Category Archives: Writing Progress

Flash Fiction as a Mini Vacation from a Novel

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I wrote something over ten years ago about how, when writing a new novel, I always seem to choke about a third the way through. No matter how well it's going, I suddenly get sick of it. It's too familiar. It's boring. It's a failure. No one will like it.

Well, all that may be true, but I'm too close to it to tell for sure, and besides it doesn't matter — rewriting is where all the magic happens.

I've been through this enough to know the drill. And so now it's suddenly happened to the novel I was — until recently — all so fired up about, I know it's time to step back and take a little break.

One thing to do is to write some Flash Fiction, and so I did. And it helps. So that's probably what I'm going to do for a month or so while this current novel (which is one of three I have going) chills off a bit. I may go back into it, or I may leap back into one of the other two. I'm hoping I can get back into this one, because out of the three this is the one I was the most excited about, but we'll see.

Until then, Flash Fiction is a great little mini vacation for my brain. Plus it gives me new material for the front page of my main website.

Do you find this happens to you?

Back in the Saddle

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November’s writing burn-out has faded and I’ve waded back into the shallow end of the writing pool. My first short story out of the ten I plan to write for the new book has turned into a full blown novella. That’s okay, though, because it gives me more room to explore and it gives me more words to cull later.

I’m getting much better at culling. Oddly I’ve learned it via editing an entirely different format: audio. I record and edit two podcasts now, one about the joy of absinthe and the other about zombies and wonderfully bad sci-fi. I think I’ve developed a pretty good ear, cutting what isn’t necessary, probably because of the rules of writing: make every word count. But what’s made me a better audio editor is crossing back over and making me an even better story editor.

I think the ah-hah I’m trying to promote here is one of cross-development. I know in the corporate world, it’s a good thing to get your feet wet in different parts of the business so that you can bring your experience and POV to a different set of circumstances.

Same thing seems to also work in creative endeavors.

If you’re a writer, have you ever tried your hand at editing audio or video? I know my friend Melanie does … I need to ask her about that.

Daily Allotment of Creativity?

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I’m starting to come to the conclusion that you only get so much creativity per day, and when you use it up, you’re done.

I’ve only vaguely noticed that I have not worked at all on any of my novel manuscripts for about two months. This is odd after nearly three years of working on them at least 3-4 days a week. It’s not that I’ve lost interest in them, I just have been doing other things, and when I finally sit down with time to work on them… I just don’t. Nothing’s left in the brain. I’m creatively tired.

Is that normal?

My day job has developed into this wonderland of creative tasks that I totally enjoy. In fact, the only thing I don’t enjoy is not having enough time to do all the various creative tasks that I need to get done. I know, a good problem to have, right? So I’m not complaining.

Then two nights out of the week I record podcasts, one of which I edit. That is a mass of creative fun. Dare I say I actually enjoy that more than writing? This is why I allow myself to do it — we’re here in this life to enjoy ourselves, and so if I enjoy it, I do it.

That makes me sound hedonistic, doesn’t it? Maybe I am?

But I define myself as a writer, a novelist, an author — and as such I should be authoring. I don’t want to simply be an author who has authored and is now done. I want it to be an active title.

So fate has helped me out, as she has often done, and last night caused me to be sleepy early in the evening, and awake ungodly early this morning. So I rose, ate, sat at the keyboard and — while the day’s allotment of creativity remained untapped — used some of it to do a few hours of authoring.

This used to be my habit but I fell out of it. It was something I used to know to do, but had forgotten.

Rediscovery of the obvious is useful, my friends. Stop laughing at me.

Well, okay, go ahead and laugh. I’m laughing with you.

 

Sumerian Beer Recipe, 3200 BC

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Sumerian Beer Recipe 3200bcAccording to the New York Times, you’re looking at one of the earliest known recipes ever written down by man.

It’s for beer.

One of the contentions of the novel I’m currently writing is that humanity’s entire modern civilization owes everything to the discovery of beer, that mankind changed from hunter-gatherers to farmers, and then developed cities and society, specifically so that they could produce beer.  Beer to them was divine and the nectar of the Gods.  It got them buzzed, helped them forget about their worries, and got even the ugly guys laid.

