How to Juggle…Writings.
Lately I have been reconsidering the pacing and scheduling of my non-deadline oriented writing.
My freelance stuff for magazines and websites is easy to place on the calendar. Finish it by the time it’s due. No ambiguity there. Yet what about the more personal projects?
And there need to be personal projects. Especially when the ultimate outcome is that my personal writing projects eventually make me money and bring me influence over certain communities.
The biggest project of course for the time being is my novel Flowers for Dionysus. That has a regular schedule of edits and revisions. In fact within the week I will begin the fourth draft. I’ve kept to my self-imposed deadline for that quite well over the last few years.
Yet I have all kinds of other writing projects in mind. I have about half an outline for a second novel. I have a play or two kicking around in my head. Numerous short stories that I haven’t gotten to yet. Assuming that none of these ideas are just visiting, I should have quite a bit of material to keep me busy in my personal writing life for a while.
Much of it is due to my policy of not working on more than one project. One novel at a time. The second one will wait. I must never begin to research or outline the play, because I am still editing the first novel and have not yet finished the outline for the second. Those two ideas for short stories that keep cropping up in my mind? I must get to at least a second draft on one before I even start to outline the other.
In essence, I am strict on myself when it comes to how much personal writing I will pursue at any one time. I hate having too many irons in the writing fire. While I think that is a wise position to have on the matter, I am starting to think I might have tied my own hands somewhat.
For you see most of those projects I mentioned have been “in storage” for quite a while. Years in some cases. And the cue gets longer and longer as I come up with more ideas to explore. Even if only half of the ideas come to fruition, I am still quite behind. I have begun to think I should loosen up on my policy somewhat, just for the sake of having a collection of works in progress from which to select any given day.
I move slower than a lot of writers I know. When I compound that with doing only one, and possibly two things at a time…it’s a long game of catch-up left to be played.
My new theory is that some of these ideas have to exist in some tangible form in order for the working part of my brain to take them seriously. If they remain simply an idea in a notebook, that part of my brain will see them as window dressing. Nice to look at, but not affordable at this time. Whereas if, for example, there is at least a rough draft of a few of them out there, or the first few pages of a few of them, the worker part might say, “Okay, what do I have on my desk today? Where can I be most productive?”
Again, if I had to start everything in my idea notebook right now, I would drown in my own brainstorm. Yet perhaps its time to ease up on the “one thing at a time” approach.
I guess part of it is that I tend to think in a lineal fashion. Do this, then that, and conclude with those. Also part of me fears that working on more than one thing at a time will siphon away the creative juices that flow to any given project.
Can I work out some sort of schedule or system by which I can say, have not a dozen projects going, but maybe four, without feeling overwhelmed? Is there an approach I can take to give equal and fair attention to more than one project at a time, without any of them suffering? I would need a system no matter what. I think in systems. I have to. There are too many thoughts not to do so.
One thing I considered is assigning a certain amount of time each day to a given project, and when that time is up, stopping no matter what. Then I considered breaking it up by weeks. The first week of the month, most of my creative writing is dedicated to this project. In week two, everything goes to another project, and so on until the next month when I return to the first thing. No decisions as to how to do this yet.
Or perhaps I should not do it at all.
What do you think? Is one project at a time too sluggish a pace? How do you handle multiple personal projects? I am open to ideas. I just don’t want my ideas to wither simply because I had to take forever on the one that came before it.
It’s Not Always Your Story
I have a notebook full of ideas for future pieces I could write. A line of dialogue, or a premise. Sometimes just a single event or concept. I take it with me just about wherever I go. (If you’re a writer, you should do the same thing, you know.)
Thus far I have not even attempted most of the ideas in the notebook. Some of that is due to time. Some of it is due to my not committing enough time to writing what comes to me in idea form. Or perhaps a touch of laziness and fear thrown in. Yet at least a portion of the stories that have gone unwritten is due to something else. Something not totally within my control.
I won’t begin to theorize on how ideas form in the mind of a writer or artist. There are scientific as well as spiritual components to the mystery of where ideas come from, as far as I’m concerned. Sometimes those ideas that come to us (and they really do just arrive don’t they? We don’t go to them…that much any writer can agree on), lead on to other ideas. A story idea strikes us, we write it down, begin to explore it or outline it, and a sequence unfolds. Characters walk into our consciousness. Events that affect those characters are uncovered by us, rather than being caused by us. And a story is born, and you go through all the drafts to perfect voice, character, dialogue, description and the other things so vital that writers read about all the time.
Then there are times when that initial idea strikes with just as bright a bolt of lighting as any other. You write it down for later. And when the time comes…it doesn’t provide you with the next piece you need. Or it does, but that piece seems off to you. Too heavy to carry on your shoulders. The writing stalls. You outline a bit. You brainstorm. With great effort a few more tiny concepts at the frayed edges of the overarching idea blink into existence. Yet they are still not enough to set the thing on fire. (Writers know about this fire.)
So you set aside this story for a few days. Maybe a few weeks, or longer. After you have read a few more novels, worked on a different WIP, or just taken a break from thinking too much, you dig this beauty out of the drawer again. Refreshed, you set to work on it. Yet despite a brief spurt, you find the road is still closed to you, and you still cannot continue. Your worst fear has come true…writer’s block!
Or perhaps something else happens. Perhaps the road for this story is in fact open before you now. Laid out in great detail you can sense its turns, its cracks in the pavement. You can see the destination. The possible detours. And yet…you just don’t want to go. You feel guilty about this. Inspiration so rarely comes as quickly or as clearly as came this idea, that by not taking the journey you’re punching the Muses in the gut. Surely they will never again come to say hi to you.
