[Writing] And so the vacation ends...
Dec. 12th, 2010 12:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jon_chaissonSo the last vacation week of 2010 ends today. I admit I've been quite the slacker this week, doing very little in terms of writing, though I've kept busy with other things such as errands, shopping, and attending multiple cultural events (John Adams' El Nino at the Symphony, Verdi's Aida at the Opera House, a visit to the Jewish Art Museum, the Nutcracker at the Opera House, and the SF Zoo yesterday). So I may not have been creatively busy over the past week, but we kept ourselves busy with fun things to do. Isn't that what vacations are supposed to be about anyway? It was a nice respite, and I'm bummed it didn't last longer!
Admittedly, my writing has in fact been weighing on my mind off and on throughout the week, so it's not as if I'd been avoiding it or ignoring it. In typical writerly fashion, I did go through a few bouts of questioning if I really should be continuing this crazy dream of mine...these bouts of course were fueled by frustration that I'm not getting anywhere, that I'm not "feeling it", or just that I'm plagued with the same self-doubt everyone else gets at certain stages, in which I'm convinced that I'm just hopelessly average and will never have a decent enough story that will sell (and I'm well past the "they just don't get me" phase, thankyewverymuch). These emotions are only intensified when I see posts from other writers who post high word counts, and I'm still sitting here around the 500 mark--if that. Well, to be honest, and as you've all probably noticed by now, I've always had a really bad habit of getting all wound up in this frustration and self-doubt, releasing it in some self-effacing fashion--mostly here on LJ--then once that's been purged, feeling like an idiot for thinking such things and moving on. Yeah, I know a lot of you have read these posts in the past and may be getting sick of reading these. It's an ongoing process, going through all of this, so I commend you for your patience. I'm dancing as fast as I can.
Which brings me to why I've been doing a lot of thinking about writing this past week.
I've said in the past, I know I can do all of this. I know I'm a decent writer, and can be an even better one if I keep at it. I know I can hit those word count numbers, because I used to do it in the past. So the problem isn't that I'm a hack that will forever be writing stories no one will ever read. I understand how storytelling works (I learned it in college through my film writing classes), and I have a bit of a grasp on how publishing works as well (through the multiple cons I've attended and articles and books I've read over the years). I know all of this, so I know this is no pipe dream. It's an attainable one.
Which means I have come to that hurdle that I can't avoid anymore.
Which hurdle, you say? That one near the end of the race, where your muscles are aching and you're dehydrated and you just want to say screw it and fall to the ground in exhaustion and pain. The hurdle that feels just a few inches higher than the others and doesn't tip over if you trip on it, seriously injuring you in the process. The one that makes or breaks all the other runners in this race. It's the hurdle that scares the living hell out of everyone who has to face it.
Yeah, that one. The one where I make the decision where this either continues to be a hobby or a long-term project that never quite gets anywhere, or becomes something more. The one where I either start taking it seriously or keep it as a hobby. I've been avoiding this hurdle for years, for one reason or another. I'll be honest, sometimes it boils down to the fear everyone else feels in this situation, and sometimes it's impatience, that I'm frustrated that I'm not further along. Everyone goes through this, even professional writers. As I'd said, this is the hurdle that makes or breaks writers because it's such an important decision.
Which is why, over this past week, instead of actually writing, I've been focusing solely on what I need to do to face that hurdle head on. I've been focusing not so much on the prose but the craft. What have I done wrong in the past? What is the difference between the writing I've done over the years, and what needs to be done now to make it even better? I'll be brutally honest with myself--I still have a ways to go. There are scenes in my finished novels that are obviously "I'll put in something better later" filler scenes that were written solely because I wanted to keep up the momentum and didn't want to dwell on the same thing for days on end. There are passages of prose that are very weak and in need of revising or excising. That's not to say that I'm focusing solely on the bad parts, though...I'm also focusing on the pluses. The passages I wrote in my abortive NaNo attempt were some of the best I've written in years. Looking at some of the word counts I wrote down, I've proven to myself I can still do a decent amount (1000+ on a good day) if I put my mind to it.
Which brings me to the next mini-hurdle: time.
First off, I still have a decent window of time to work with on a daily basis. I don't have the excellent window of time I had back at the beginning of this decade when I had insanely early hours at Yankee Candle which left me most of the afternoon plus a few good solid hours of writing time--hours I wish I still had, to be honest, because I could wind down from the work day, do other things, and still have time to write. Still, on a day I'm at the office, I get home sometime around five-ish, so I should have an hour or so to wind down until dinner. Once that's past, then I have probably two hours or so for writing. So at that point, I shouldn't have any problem with finding the time to write.
That means that my problem is using that time. I'll be honest again--I goof around on my PC a lot. I don't play online games, but I distract myself way too easily with the internet or with my music collection. I've already come to terms with this, having backed away from a lot of things such as following politics, surfing the net for random things, reading blogs...whatever. I'm guilty of wasting way too much time doing non-creative things with my time and filing it under "winding down." My commute is just shy of an hour on a busy day via bus, and most of that is spent reading, so it's not as if I'm still wound up tight by the time I get home. [Or should be--sure, I'll be aggravated by a frustrating day at work, but that's another post entirely. Suffice it to say, that's something else I'm working on.]
And that's why I've been going on about deadlines lately. I can easily come up with an idea or work on an existing one, and I can easily say "I'll work on x tonight." The issue is getting it done in a decent amount of time. So instead of saying "I'll work on x tonight", I should be saying "I need to get x done before December 24th." To expand on that: "I'll work on x tonight, y on Thursday, write a poem on Sunday like always..." and so on. It's worked in the past, and it should still work now. All I need to do now is implement it, and stick to it.
