several times.

I’m pleased that I’ve progressed as a writer (at least in my mind), but I know there’s much more to learn, and so many more ways in which I can progress. I have more ideas, concepts, stories, settings, and characters idling in my mind. I look forward to my attempts to write them. I look forward to progressing as a writer, editor, and story-teller. Then again, effort, hope, and determination don’t promise anything as a result. I could end up flaming out.

It becomes an interesting loop, though — despair, effort, struggle, results, inspiration, hope, despair, effort, struggle, results — and so on. Trying, and finally succeeding with writing something that doesn’t cause me to choke with disgust inspires me to try again, and again. I tell yourself, “You did this once. You can do it again.” So I try, and try, and try.

That’s what it’s all about for me.

It was a good day of writing and editing like crazy. Time to chug down my cold coffee and return to life.

Cheers

 

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A Summit of Positive Energy

I awoke early, but stayed in bed. The muses were already up, and were in a dictating mood.

They were working on the next novel in the Incomplete States series. The Final Time is the sixth book in the series, which is about five more than I’d planned.

Apparently, while I’d been sleeping, I’d been thinking over the novel’s concept challenges. While doing that, my muses engaged with my subconscious. Net results were that they’d figure out the issues and objections bugging me yesterday, and had created action and dialogue.

After staying in bed, I heard the muses out, and then got up, went into my office, a.k.a. the snug, powered up and typed. It wasn’t a lot, ten free-flowing pages, about eighteen hundred words that must now be edited, but that manner of spontaneous writing inspires me. It’s the best kind of writing, because it seems like it’s a writing zone. The book seems powerfully tangible. The process leaves me breathless and energized with excitement.

There’s always a caveat to this. Just as I have a few days in a dark trough roughly once a month, I also crest a summit of positive energy once a month. I endure the dark trough. It ain’t fun. During that time, I feel bitter. Drenched with self-pity, I despise myself and the world. Sometimes, when it’s really dark, I wonder WTF do I ever write? What is the point of this crap? Why do I put myself through it? Surely it’d be easier not to be a struggling writer, but someone who lives the retired life, traveling, puttering around the house, going to the gym three mornings a week, taking in movies, and so on. That appears to be what my retired friends do. It sounds appealing when I’m sunk in the dark trough.

But this summit? Man, it’s a joy. I accept it and run with it. Sometimes, though, that positive energy gets carried away, and the promises that I make during this time are difficult to fulfill when I crash into the trough. And again, that’s my life.

The trick with the mood extremes is to write no matter what I’m feeling or experienced, and accept that what I write may be great or terrible in either state, but it must be edited later.

Okay, got my coffee. Time to edit and write like crazy, you know, at least one more time.

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Progress Report – Incomplete States

I wrote five books (originally four) for my latest work in process.

I began work on this series in July, 2016. It was originally one book in concept, but what did I know? Eventually, it became four books. Then I felt it necessary to split the original final book into two books because it was over six hundred pages and three hundred thousand words. In an amusing aside, twenty-five documents were created to develop the five books, with well over a million words.

I considered the first take on the entire series to be a beta draft because the novels’ story lines were so interwoven. While written one at a time, I often edited and revised the previous books as I learned the story.

Now I’m editing the fourth book, creating a true first draft of the Incomplete States series by clarifying that story. Once the first draft is finished, another draft will be required to ensure that the same story is being told in the series’ five books (Four on Kyrios, Entangled LEREs, Six (with Seven), A Sense of Time, and An Undying Quest). Then comes another draft to sharpen and polish, and then it goes to the editors for their input.

I’d expected to have the series’ first draft completed by Thanksgiving, but my error (not saving a backup) set me back (lesson learned). I now have December twenty-first as my target date for completion. It’s not unreasonable, as long as I don’t do anything stupid.

Meanwhile, it is fun to read my creation. I’m enjoying myself. My writing /editing time is a sanctuary from existence’s frustration, pain, and weariness.

Time to edit and write like crazy at least one more time.

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Corny Thanks

Sitting down at the coffee shop to write on this Thanksgiving Day in America, I pause to give thanks for how lucky I’ve been. I frequently complain but most of these are first world blues or the general venting against how the world functions in this life-experience-reality-existence.

