A Rough Draft is Important

I don't know when or why I decided that I was too good for a rough draft, but it was somewhere during my school years, probably sixth grade which was the first year I can remember actually getting to write short stories for our English classes. One thing that NaNoWriMo helped me see is the value of having a rough draft. Due to the relentless pace most of what I had to write was below my standards, but I needed the word count, so I was happy to prattle on and on about the most stupid stuff, just because it got me closer to my goal. I knew I was going to have to edit it out later, and I would make notes in the margins to that effect. But something happened that I did not expect.

Somewhere along the way my mediocre prose started showing promise. That wasted conversation that I thought was good dialog only insofar as it was extra words, suddenly turned into character development. My story started having a stronger structure to it and a greater sense of depth due to the all the other silly things I was adding in. The dialog was still too verbose, and I still had to remove the kitchen sink during editing (which I'm sure I'll get to one of these days) but forcing myself to write things I would have normally rejected before writing allowed me to see the promise and potential I would have otherwise prematurely aborted. It's easier to cut things out of a rough draft than to insert new things.

My Inner Critic is My Enemy (sometimes)

I am a perfectionist's perfectionist. I wish that were mere boasting. Some years ago I took a personality profile (the DISC Profile) and among other metrics it will ascribe three adjectives and mine were "perfectionist", "perfectionist", and "perfectionist" (this compared to another guy taking the test with me only had one of his come up "perfectionist"; lucky guy). Some people have hailed it as a blessing, and I see their point, I on the other hand am intimately familiar with how much it is a curse, especially when it comes to writing.

I have this critical voice inside me analyzing everything I do, say, and think, and that works against any kind of a rough draft process. I'm usually editing while I'm writing, which worked great all through school, because you can do that with essays and research papers; writing fiction is different. Rather than write about what already exists, or make a logical argument for a particular philosophical position, fiction is a work of creation. I spend my professional day writing code, and it too has aspects of creation to it, but the main difference is I have been trained to accept that refactoring code is an acceptable practice. Somehow my inner critic remains silent while I'm writing code, and is satisfied with writing a draft copy and then to iteratively revise it.

I am finding that while my inner critic will motivate me to make sure my writing is the best it can be, there is a time and a place for it, and the rough draft is the wrong time and place. The same holds true for the brainstorming and outlining processes, and I am trying to convince myself that the rough draft is just an extension of that process.

I Need Structure

Despite my need to quell my inner critic I cannot escape the fact that I need structure to my stories. The first time I did NaNoWriMo I had a detailed outline. I had six pages of plot points one after another, in an outline format, each one taking up no more than one line. I never got through the entire outline because there are probably three books in that one outline, however, when it came time to write I knew exactly what I wanted to happen, in what order, and I had a clue as to why. The second time I participated I drew up a looser outline and got stuck after just a few days, and I only wrote 13,000 words. I got stuck and I'm still stuck with the story.

I'm finding that even with the short stories I write that if I do not have a clear picture of how the story unfolds I get stuck in a hurry. I used to think I struggled with the plot and finding good plot points, but now I think it's more that I'm working against my natural tendencies. When I do any programing I have some kind of an outline document or project specification that I go by, and all the architecture is done there; all the hard questions, all the little details, all the bugs and assumptions are thought through first before I even start programming. It works wonders for me with programming, and I've come to accept that I need the same level of detail when it comes to writing fiction.

This doesn't mean I don't give myself the freedom to write an impromptu story without much more thought than a brief exchange with a buddy over IM, but it does mean I will be less frustrated with my stories and make better progress if I first know where I intend to go, with whom, why, when, and how. I don't have to follow the plan exactly, but having one at least gives me something to start with.

Relax and Enjoy

When I am frustrated I can't be creative. If I am stressed or anxious my creativity cramps up and nothing happens; I'll fight the story, I'll fight with the characters, and nothing will feel natural. I'll only write a few words and end up discouraged. Conversely when I am relaxed I have found that the words flow without effort and I can easily double my word count; not only am I more productive but I'm happier with what I write and I'm less likely to want to attack it with a red pen. I'm still trying to figure out how to pull this off consistently, but more than anything else it's an attitude. Either I decide to enjoy the process of writing and see where it takes me, or let myself get frustrated and give up.

The reality is bad days happen. They are not a reason to give up, instead I should adjust my expectations of what I'll get done, and spend more time trying to figure out how to unwind and then re-start. I found that it was important for my momentum to at least do something on the bad days, but it was more important that I let myself have a bad day and then do whatever was necessary to have a better day next time. In the end perseverance paid off, and if I worked at it I could spend more time relaxed while writing then uptight; it is oxymoronic but I have found I do have to work at relaxing, but the creative benefits are tremendous.

