Newbie Woes

So sorry for being silent for so long...I've been dealing with a hard blow.

My test reader finished the draft about a week after I handed it over...and he discovered a major plot issue. The species of plot issue that results in a gut-and-do-over kind of revision. To those who don't have a special project close to their heart, this might not sound like such a horrible thing. But, to me, it felt like I was sending a beloved child to the doctor to have a hunk of abdomen torn out.

I spent the work night afterwards having something akin to a breakdown. I found myself doubting my ability to write. I found myself wondering if my grand little dream was nothing more than delusion. I found myself frantically trying to figure out how to fix what I'd so horribly broken.

Eventually, I'd had my sniffles, let the doubts dribble away, and the duct tape to my problem established itself in my brain. I started to feel like I could do this again. I set about the task of marking up the draft with the red pen for the second time. Now, the tiny notes looked like the dashed lines a plastic surgeon puts on a patient before surgery.

This wasn't a death, just a reconstruction.

I'm feeling better about my project now. I know I can do this if I keep working. I know this story is a good one, and I know I can tell it the way it needs to be told. I owe it to the people in my head. I owe it to myself.

The Responsible Thing

For a good portion of my life, I spent my time doing the “responsible” thing. School. Work. Career plan. Good grades. Good behavior. And on it goes.

Then I picked up the pen again.

I feel in love with words all over again, looking forward to sitting in front of the computer tapping away ides instead of dreading the stiff cranking of academia. With that rush of love, I tossed aside the “should” of having a “sensible” career, which I spent the better part of six years trying desperately to achieve. And out the door went as many of the other “shoulds” I’d collected as I could handle leaving behind.

Unfortunately, I tossed too many.

It was recently brought to my attention—forcibly since I’m good with denial—that I can’t sleep worth crap during the morning. (I work 3^rd shift at a factory for the sake of the bills.) Now, I’ve known how terrible trying to fight the sun is for a while, but there were so many good things to be had from sleeping in the morning. Cuddles with my love. Dinner with my love. Conversation with my love. And help from the same love in keeping my ass at the desk when it needs to get scribbling done. (Noticing a pattern. X-3 I’m hooked.)

The downside: requiring a 3 hour “nap” before work. Meaning, I could make pages or revise only to succumb to exhaustion the moment I met my goal for the day. So none of my other obligations got the attention I needed to give them.

Thus, under protest, I’m doing the responsible thing and keeping my butt awake until evening when I sleep best.

Coming Out…in a Literary Sense

Although the phrase "coming out" is usually reserved for topics of a more sexual nature, telling the parents who expect their cute baby to become a brain surgeon that said child loves a good word processor more than a scalpel is a demon all its own. No less slavering and vicious, just different.

For those of you who have never met this demon, congratulations on drawing the long straw. For everyone else, as a newly branded member of the fold, you have my condolences.

That shit is scary, and it stings.

As of yesterday, I officially told everyone in my life--at least the ones I felt I needed to tell--that the scientist they'd been expecting to bloom all through my six years of college was, in fact, a writer in disguise. As usual, I saved the hardest for last. Leftover mentality from my test-taking years.

The emotional upheaval and flailing preceding the confession probably won't go down as part of my best moments. But I did it. I made my confession.

Now, I can only speak for myself, but I expected a reaction to my revelation. Acceptance. Rejection. Something. Anything. And being a dramatic sort of soul, I didn't imagine a subtle version. I imagined the sort of acceptance that would make me feel like I could write anything. I also imagined a rejection that sent me to the page eager to burn off the righteous fury boiling through my circulatory system.

I got neither of those things.

For all the tears and angst, I got apathy. And not even the kind that offers up a partial acceptance, a "whatever makes you happy" kind of acceptance. No. The kind I received resonated with an unspoken "so what?" It asked why I thought anyone would care and demanded to know why I felt I had to share. The kind of apathy that leaves a person feeling ashamed for having confided in another.

And it stings, burns all the way down into the most squishy parts.

But it's down with all that painful stuff that you find the answer to that "why" question posed by the apathy. It's the same reason that drew you to follow the path of your dreams. Because you had to.

You shared because you had to share. It's part of the commitment you made to yourself to be who you are. When you share, you introduce your calling. And in doing so, you make it impossible to ignore or overshadow with the more sensible pursuit they'd rather have for you.

So share what you love. Share what drives you, what gets your engine moving. Maybe doing so will inspire someone else to do the same.

Support Structure

There is a plethora of advice out there for new authors concerning the importance of having a support structure. For me, the first thing that always came to mind was writing groups. It seems like every successful author has a writing group attached. And having a bad group is more damaging to a work of art than not having one at all.

But that isn't the sum total of it.

Support on the home front is just as important. If a writer is bombarded with dissent about their talent, their ability to be successful, how worthwhile their writing is, it drains on the creative forces. And let's face it, not everyone is going to be supportive of a fledgling writer. Generally, this lack of support is meant to protect said writer.

"It's good that you have a hobby, but you need to focus on how you're going to pay the bills."

"Writing is something you should worry about when you're older and established."

"The chances you'll make a living doing that is slim."

"Don't you think you should have a backup plan in case this doesn't work?"

Believe me. I've gotten each and every one of those comments. Don't get me wrong. Those comments were made with the best of intentions. But each of them suggests that writing isn't a real job, and the writer couldn't possibly be successful at it, even if it was.