So...that's what's been on my mind all week, as far as writing is concerned. I'm just as sick to death about avoiding this hurdle as you are hearing about it, so I think it's high time I just jumped over the damn thing already.
Admittedly, my writing has in fact been weighing on my mind off and on throughout the week, so it's not as if I'd been avoiding it or ignoring it. In typical writerly fashion, I did go through a few bouts of questioning if I really should be continuing this crazy dream of mine...these bouts of course were fueled by frustration that I'm not getting anywhere, that I'm not "feeling it", or just that I'm plagued with the same self-doubt everyone else gets at certain stages, in which I'm convinced that I'm just hopelessly average and will never have a decent enough story that will sell (and I'm well past the "they just don't get me" phase, thankyewverymuch). These emotions are only intensified when I see posts from other writers who post high word counts, and I'm still sitting here around the 500 mark--if that. Well, to be honest, and as you've all probably noticed by now, I've always had a really bad habit of getting all wound up in this frustration and self-doubt, releasing it in some self-effacing fashion--mostly here on LJ--then once that's been purged, feeling like an idiot for thinking such things and moving on. Yeah, I know a lot of you have read these posts in the past and may be getting sick of reading these. It's an ongoing process, going through all of this, so I commend you for your patience. I'm dancing as fast as I can.
Which brings me to why I've been doing a lot of thinking about writing this past week.
I've said in the past, I know I can do all of this. I know I'm a decent writer, and can be an even better one if I keep at it. I know I can hit those word count numbers, because I used to do it in the past. So the problem isn't that I'm a hack that will forever be writing stories no one will ever read. I understand how storytelling works (I learned it in college through my film writing classes), and I have a bit of a grasp on how publishing works as well (through the multiple cons I've attended and articles and books I've read over the years). I know all of this, so I know this is no pipe dream. It's an attainable one.
Which means I have come to that hurdle that I can't avoid anymore.
Which hurdle, you say? That one near the end of the race, where your muscles are aching and you're dehydrated and you just want to say screw it and fall to the ground in exhaustion and pain. The hurdle that feels just a few inches higher than the others and doesn't tip over if you trip on it, seriously injuring you in the process. The one that makes or breaks all the other runners in this race. It's the hurdle that scares the living hell out of everyone who has to face it.
Yeah, that one. The one where I make the decision where this either continues to be a hobby or a long-term project that never quite gets anywhere, or becomes something more. The one where I either start taking it seriously or keep it as a hobby. I've been avoiding this hurdle for years, for one reason or another. I'll be honest, sometimes it boils down to the fear everyone else feels in this situation, and sometimes it's impatience, that I'm frustrated that I'm not further along. Everyone goes through this, even professional writers. As I'd said, this is the hurdle that makes or breaks writers because it's such an important decision.
Which is why, over this past week, instead of actually writing, I've been focusing solely on what I need to do to face that hurdle head on. I've been focusing not so much on the prose but the craft. What have I done wrong in the past? What is the difference between the writing I've done over the years, and what needs to be done now to make it even better? I'll be brutally honest with myself--I still have a ways to go. There are scenes in my finished novels that are obviously "I'll put in something better later" filler scenes that were written solely because I wanted to keep up the momentum and didn't want to dwell on the same thing for days on end. There are passages of prose that are very weak and in need of revising or excising. That's not to say that I'm focusing solely on the bad parts, though...I'm also focusing on the pluses. The passages I wrote in my abortive NaNo attempt were some of the best I've written in years. Looking at some of the word counts I wrote down, I've proven to myself I can still do a decent amount (1000+ on a good day) if I put my mind to it.
Which brings me to the next mini-hurdle: time.
First off, I still have a decent window of time to work with on a daily basis. I don't have the excellent window of time I had back at the beginning of this decade when I had insanely early hours at Yankee Candle which left me most of the afternoon plus a few good solid hours of writing time--hours I wish I still had, to be honest, because I could wind down from the work day, do other things, and still have time to write. Still, on a day I'm at the office, I get home sometime around five-ish, so I should have an hour or so to wind down until dinner. Once that's past, then I have probably two hours or so for writing. So at that point, I shouldn't have any problem with finding the time to write.
That means that my problem is using that time. I'll be honest again--I goof around on my PC a lot. I don't play online games, but I distract myself way too easily with the internet or with my music collection. I've already come to terms with this, having backed away from a lot of things such as following politics, surfing the net for random things, reading blogs...whatever. I'm guilty of wasting way too much time doing non-creative things with my time and filing it under "winding down." My commute is just shy of an hour on a busy day via bus, and most of that is spent reading, so it's not as if I'm still wound up tight by the time I get home. [Or should be--sure, I'll be aggravated by a frustrating day at work, but that's another post entirely. Suffice it to say, that's something else I'm working on.]
And that's why I've been going on about deadlines lately. I can easily come up with an idea or work on an existing one, and I can easily say "I'll work on x tonight." The issue is getting it done in a decent amount of time. So instead of saying "I'll work on x tonight", I should be saying "I need to get x done before December 24th." To expand on that: "I'll work on x tonight, y on Thursday, write a poem on Sunday like always..." and so on. It's worked in the past, and it should still work now. All I need to do now is implement it, and stick to it.
So...that's what's been on my mind all week, as far as writing is concerned. I'm just as sick to death about avoiding this hurdle as you are hearing about it, so I think it's high time I just jumped over the damn thing already.
