the peds in my tread ~

last night, rather than listen to the yammering in my management class (yes, i'm a bad student, have always been), i did some thinking about what impediments i have in my life with regard to my writing.

i discovered they were classfiable in a number of categories:

plot impediments: i've always been weak on plot. many of my stories have "circumstances", but not really strong, compelling action. my characters tend to meander a lot. so i let them until they come up with a plot. it took nearly ten years for Slaughter's Mountain to develop a real plot. it began as merely a premise: boy runs away from home, joins the war. it became: boy runs away from home to join the war with the intent of killing himself and instead becomes a killing machine. with this kind of process, i can hope for Razi-el's Dream to solidify its plot (currently: fringe priest unwittingly undertakes the mentorship of the doomsday machine incarnate) around 2014, for example. not a good thing.

structure/style impediments: probably more destructive than plot are questions/issues over style and structure. i can rewrite the same opening chapter 101 different ways. don't believe me? i just counted the variations on the opening line of Razi-el and without looking for the additional hand-written ones lost in drawers, etc., i found 11 versions. this is why i so often want to burn everything and start over.

emotional/psychological impediments: confidence, mostly. people poo-poo this when i tell them because they think i am a good wordsmith, but while i think i can turn a nice phrase, i don't think i have anything to say that anyone wants to hear. the critique: "that's great, why don't you write x" has plagued me my whole life ~ and i've let it. this is why "ownership" and "propriety" are such huge issues with me.

so what are my plans to unimpede myself?

1. outlines ~ i've been working over the last few years on improving my plotting. outlining has helped significantly. if NaNo has done anything useful for me, it's taught me to be a meticulous outliner. i did it for the purpose of setting daily scene-writing goals, but it's been far more useful to really examine the arc of a given story from a broader perspective. i knew last november, for example, after i'd outlined The Kidnapped Christ that it was a weak plot, really only substantial enough for a long short story. i still stretched it to 50k words for the sake of NaNo, but i knew from the outline i would have trouble with it.

2. break habits ~ style and structure will always be a challenge. i'm trying to make overwhelming decisions about narrative voice and other stylistics and i feel like i am zeroing in. slowly but surely. part of my plan to continue working on this is to break old habits/nueroses with regard to paper and notebooks and pens (a wee bit ocd on that end of things). if i loosen up my conditions for writing, i think i can loosen up the writing itself.

3. write for writing's sake ~ the confidence issue is not so easy to tackle. i could try to be more aggressive about sharing my work, more enthusiastic to blabber on about the wonderful brilliant things i'm doing (in the hopes of convincing myself), but that's not really my personality. can i alter my personality? and i cringe at people hawking their wares most of the time. i don't know why i have such a stigma about it. i definitely think getting the work out is key. Reconstruction freed me up to write whatever came off the top of my head without worrying about the logic or flow or plot or style or anything. it's a meandering mess, but that's okay: it is by design. that's the freedom i need with the books: the freedom to let it suck if it needs to until i can fix it. Slaughter's Mountain emphatically doesn't suck. but it was years getting to that point and i had to write all manner of sucky drafts to get it to where it is. so my plan for building confidence is threefold:

a. finish stuff. even badly. just finish.
b. continue to write even when discouraged.
c. discredit the negative/critical influence/pressure of peers.

the last thing on that list is especially important for me. i tend to let people talk me down. i don't listen to the positive side of things. i articulate my intents poorly and then get lectures. i too often depend on receiving approval from others rather than validating my own ticket.

ultimately, this is my world and i can build it however i like. and if i want to write it in french, i can write it in french. if i don't like dialogue attribution, no one's twisting my arm to use it. if i want to treat storytelling as a pontillist exercise, that's my prerogative. and if someone wants to read it, critique it, God-forbid enjoy it ~ that's up to them.

have i talked myself into being more motivated?

dunno ~ we'll see before the end of the weekend.

: D

p.s. i'm posting this picture of sigrid undset because it's a cool pict ~ she looks like everyone's idea of a writer, doesn't she? ha!


siggie, prolly circa early 1900s

fiddle-dee-dee ~

more of my famous brother in the news ~> (poorly written article with nonetheless cool picts)

~ * ~

i've had a pretty bad day, i think.

the only thing that made it tolerable was the snow snow snow.

most people might have said that would add to the bad day, but somehow that was the best thing about it.

anyway, it's over now. i think it's a testament to a certain level of peace i've found since leaving the heat of texas that i can have a day as frustrating and feh as today and still be in one piece.

now i could go read doctorow or i could go write.

maybe do a little of both.

~ tomorrow is another day (scarlett says so, after all ~ and she would know).

: D



okay, she's not scarlett here, but it's
a really cool picture of vivien leigh!