To anyone who has said one of the things above. Quit it.

To anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of one of the things above. Don't listen.

I'm not telling you to quit the job that pays the bills and live out of a friend's basement. I'm telling you not to give up. Keep working. Keep trying. No matter what kind of art fills you with passion. Pursue it, regardless of what else you do with your life, pursue that passion. A person can live quite comfortably on a small budget if he or she is plugged into that power.

WIP: When the Muse Gets Ahead of Herself

Lately, I've begun to notice that every time I begin a new project, I'll get elbows deep into the meat of it, and the Muse starts sending me images from story lines that just won't fit into the book I'm trying to write.  So I scribble down the idea and try to return to working on the next big crime scene.

Then she starts nagging.

One image becomes two...four...eleven...and I find myself furiously scribbling down the premise for five new books in a series when I haven't even finished the first draft of Book 1. (No joke, I can even name them for you at this stage. Book 1: Bloodline, Book 2: Paranormal Set, Book 3: Bittersweet Serenity, Book 4: Phantom Firebox, Book 5: Duplicity, Book 6: Executioner on the Lam).  And the Muse isn't satisfied with short paragraphs, titles, and sketches of outlines.  Oh no...not this headstrong 10 year old.

It starts with a slow creep of interest in Book 2.  I'll take a break from a particularly difficult scene in Book 1 and give her what she wants. (I know.  Bad idea, but I just can't help myself.)  I punch out four pages, revise the outline a little and return to Book 1.  Then little snippets from the other four start pounding at my frontal lobe.  I try to hold out, knowing I must finish Book 1 before I can really get involved in any of the others.

So the Muse breaks out the blaster cannon.

A black hole rips through the space beneath my feet, sucking out all but the tiniest drops of interest in working on Book 1.  At this point, I have a choice: stagnate or give the little gremlin her way. (Yeah, no real choice there.)  The minute I start exhausting my creative juice on Book 6...she gives me back the interest in Book 1.

Thus my Work in Progress becomes Works in Progress.  I have no doubts we can finish them.  It's the revising that I'm not looking forward to.

Dragged Along Behind the Muse

As with most 10-year-olds, the muse has a heck of a lot more energy than I do most days.  She wants to be off shooting up a nest of crooked vampires when I want to take a rest for the evening after having crammed a full time job and school into my schedule.  Eventually, she makes my writing hand itch so bad that its almost physical, and I have to get up and put fingers to keyboard just to make it stop.

At this point, she drags me flailing through the streets of the Empire, riding shotgun with Sven Nulis (who I think she has a crush on, just saying...) as he kills the baddies, solves the crimes, and wrestles with his self-doubt.  All in all, it's a bit of a head trip, and I crawl my abused self under the covers for some well-needed rest at the end of it all.

The worst cases of an Attack of Muse occur when I absolutely can't do anything about it.  I'll be running parts at work or sitting in lecture, and a scene pops into my head.  Angst and blood galore, and I can't pick up a pencil and jot it to paper.  It's maddening!  Especially because the scene looks so perfect in those moments, and when I try to recreate it later, it just isn't the same.

So I bought a digital recorder to take dictation in the car...and subsequently left it at home when I went out for lunch and then to the coffee shop for a long day of playing with the muse.  It's days like this that I consider getting a day job, forgetting the degree, and writing as full time as I could possibly get.  Then I remember my dad's you've-pulled-a-stupid look and hit the books again.

Can't win for losing.  So, the muse and I will continue to play drag and be-dragged until I finish school or start getting paid a decent wage to get an education.

Writer's Block

I once snatched up a book in the local library that was all about writer's block, and its insights have helped me to bulldoze my way through those walls, yelling in victory.

This book referred to the muse, the element in writers that gets them passionate about their work, as the inner child.  Considering that I have been writing creatively in one form or another since I was 12, my muse is roughly 10 years old.  I think she will continue to be 10 years old even when she's 57 and we both have trouble seeing the computer screen.

What?  Shouldn't every 69 year old play with her imaginary friends?

In addition to calling the muse the inner child, the book advised to treat the muse sort of like a child, writing what and when the muse wants to write instead of trying to force the issue.  (I kinda doubt this would work for someone with a deadline, but I currently don't have to worry about that, so I'm just going with the flow.)  It helps that I have two series actively moving along to which I can turn.  Generally, if the muse doesn't want to play with one group of imaginary friends, she wants to go visit the other set.

Also, I've come to discover that my writing will fizzle to a crawl if the muse feels like this scene isn't going in the particular direction that she wants.  When every word becomes a struggle to get onto paper, I realize it's time to take a look back at the chapter I just wrote and decide if this is really how things should be progressing.  If not...DELETE.  I can always start again, but trying to push a brick wall down just isn't going to happen.

For example, just last night I was transferring all my notes for the Blood Demon Chronicles into one binder and I came across the Vague Outline for Rebirth Alone, I put the outline on a brand new sheet of paper, all nice and shiny...only to discover that I hated it.  I'm now 12 chapters into a new outline for this book and liking it a whole lot better.

I've read several posts on the internet that claims Writer's Block is just an excuse not to put words to paper, but I want to add my own caveat to that.  Writer's block is an excuse only if you don't struggle against it until the clog is fixed.  I imagine everyone has days when they have so much trouble getting words to flow that giving up seems like the only way to save themselves from an burst blood vessel, but pushing through that feeling is what makes a successful writer.