I could enumerate the many ways that I’ve been lucky, but I don’t think that’s needed. Little of it has been within my control. I’m thankful for the strokes of luck that made and keep me fortunate. That doesn’t mean that I’ve not had bad times, but that I’ve always been able to recover. I wish others the same sort of luck, and that you have the security and health to pursue your dreams.

Now, I have my coffee. With that brief word of thanks, it’s time to write and edit like crazy, at least one more time. Sure, it’s a holiday, but the muses gotta write.

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How

I was at a social event the other night. I encountered some casual friends. They knew I wrote fiction and asked questions. 

Now, I’d vowed not to talk about writing, particularly my writing, because once that faucet is opened, it seems to break, and nobody can turn it off. I’d planned succinct, polite answers for the questions that are usually asked.

But these folks persisted in inviting torture. One answer led to another question and requests for expansion and clarification. 

Basically, they first asked, “How do you start?”

I understand that question. I get it often. I know that people read a book and think, this was written from beginning to end. That’s what I thought when I first began writing. 

That works for some writers, but not for me. I explained to the others, I just begin writing. I see a scene, I hear a voice, I met a character, and I begin. I usually have little idea about what’s going to happen or who the characters are. I’m learning this, along with the story. I’m usually beginning in the middle, or toward the end. It’s only after I learn the characters and situation more that I start to see how the novel starts, because then, when I see what happens, I ask, “Why do that happen?” Questions like that take me backwards, toward the beginning.

They also wanted to know if I outline.

Generally, I don’t. I’m an organic writing. But sometimes, a scene all comes in at once, or scenes and the story becomes complicated, requiring some process of clarification. I’ll sometimes outline that aspect, just to help me handle the information, find gaps, and fix them. I also use snapshots to do thinking outside of the novel’s context. These are documents that aren’t included in the novel, but help me grasp what’s going on. That helps me make sense of what I’m trying to convey, but it also helps me track information that I don’t share with the reader, usually because I don’t want it revealed too soon.

Generally, I don’t. I’m an organic writing. But sometimes, a scene all comes in at once, or scenes and the story becomes complicated, requiring some process of clarification. I’ll sometimes outline that aspect, just to help me handle the information, find gaps, and fix them. I also use snapshots to do thinking outside of the novel’s context. These are documents that aren’t included in the novel, but help me grasp what’s going on. That helps me make sense of what I’m trying to convey, but it also helps me track information that I don’t share with the reader, usually because I don’t want it revealed too soon.

“Do you ever get writer’s block?”

Yes, and no. I don’t embrace the expression. It’s too glib and provides a false impression about my process.

I sometimes struggle with a scene or direction and don’t know how to take it. I’ve learned that I can overthink things, so I tell myself, don’t overthink it. I’ve learned to trust my subconscious mind and instincts, and that I just need to get out of my own way. I’ve learned that I don’t need to write everything in sequence, so write something else and come back to the problem later. I’ve learned to take a walk or read a book or do something to let my mental resources work without my attention. 

“How do you know when it’s done?”

When I, as a reader, think that I, as a writer, have explored and answered the questions and problems put up throughout the novel, within the context of what I set out to do, then I think it’s done. That’s part one. Part two, I write for myself, and my pleasure. If I take pleasure from what I’ve written, including the ending, I’m satisfied that it’s done. 

I admit, sometimes the ending that comes surprises me. “Is that it? Really?” Upon further review, sometimes it isn’t, but sometimes it is. It’s a process.

I also give the finished manuscript to people I trust to tell me their thoughts about the novel, including the ending, and there are editors. Novel writing is generally an individual endeavor, but finishing a novel often requires several minds, especially if you’re driven to get it right.

Scheduled events then began, saving them from more explanations. 

I took a break from my editing to write and post this. The process actually went, I’ve been editing and writing for hours. My butt’s asleep and my neck is stiff. I need to stretch and take a walk. While taking that break and walking, I remembered and thought about this conversation and decided to create this post.

Time to get back to it.

