One book in particular has returned so persistently for so long I figured I'll just finish that first IF IT KILLS me, then go on to the next one which has been waiting a bit longer but is a bit more difficult in some ways, and so on.
Is there a word for this bad habit? Changing horses in midstream? Shifting with the wind? Anyone else do it, or just me?
One of the ideas of having more than one book going at a time is if I got completely stuck or frustrated on one, I could move to another. Rather than doing that, I seem to just drop them all for years at a time. What's more, most of them are long novels rather than short stories and at least as far as the one I've settled on, I'm convinced that even if hopelessly stuck on one part I could be working on another. It's as if I reach a point where I just let my fears take over, then something makes me think of the book again and I pick it back up.
So, for me, its about identifying the problem, for instance, this important character is not working out the way I want him to. How do I change that?
Writing stories is a bit like a marriage, the ones that work are the ones where you learn how to solve the inevitable problems instead of tossing your hands in the air. It can't all be fun stuff.
{mental note... fix busted window this weekend and stay friends with Tina. }
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited March 23, 2006).]
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited March 23, 2006).]
At least, this is what I tell myself whenever I'm temped to drop a story in the middle.
"Juggling." Think of your stories as balls in the air, where you toss (work on) one, then another, then another. Then sometimes you drop one...
I'm fond of a stovetop metaphor---when I stop working on something for a long period of time, I'll refer to it as being "on the back burner." Sometimes I'll get back to it---a novel I've worked on for, oh, fifteen years now (my God!) flared up for a month or so earlier this year. Sometimes not.
That reminds me---I've got a roast on the stovetop and I need to check it...
I always felt that God put me on this earth to be a devastatingly great writer, and if I didn't succeed in good enough time He was going to see to it that I suffered a hideous demise. One time I really thought my time was up and God was coming to collect me. I found a suspicious lump and thought, that's it. God must have decided I hadn't produced the Great American Novel in good enough time and was cashing in my chips! I just KNEW I had cancer and was dying, I only made a doctor's appointment to confirm it. Before I could get to the doctor, everybody fell apart because Princess Diana died--older than me by less than a year. I thought, gee, why did she die? Everyone liked her and she had everything to live for. Why am I still alive? Then I went to the doctor's appointment and my "cancer" was only a benign cyst. Still here, *sigh.* (Which is scary because writing the Great American Novel doesn't necessarily provide any special protection.)
I've learned a lot more from things I don't consider my "job." For instance, the first time anyone was critical of my photography, I decided, that's it, writing is going to be my job, and photography is only a hobby. After that I never pressured myself again about photography, had a really good time with it, if I screwed up and ruined a whole roll of film just walk away from it, and learned as much or more from my failures as my triumphs. My friends love my work, it makes me very popular and gets me invited places.
Last year (after years of people wondering when I'd get a video camera) I added that. I am currently going through the editing project FROM HELL http://www.hatrack.com/cgi-bin/ubbmain/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=041894;p=0&r=nfx and learning greatly from it. A number of people have suggested I drop more cash ($300-$1,200) on a decent editing program, which I refuse to do, as I've shelled out what looks to me like megabucks on what I consider "just a hobby." As someone pointed out, I have all this high tech equipment with the Mickey Mouse editing program which came with my computer when it was made several years ago. Later I will upgrade to a point, but not now as I'm nearly done editing (really, I am) and don't want to risk screwing anything up!
One of the things that worried me is I would have this great vision for a finished product, which something, not necessarily my own fault, would delay. (So far, true in this case. The latest glitch is some bug in the program. I followed instructions and it took me the longest to even figure out what it did and that it can't be undone.) Then people would get all antsy and collectively put the royal screws on me to just throw together a substandard product. Then people would think the resultant substandard product was what took me so long to do, and how could I be such an idiot as to take so long doing a thing like that? You can imagine how upsetting this would be when applied to books WHICH WILL HAVE MY NAME ON THEM IN PRINT FOREVER and be my legacy to this world when I am no more.
Well, from this woman going all psycho on me, I've learned I can stick to a project even under outside pressure, and that outside pressure is not as bad as it appears. Quite the opposite of joining her, my real friends are laughing at her for being like that! I've learned patience and perserverance in less than ideal circumstances. I mean, think, if I'd just bought the good editing program in the first place I probably could have thrown something together really fast and then felt pressured to always be quick and perfect, whereas now I've learned to see through things important to me despite obstacles. I struggled over this seemingly incurable glitch for several days, losing sleep over it, but found a way around it so I can continue with the project. So think how well I can do with a good editing program!
Now, if I can apply this to my writing, when I get stuck I can work around it. The main obstacles occur NOT on character, plot, or research (bad as all those are) but on this feeling that, gee, when it's finished this book may not be the best thing written by anyone yet on this planet, so why write it? So I don't! Which I am finding out now I SHOULD ANYWAY! On the editing job, I don't want to lose everything I've already put in. The same should be true of a novel, once I reach a certain point with it.
I may be a writer, but I'm not insane.
Well to me it is, as I write something for one time period, then I make up some history to why the war happened, then I think of the war, and nothing but the war, and I write furiously about the war, neglecting the story I had just started.
I'm not desperate to leave or anything. I mean, there's times of most days when I'm not desperate to leave...which could include any particular moment in which you happen to be reading this post. It doesn't include the moment in which I'm writing the post, because when I wrote "desperate" I suddenly felt the desperation that I usually try to suppress.
Really, I don't hate it here, I just really would like to be able to take a break now and then. Just for, you know...I'd come back, of course. Eventually.
My way of looking at it is this: I don't necessarily not want to leave because I enjoy my life so much. (Come on! I'm not insane either.) I want to stay because as a rationale for my joke of an existence I've created this construct that I have Very Great Work to finish and I can't leave until my writing is done. Now, if I can't do it, or I do it and it's not a success even after my death, and I'm going to die a nobody anyway and remain a nobody after death, I'd just as soon go now when I'm relatively young, healthy, and happy, as later when I'm old, strung-out, and miserable. I hope it won't come to that...I just acknowledge right now that the prospect doesn't look all that good.
A couple years ago I thought I'd be killed off if I didn't deliver the goods in a set time. Now that I'm past 40, I'm not sure if that idea was wrong, or the time was just set a little later than I'd figured. Haven't entirely abandoned the notion that if I do deliver the goods I won't have to find out--just one reason I'm very anxious regarding my writing!
[This message has been edited by pjp (edited April 11, 2006).]
Okay, and I don't want to actually evict any of those who aren't paying rent and don't acknowledge that they should. Eviction is such a civil way to deal with such people. I'm thinking more along the lines of lingering death by maggot infestation.
Oh yeah, I live in that zip code. Lots of fragments - some even good fragments - in the drawer. However, none of mine have grown to published noveldom, so you're well ahead of me on the race to avoid ADD paralysis.