Creativity Begets Creativity

I'm still not sure how it works out, but I have noticed that when I engage in a creative process it sparks ideas and inspiration along the same vein and suddenly I have an overabundance of things I'm excited to work on. It has held true when I try my hand at graphic arts, game design, and at writing. If I just get out and write, even if it's less than mediocre prose, I'll often get hit with all kinds of inspiration for stories, more than when I just sit and brainstorm for ideas. This is one thing that makes doing NaNoWriMo worthwhile, for if in writing for one month solid I can also fill a notebook with story seeds I will have gained something I could not otherwise possess.

In the years since I have done NaNoWriMo I have not always had an idea that I thought was worth pursuing, and yet during NaNoWriMo I was constantly fighting with myself to stay with the story I was working on and just make notes on the other stories that kept invading my brain. What I learned, and forgot, is that during the dry spells I need to just write, even if it is an exercise or a disposable story; doing so I will often come up with a better idea I will be excited about and then I can work on that. In order to write I must write.

Create a Writing Habit

NaNoWriMo taught me a lot about myself as a writer. More than anything else I think that is the biggest gain from the process. Even if you will never make it to 50,000 words fight through to the end and see how far you get. The best thing you can do is get it done, keep some notes about how it is working out for you, or how it is not, and regroup later to figure out how you write. There is one thing, though, that NaNoWriMo cannot teach me, and this is the main reason why I am not participating this year.

My first attempt was in 2004 and I've not yet finished the full rough draft of that story. I hit the 50,000 word goal, but I still have more than half of my outline left. I was so tired of writing that I took a few weeks off, then a few weeks turned into months, and then when I did want to get back to it I forgot where I left off. One day I hope to return to the story and finish the draft, and then edit the beast. The pace NaNoWriMo set is not a reasonable pace for me. Sure I can write more than 2,000 words in a day; I just wrote a 2,300 word short story, on a whim, all in one day, and had it complete before my daughter woke up from her nap. But the main issue is one of time and priorities.

I have a few important responsibilities in my life, and they will always take precedence, and I cannot always make time for a two hour writing session. I need to establish a more long-term writing habit. I still don't know what that will look like, and I'm toying with things here and there. I doubt writing only one night a week will keep things fresh in my mind, but I know I probably cannot commit to an hour a day. This is the biggest weakness in me as a writer right now. I do not make the time for it, and while I can convince the people around me to cut me some slack for a month while I try to write a novel, I cannot do that every month indefinitely. Once that problem is solved maybe I will once again join the frenzied fray of frantic fiction folks flinging furious fingers for fun.

I used to think that publishers were a sort of filter but I have books on my shelf that flagrantly violate the rules of grammar and I'm utterly shocked; I was taught that we should use complete sentences, and every sentence must have a verb. Some authors and publishers disagree. So this cannot be true: bad books get published.

I have also caught myself thinking that publishing in some way validates a man or woman as an author. Put another way, you aren't a "real" author until you are published. Does publishing validate the writer as an author? Am I something less if I never sell a book to a publisher? Does self-publishing not count? Does self-publishing only count if I function as both a publisher and as an author, and publish authors other than myself? And if publishing does validate, does a small-press count, and if so, how small can I get away with? Here's a good one: do you have to publish to paper, or can you publish electronically?

Some time ago I concluded that being published means only one thing: your particular story is marketable. If a story is published that means that some person (or persons) believed they would be able to sell the story for a profit. It does not guarantee a fan base, although it probably does guarantee that a few people will at least read your manuscript.

As someone who would love to call himself an author I really only care about one thing: I want an audience. I've given up on the idea that I'll ever make a living at writing. I have a day job, and that is consistent with all the writing advice I've ever heard. So if I only care about having people read my writing I'm seriously wondering why I still have this pipe-dream to one day be a published author, although I now no longer know what that means, nor what it would mean.

What does it mean to be published, and what does publishing do?

Lovecraft's stories are detective mystery stories. The stories I gravitate to are the ones where something unexplained has happened and now the protagonist will go about figuring out what is going on. It is the same reason I like Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and a host of other detectives. What I like more about horror mystery-detective stories is that the story is not about a murder and a who-dun-it.

So now I know. I like stories where something inexplicable has happened. An impossible thing has occurred and our protagonist will seek to uncover the truth. She may be an unwilling protagonist, caught up in an event far beyond her ken or control. He may be an intrepid investigator on the trail of a great mystery, soon to engulf him in a world of madness. They are tales of the bizarre and the unreal, but made real, and told to reveal the mystery (but not quite!) in a detective sort of way.