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Incomplete States

What’s –

  • Known
  • Suspected
  • Established
  • Doubted
  • Explained
  • Said
  • Happening

The complexities are a challenge to keep aligned. Just when you think you have them, they –

  • Change
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The Character Dream

Kanrin came to me in my dreams.

Kanrin is one of the main characters in my current work in progress, a series called Incomplete States. I’m editing the last book in the series with dreams of publishing them next year.

I’ve recently been dealing much with Kanrin. A fully-fleshed character who is well-understood, he’s the main character/star of the current chapters being edited and revised. It’s going well, meaning no problems have been discovered.

In the first dream, Kanrin and I were there, and he was talking about his situation. We were outside for this, and I was watching him in profile. The day was late, with night’s purple shades being drawn. A chilly wind and dropping temperatures had Kanrin in a jacket with his hands in his pockets. Wearing a hat pulled low, he was looking out over a rough, rolling green landscape as he talked. Past him in the dimming light were pastures, fences, and stone walls. I don’t know if he was aware that I was there. He didn’t deliver anything that I didn’t already know, but he did put it in some new way.

Awakening, I considered going to the computer and working on the ms. As it was four thirty in the dark and I was still groggy with sleep, I declined and nestled in for more zzzs.

Imagine my reaction when I dreamed of Kanrin again, essentially talking about the same thing that he addressed before. Okay, odd. I must be really into those chapters. Perhaps something bothered my subconscious.

About thirty minutes had passed since I’d awakened from the first dream to when I awakened from the second dream. It remained too early to go to work. I went back to sleep.

Which gave Kanrin a third opportunity to visit me, addressing again the ideas, concept, and story that he’d addressed before.

It was seven thirty when I awoke from the third dream. I got up now, but didn’t go to work. I went into my usual routine of feeding the rug floofs. If whatever Kanrin was sharing was important, I was certain it’d come out when I was editing and revising today.

Got my coffee. Time to write edit like crazy, at least one more time.

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Coupling

It’s been three joyous writing (and editing) days. Having one such day always energizes and intoxicates me. Returning to life’s normal routines and patterns afterward is deflating.

But then, coupling three days together feeds the highs, giving me a sensation of feeling invincible and omnipotent. It’s empowering but frightening because it must be kept in context for what it is.

That energy can’t help but spill over into other things. It stirs something that’s deeper and more primal in me. The short and long of it is that I’m accomplishing, creating something tangible from my mind’s energy and my physical exertion, and that is rewarding. I set a goal, and I’m working toward accomplishing that goal. When successful progress and its accompanying energy continues over three days, this sense parlays into a belief that I can do anything, because, hey, look how good the writing and editing is progressing. Woo-hoo.

Common sense helps ground me. Writing (and editing) and the rest of life aren’t the same. Thinking of this reminds me of some hotel chain’s commercials. They went along the lines of, “Let me operate.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“No, but I got a great night of rest.”

It’s all about how you feel, and the self-confidence that it stirs. I think the chain was Holiday Inn Express.

Meanwhile, however, some of my mind views all this with deep suspicion. “Maybe you’re fooling yourself,” at least one advisor whispers. “You’re probably not that good.”

It’s an amusing proposition because it demands that I hold two contrary ideas in mind, that I am that good, and that I’m not that good. Parts of my writing is probably amazing, and parts are probably crap. This is a draft, and I’m the writer, and I wrote it for me, so if I enjoy it as a reader, mission accomplished. It’s natural that others will dislike it, not get it, enjoy it or not, decide that it’s, “Okay,” (shudder), or love it. None of that’s within my control except that I wrote it for me, and I enjoy it.

Am I conning myself? You bet! But I think I’m also being realistic. I know, too, that I’ll probably encounter days when I feel sick about reading what I wrote because it needs a lot of work.

Accepting that I must stop now is a reluctant choice. I love the immersion of writing and editing my novels. I know myself, though, and my writing process, and its capricious nature. I know that going out on a high helps sustain progress because I feed off expectations created by past success.  It at least makes it easier to get to the document the next day.

So, sadly, but joyously, time to stop writing editing like crazy, one more time.

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