“I will work on Jerry’s novel when I take vacation in July.”
Nope. I spent a lot of time not working on it, but I also spent time thinking about why I’m not working on it.
I have determined that I need to recalibrate my expectations to line up with my other artistic efforts.
If you ask me if I can paint, or play the guitar, I would say, “I’m learning how to paint,” or “I’m learning how to play the guitar.” But who says, “I’m learning how to write fiction?” No one. No one says that. Yoda says the opposite.
Well, I defy Yoda. I say “Try or Try not. There is no do.” I think that’s essential for me – if I were to present something to others and say “I paint,” they would look at what I painted at any point and say, “No, you don’t.”
But were I to say, “I am learning to paint,” then they might say, yes, you are.
Early Portrait of the Artist as an International Toe Porn Superstar:
Later Portrait of the Artist as an International Toe Porn Superstar:
So, that’s the trick: do this for my own amusement and neural growth, not for any audience. It’s odd to think of a novel that way, because I would think that compared to painting or guitar a novel would be more communicative and less expressive. Don’t you need a reader to have a novel, and don’t you need to consider them over yourself while you are writing a novel?
Perhaps not for the first draft. Perhaps that’s what I need to get started. So that’s my new plan. I give myself permission to write a novel no one will read, a novel that is awful, a novel that just gives me practice writing a novel. I’ll be working on it forever, so when I die look on the cloud for a novel that is not about 1930s oil fields, but about space politics in the year 3535.
And hush, I know this is all the opposite of what I said last month, how I can’t get started because I don’t have an end point. Shhhhh. It’s part of the learning process, and the process is what’s beautiful.
8 responses to “Rewriting the Novel: July”
The thing is, almost everyone assumes that they already can:
1. write
2. take photos
And therefore one does not need to learn these things. But almost nothing is a static endeavor – you either learn more or you don’t. Some people have a natural boost at specific things from innate talent/genetics or from their environment, but literally *everyone* can get better at doing well at things consistently.
But also: first drafts exist for a reason. Get the thing on paper (well, digital, probably) and then wallop it into shape once you have a thing. 🙂
KC – well, I did work on the book today for twenty minutes. Nowhere near long enough, but perhaps I will work up to it
Twenty minutes a day will get you there! But also, yes, you can work up from there, potentially.
KC – well that lasted a week. 20 minutes a week?
20 minutes a week would get you there more slowly, I grant! But you can see how it goes. Sometimes writing is a “if you force yourself to pound things out for 20 minutes, then you want to keep going” thing somewhat like not-inherently-horrible exercise or cleaning?
But yes. It’s complicated, and in part it’s complicated by basically every author doing things somewhat differently; some people write near-finished drafts; some outline and then fill in; some write Terrible First Drafts and then revise them once they exist; and who knows what will work best for you, but hey, at least there are options you can try! 🙂
KC – my outline has a big gap that says “something surprising and remarkable happens.” I want to know what that is before I write it, but perhaps writing it without knowing will get me there.
Oh. Uh. Hm.
Do you have someone you can talk it out with over Skype or otherwise “in person”-ish? Like, “here is where we are before the commercial break, and here is where we are after it, what things could get us from here to there?” – the zanier, the better, because people who only suggest reasonable things are unlikely to suggest that actual solution if you want something surprising and remarkable.
(these people are sometimes hard to identify and somewhat rare out in the real world, so there is that. But if you have one, brainstorming out loud can be shockingly productive.)
KC – I anticipate that after I start writing something will occur to me. I did write for forty minutes yesterday, but I just edited something I had. I can’t say I’m stuck yet, since I haven’t really tried. I just anticipate this will be hard.