If I am to hit 50,000 words this month (and really the story should probably top out at 40,000 words) then I'm going to need to just write. But since I want to write a weird fiction tale in the vein of Lovecraft I need to pay attention to mood, tone, and atmosphere. Already I've had to eschew those things for the sake of getting the skeleton of the story down "on paper". This means, that as I suspected, I will need to edit the story (probably more than once) before I'm willing to let people read it, because the tone and atmosphere are really supposed to be important.

In the end, if starting a project is the hardest step then I'd say things started well. I was a little distracted trying to figure out the word count issue, and if the developers cannot fix it soon I'll have to spend time and effort switching my writing software. Hopefully I can cope until a patch is made available. Two thousand down; forty-eight more to go!

I will state for the record that I am not interested in writing as a business. I write stories that I want tell, not stories I think I can sell. Granted, I would love to have a wider audience, and I acknowledge that people read published material more readily than "unpublished". There is a balance in there somewhere, but if I am ever to make money at this little hobby of mine, that will be a bonus, and probably will not affect anything in my life.

What I really wonder, is how all this will play out in the future. The Internet is full of vast possibilities, and if I were happy with an audience of 100 faithful fans it seems all to trivial to accomplish that in light of the Internet. This of course needs more thought.

So now I wonder how my stories would differ if I were to think of my stories as a series of scenes, each one having a conflict that drives it, and each scene resolving it's conflict and progressing to the next.

I have two reasons for not liking either of these. The first is this sounds more like work than fun; in this case I'd be working on the craft and not the art of writing. The second is my general distaste for re-tellings; be original for crying out loud.

This does not mean I won't do either of these, the second one appeals the most as it seems the most helpful to me, but it does mean I probably will not share them and will despise myself at some level for stooping so low. (Can we see why I don't write much?)

There are a good many weird tales out there which I have passed over because they lacked impact; they fell flat; they were uninteresting. Over the last couple of weeks I've thought about those stories that did grab me and those that didn't and did a quick mental comparison. I found that the essential story in either case was not all that different. Even the most atmospheric ghostly tale is still quite banal under a microscope. The deciding factor was the atmosphere.

In my opinion really good weird fiction will have it's own atmosphere, and will not require you to create your own. I have read such stories, and it's a bit of a thrill to sit in a parking lot in the middle of the day and still feel the foggy, creepy, haunting atmosphere of a story.

If I may speculate, I'll suggest that this aspect of "horror" literature is what makes it so difficult to write (and if you write horror in order to scare I think you're doubly challenged). I can be more relaxed about atmosphere in my sword swinging fantasy stories, and atmosphere is not what people generally look for in a good sci-fi yarn. Yet when a story will either fall flat or resonate with the audience due in part to the atmosphere, frankly I find that a bit of a task. In all my writing classes not once was setting stressed beyond plot or characters, nor was atmosphere really discussed.

There is more to a weird tale or a horror story than at first glance. I have more respect for those authors who write them well.

In particular the author of the post accused that Lovecraft fell into a stylistic rut of having a lone survivor present his testimony after the fact, and then meet some horrific end. These are exactly the stories that excite me and scratch that aforementioned itch; likewise this is the type of story I want to write. From my perspective these kind of stories make perfect sense, so allow me to defend them.

In my opinion a first person narrative carries more emotion, more immersion, more atmosphere, and more identity than a third person account. A first person account is personal; it's easier to believe the account was left behind just for you, and no one else, and that alone can add weight to the tale. A first person account is just like sitting down with a friend and having him recount some grizzly tale, and it's always more frightening when he's telling his own tale and not someone else's: it's easy to distance yourself from and dismiss a story that is in the third person.

I've thought about first person narratives and it seems to me the only tense that makes sense is aorist, or perhaps a perfect tense (one year of Greek and already I'm erudite). The events have to have taken place in the past; it would make sense if they were currently happening; if that were the case there would be no story and you would be there in person witnessing it all firsthand. So now it seems the only way to tell a first person story is if you lived through the events long enough to write about them, hence you will be reading the accounts of a survivor (possibly lone). You could mix it up and have a ghost tell the story, but that's just a gimmick and one I dismiss as weak.

For me these are the kinds of stories that really strike my fancy. They are the only things that have come close to creeping me out. Maybe I'm alone in this, but any writer who does not write for himself is missing out on the joy writing can bring. In the end I'll probably not feel comfortable widely sharing my stories that emulate this style. Too bad too because I wonder what Lovecraft would have said.