Anyway, I stumbled upon this while doing research and thought I’d share it with you.  The picture links to the article from which I stole it .

The Anti-Muse

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There’s this little imp in my head who doesn’t want me to write.

antimuse Artists and scribes through the ages have celebrated the wonders of the Muses, those supernatural beings who bring us inspiration and cause us to create things that are clearly too brilliant to have come from us alone. But there’s a darker being that is never discussed, at least directly. And that is an imp that I have come to know as the Anti-Muse.

Last summer I had a window of opportunity to devote a large amount of time to my current novel, and I challenged myself to finally finishing the first draft. I could have done it. I know I could have – I’ve done marathon writing sessions in the past. But for some reason my Anti-Muse was particularly strong, so much so – and so obviously so – I started keeping track of all the things this Anti-Muse tried to do to sabotage my writing efforts.

Below, directly from my scribbled notes, is the internal dialog I had with this little demon. And so, writing along … or simply staring at the blank white page … these voices would pop into my head, followed by my conscious response.

“You’re hungry!” Clearly, I am not hungry. I’m not even thirsty. “Yes you are! You’re hungry!” No I am not.

“You’re sleepy!” Not really. “Yes you are. Why don’t you go take a nap?” No.

“You have to check email!” No, I don’t.

“You have to make a list of what I’m doing to sabotage you!” I seem to have given in to this one.

“You’re cold!” I put on a robe.

“You’re hot!” I take the robe back off. Now I’m cold again.

“You have to wash dishes!” There’s only two dishes in the sink and they can wait.

“You’re horny!” So what’s new? I’m always horny. I’m a guy.

“Waa! I don’t want to work on this! Let’s go take a walk – it’s beautiful outside.” No.

“You have to get up and go do something.” Like what? “I don’t know, but SOMETHING.” No.

“You deserve a break. Play Mine Sweeper.” No.

“Let’s surf the Internet!” [My response to that was to turn my cable modem off.]

“What the heck is that banging noise? Go to the window and check!” It’s not important.

“You need to stop and calculate how many words you must write per day in order to achieve your goal.” No, I do not, I just need to write the freaking words!

“Ha ha! I’ve made you write more on this list than you have so far on your manuscript!” Dammit.

“You need to go to garage sales and find a more comfortable desk chair. It would help your writing.” No, it would help my writing if you would LET ME FREAKING WRITE!

“You’re REALLY sleepy.” Damn, I am. Keep going through.

“You’re horny, thirsty, sleepy, hungry, and you need a shower! AND you need to wash dishes!” I give up. I’ll take a little break.

“You are SLEEPY!” Wow, I really am. To the point of it being useless sitting here fighting it.

[After the nap, the Anti-Muse wins again, guiding me to another light meal – after which I absent-mindedly surf the Internet for 45 minutes. Then after writing for only 15 minutes I’m sleepy again.]

“Hey, why don’t we watch YouTube?” Okay, whatever, let’s watch YouTube for an hour.

“You’re sleepy again.” True, I’ve only written for 15 minutes and now I’m falling asleep in front of the keyboard.

“You need to go kiss your girlfriend!” I agree with this one. I go give my girlfriend lots of kisses.

“You need to go take pictures of the sunset!” No.

“You really need to reorganize all ten-million files in your ‘My Documents’ folder!” [I fell for this one before I realized what I was doing.]

“You must reorganize all your MP3 files.” Ugh.

It was after this that I realized keeping the list, in itself, had turned into a major distraction. But the Anti-Muse continued this campaign unabated for three straight weeks, and I did not reach my goal.

The first draft of the manuscript is still unfinished.

Is this just me? Or do you have an Anti-Muse too?

Progress…

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That’s just great. WordPress for iPhone just ate my post. Do you know how tedius it is blogging with only your thumbs? And all for nothing.

Allow me this short moment of anger.

Okay, it’s passed. I’ll just quickly sum up what I wrote and then lost…

I’m feeling down this evening, but at least I’m making good progress on my manuscript.

That’s it. That’s all I’d said. I used a lot more words and was more clever and witty about it, but that’s gone now, leaving you with this.

That, and I’m looking forward to meeting local writers at the various NaNoWriMo write-ins next month. I’m not technically participating but I am working on a novel. Good enough for an excuse to show up.