the cookie said: read me ~

[lookingland]

this morning, a spammy post by miss_critic in various writing communities reminded me that i really need a dedicated, focused crit group or partner.

partly for motivation, but also because i'm just not sure what i'm doing voice- and style-wise is working effectively.

another post by bachsoprano reminded me of the emotional toil that i'm setting myself up for by taking on the projects i want to work on. From Slaughter's Mountain is an exhausting exercise for me. not just because of the research and the particularity of working out the nuances of the voices, but also emotionally because of the intensity of the people's whose heads i need to get into and what they are experiencing. i find myself a wee bit resistent on this level ~ the reluctance of getting into a bucket and descending into a dark well (just had a flash of Penny in The Rescuers there ~ ha).

anyone else waste time stalling because they're trepidatious about the road ahead? that's the only reason i can come up with for my hesitation. i've got work to do!

i wouldn't call it a block ~ i'm writing in drips and drops, but not concerted toward a specific goal. i have a hard time understanding how i could turn out 900 pages of a single novel between 1990-1992 (figure 450 pages a year) in addition to everything else i was doing at that time. i wrote more than 600 pages in 2005 (400 on Reconstruction, 150 on The Kidnapped Christ, and then a lot of miscellaneous short things) so it's not that i'm not putting words out. i just feel like it's not accruing into anything worthwhile (TKC was mostly a wash and i've decided i don't like my Recon stuff or its format). so all-in-all, not a very productive year. no real "draft" of anything to speak of. Eleison was my only "success" and technically it was a holdover from 2004.

this year i need to finish drafts and finish rewrites of drafts. a quarter of the year is already eaten up, but i feel like i've been making important progress in terms of bringing the disparate aspects of my fictional world together, so i'm not going to get after myself for the slow start.

all right, speaking of slow starts, my morning is slipping away, so i'm off to tackle the last of my messy folders and then start throwing down some words.

man, the birds are just chittering away out there.

must be spring.

: D

Comments

[sparowe]

anyone else waste time stalling because they're trepidatious about the road ahead?

*raises hand* I finished my longest work ever, on Thursday. Have the opening scenes to the sequel firmly in mind. Have yet to put fingers to keyboard, because I don't think I can equal what I've done.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

oh, that is a toughie! i'm also currently struggling with a sequel and feeling like it's just who-hash compared to the first.

i guess at some point, you just have to knock out the draft and then deal with it in the edit phase. i have to constantly remind myself how long and how many drafts the first book took ~ and that it's okay if the second doesn't leap fully-formed from the keyboard.

: D

[akirad.livejournal.com]

I read that spam... how did it go again?

"Want your writing judged by a pro?".

I couldnt help thinking that if she really was a pro, she'd be busy writing, not trolling LJ communities :D

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

not to mention her profile was riddled with grammatical errors and when they were pointed out, she deleted and disabled comments.

yeah, real pro, i guess.

hahahaha ~

: o p

[akirad.livejournal.com]

hahahaha!!! she's deleted the journal!

oh dear, how humiliating.

:D

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i guess miss_critic couldn't take the criticism.

man ~ that's so bad.

: o p

[bachsoprano.livejournal.com]

i really need a dedicated, focused crit group or partner.

I might have a possibility or two for you in that department...
Feel free to contact me off-line if you're interested (my email addy is on my info page).

anyone else waste time stalling because they're trepidatious about the road ahead? that's the only reason i can come up with for my hesitation.

Me! I know that feeling really well - I think about my icky-foo project a lot, but actually opening the file...well...it's a lot easier said than done.

i wouldn't call it a block ~ i'm writing in drips and drops, but not concerted toward a specific goal

Do you think it's because you're processing stuff before tackling the tough project? Do you work better when you have outlined specific goals?

Hope the words are flowing smoothly today!

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

I might have a possibility or two for you in that department...Feel free to contact me...

thank you ~ ! i'll send you a line!

Me! I know that feeling really well - I think about my icky-foo project a lot, but actually opening the file...well...it's a lot easier said than done.

do you think the "icky-foo" factor outweighs the need/desire to tell it? after many years i feel less "icky-foo" about my project (have gotten some perspective away from it), but it still carries a lot of emotional weight because working on it still takes me back.

Do you think it's because you're processing stuff before tackling the tough project? Do you work better when you have outlined specific goals?

could be ~ ! i do tend to process a lot before committing words, but this seems to be stuck in a redundancy. i think i would work better with specific outlined goals, but try as i may to set those goals, i can't seem to make them specific enough to give me the sort of structure i need. i'm very bad at disciplines if i don't have a whip cracking after me and then sometimes when i do have a whip, i resent it ~ hahahaha ~ i'm such a waffler.

Hope the words are flowing smoothly today!

thank you ~ ! i hope you're getting good work done today as well!

: D

[bachsoprano.livejournal.com]

I don't know how I missed your reply in my inbox!

do you think the "icky-foo" factor outweighs the need/desire to tell it?

A bit...I haven't worked on it for about four months because I've known that I'm going to have to write some stuff that's not only painfully personal, but doesn't reflect very well on me. But, what I'm trying to remind myself is that it *isn't* me - the characters have taken on a life of their own and so, I'm just drawing from experience. Still. Looking at the ugly bits of ourselves is never much fun.

What's you icky-foo project about, if it's okay to ask?

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i think what you say about separating the personal from the character is the most important thing ~ i mean, in a way, it's part of why we write: for a playspace in which to explore our own psyches in a "safe" or "controlled" environment. if it gets hairy, you just put it in a drawer or throw it away ~ much easier to deal with than facing real life.

all that said, i agree that it still can be hard ~ especially if you identify too strongly with the character and his/her circumstances.

i did everything in my power to create a character who was physically and psychologically not me, but who was nevertheless 100% emotionally me. so it's not the circumstances of the icky-poo that are directly correlative, but the character's response to the world in general.

i'm not articulating this well ~ but i think part of the complexity of disassociative tactics resulting from "icky-poo" experiences is that your brain will create "alters" who aren't mary sues and who superficially appear to have nothing in common with you, but are actually extremely intricate puzzleboxes (like dreams) for which only you own the rosetta's stone to all the symbols.

so anyone who reads my work would likely never know what aspects of what character are "me" and what about them is "icky-poo" because the "icky-poo" too is often so metaphorically buried as well.

and if any of that makes sense, you deserve a medal.

: D

[geckobird.livejournal.com]

Oh, I definitely waste time stalling a lot due to trepidation concerning the road ahead. In fact, my two current stories I am stalling terribly for the upcoming scenes (that must be written otherwise the story falls apart) is terribly hard to write... :P

And sequels are super hard as well... my Kate and Jill book two, I stall a lot on, for I still don't feel confident enough in Jill's voice... and the other possible voices just don't seem right for this particular story. :P

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i think you can really get stuck on voice pieces due to lack of confidence (that's been my experience for years). the only way i've found around it is to let myself write "the worst draft possible" because then at least there's something there to edit, to work with.

it's really hard, though, giving yourself the permission to write a really bad draft. it's not our nature to aim for failure ~ hahahaha ~ but sometimes you can psyche yourself out of your fear of bombing the whole thing if you can convince yourself that it's just some junk and you'll get the real draft later.

like i said, it sometimes works. i struggle convincing myself to just drop words too. it helps when you hear someone else say: just write the doggone thing already!

: D