"One cannot, except in immature pulp charlatan-fiction, present an account of impossible, improbable, or inconceivable phenomena as a commonplace narrative of objective acts and conventional emotions. Inconceivable events and conditions have a special handicap to over come, and this can be accomplished only through the maintenance of a careful realism in every phase of the story except that touching on the one given marvel." -- H. P. Lovecraft (Notes On Writing Weird Fiction)

I wrote about this once before, this time Lovecraft explains why, and I cannot argue with him. When your monsters are commonplace they lose that special quality which makes the story otherworldly, weird, or supernatural. In some sense we have made the supernatural natural and thus removed the mystery and appeal.

(I'd recommend reading that essay of Lovecraft's. "Google" it. I'd like to link to it but I don't want to mess with ambiguous copyright status.)

In the world of fiction I have only encountered a scant few reasons to be an author. The most obvious, and the most failed, is to write as a way to make a living (although I imagine most settle for making money). The next most obvious is to be famous, and again this isn't all that likely. Another reason to be an author is so you can just tell stories regardless of making money. I fall in that later category.

Now it seems to me there are two basic modes of writing, and it all has to do with intent. You can write with the intent to share the story, or you can write to sooth your inner writer and forever keep your stories to yourself. Of the first kind you have those who intend to share the story via publication, and then . . . to share without publishing, or rather to share without getting into the business of publishing and selling stories.

If only I were the kind of writer who could content himself with writing stories for myself, or even only sharing them with my wife and any future children we might have. Unfortunately I want an audience, and yet I don't want to publish my stories in the traditional ways. For me I write stories (or fragments in my current condition) because I want to create written art, and if I am to toil over my stories the way I tend to (perfectionism: learn to love it or hate yourself, it's your choice) I want to share my masterpieces with the world.

I am fussy about my stories. Like most people I have a hard time taking criticism in regards to those things which I care greatly about. With the exception of my novel I have put much of my heart and soul into my stories, and often they say exactly what I want them to say and in the way I want to as well; any attempt at editing my stories is often met with hostility, which makes me an unpleasant author to work with for sure. It might be different if I cared less about the art and cared more for the craft, but I still haven't been able to do that just yet.

Bearing this all in mind I have thought long and hard about audiences. If I want to share my stories with people I have to put them in a place where they will read them. Until I build up a name for myself I cannot expect people to find my stories if I just post them on the Internet. Thus it seems I will have to suck up my pride and submit stories for publication and take my licks, working toward that day when I can quit publication and just post my stories on the Internet. Funny isn't it? I don't care about the money, I just want the audience, and to me that seems much harder to come by than the money.

At present I am at a loss for some key plot points in one of my stories. I also only have a vague idea of the characters involved, but they will grow as the story takes shape. Actually, in most of my stories my block has to do with plot (I always struggle with plots). I either don't know how to get my characters on to the next point in the story, or I don't know what the next point will be, or worse (but far too often) I don't know what the end of the story looks like.

Can I call what I have writer's block? Am I just in search of a story worth telling, or do I really have some kind of block? I consider myself to not be blocked, but to face challenges of getting characters to act within their nature and yet still move along the plot I want to tell. Although I don't always know what that plot is.

Recently I've decided to try my hand at writing a gothic tale. Think Walpole meets Poe and you've got an idea of the tone I'm aiming for. I think I'll have a good time with it, and I might actually write a story I would love to read. There is a bit of a problem though . . . I don't have exposure to anything approaching gothic. Out here if a building is more than 100 years old its either a dilapidated barn or a farmhouse, and I don't find those particularly haunting, chilling, nor gothic (though how odd would it be to have a barn with flying buttresses and gargoyles?).

I went "back East" once, when I was a child, to tour some of our great American points of interest, namely Revolutionary War locations, Civil War locations, and D.C. I didn't go there on a writer's holiday, so I fear my impressions are biased and skewed based on the historical nature of the visit. However, I do know there were a number of buildings, locations, and narrow streets that are a result of the original colonies. There are features of the landscape and architecture that are impacted from 200 years past. I know this is even more true in Europe.

So I'm trying to write a gothic story, and to get the feel and flavor I want I can't just take a stroll downtown like Poe or Lovecraft might have been able to do. I'll have to dig around picture books, troll the Internet for pictures and videos, and generally rely on not being there and creating a composite world for my story. So, can an Oregonian write a gothic tale that doesn't involve a haunted barn? We'll see.