Yet this is an error in thought. You do not have writer’s block. You are not lazy and you are certainly not disrespecting any Muse. You have simply found out something that many writers don’t consider often enough; this story with great potential isn’t yours. It belongs to someone else. You just happened to be driving by and saw it along the road, head under the hood of its car, so you gave it a lift. (Because you are nice like that.)
I’m sure it appreciates the help, but if the two of you are just not going to the same place, there is no reason to carry that passenger with you all the way home. They in fact don’t want to go home with you in many cases. You have to be content enough that you helped it along as far as you could, and then drop it off at a safe location before going on your way.
As a writer, you practice seeing the world in creative ways. You pay attention to what people say. Get to know humanity. Read a lot of fiction, and non-fiction for that matter. Tune the instrument that is your storytelling into the orchestra of existence. Believe it or not, few people actually do this, so you are already a step ahead if you even try to do so.
When you do, you will see things, inspirations, ideas, concepts and even characters floating about in the collective artistic ether that is all around us and inside of us. You have a trained eye and trained heart for such things as a writer, and you will see things others don’t. You may want to dance with them all.
But you cannot, nor should you. Like I said, that piece of fiction that came to you in the shower may not end up being for you. It could be a great idea, but not an idea that you can give the proper life to. Perhaps you were never meant to. Perhaps your entire contribution to the life of this concept is to share it with other writers, one of whom may be stuck on something and needed to hear exactly what you say at that exact moment. That writer then continues with their story and in so doing brings to life the idea that you picked up for a while. The concept has found the person it needs in order to be told well.
By being big enough to share your ideas with other creative types once it becomes clear to you that you can take it no further, you are honoring the idea itself, the craft of writing, and its fellow practitioners. And if I had to guess, I’d say the Muses quite enjoy hanging out with people who think that way.
For Me
Last night at rehearsal for Richard III, the director finished her agenda and opened up the evening to anyone who wanted to work on something specific. Not one to hold up proceedings, I made a tentative request to work on one of my scenes in the play. Not just any scene, but my longest, potentially most draining scene.
The director, totally willing to run the scene nonetheless pointed out that she had not detected anything wrong with it that required work in the previous times we ran it. I nearly withdrew my request, thinking it might be just in my head that I wasn’t feeling right about the scene, and not wanting to keep people from going home early. After some encouragement from the others involved in the scene, however, we ran the scene once through.
You can find out more details about that over on Always Off Book. The point I am making here is that I felt the need to improve upon a scene, and rework same, when everyone else thought it was going fine. So convincing is the crowd sometimes in life that we sometimes forget that in the end we need to have a certain degree of satisfaction with our own work.
This can be taken to extreme, naturally. Perfectionism makes failures of us all. If I am not careful I could be a perfectionist, but I usually don’t allow that impulse much time in the spotlight. Yet perfection aside I can be quite exacting in my self-standards. I don’t want to make other people suffer because of them, which is why I was reluctant to ask people to stay behind for a few more minutes. Yet in the end I knew that I had to go over it once, without the pressure of the rest of the play, just so I could say to myself I could elevate it to my own standards.
That scene needs work still, in my head. And I will continue to work on it. Yet those few moments during the “free” hour of rehearsal may have done more for the scene than all of the previous “official” rehearsals of same, because it was specifically for me as opposed to the play as a whole. In spite of everyone else thinking that the scene was fine, (though very willing to run it last night), I just had to satisfy that one part of my that wanted to try for a bit more. I can still do so from here on out as we get to that scene each night, but I won’t have that chance to isolate that one scene again before we open.
The moral of this story is that while we must avoid perfectionism, we cannot always avoid that voice in our head that tells us we can do something better, or that it needs a bit more work. I felt a bit of embarrassment asking for the extra time at first, but once it was over, I was happy that I listened to myself when I said, you could use just one extra run-through of this.
If I had not, the show would have gone on in this final week, and I would have been fine to the audience, I imagine. Just as I have been to my fellow actors. Yet I think a part of me would have always wanted that single chance to do it “for me”.
So don’t jail yourself or beat yourself up. But when the chance arises, take that extra moment or two to satisfy yourself. To know that you can give that extra shot, or be just so much better. We’re only human, but in the end we owe it to ourselves first to believe in what we are doing, and how well we are doing it. Even if others don’t notice a problem.
Schrodinger’s Plot
I’ve always been fascinated with the concept of parallel universes. Those places where, (according to one theory at least) events of our history turned out differently. Because there are an infinite number of universes, any given one of them may differ from this by so little as the fact that in that reality my name was spelled Tye. (Many people believe that we live in that reality now…)
On the other side of the coin, another universe may have unfolded in such a way that a friendly alien race found planet Earth in the year 1400, introduced electricity to humanity, and guided us towards a whole new type of civilization from there on out.
And everything in between those two realities.
Of course there is a whole sub-genre of fiction dedicated to this very concept. Countless books, especially by the self-proclaimed “king” of the genre Henry Turtledove, have been based on the premise that history in our world unfolded differently within the novel’s world. But here is something to consider; what if the history within your own fiction had taken an alternate route?
When you write a story or novel you need to know what is happening next, and what led to it taking place within the universe you have created. (How wild would it be if one of the real-life alternate universes were one of the ones in your novel??)
You character wants something or does something that sets a story into motion. That character makes a choice. Readers may wonder what would have happened had your character gone the other way. In fact, I dare say it may be a sign of a good story if people do wonder about the other possibility. So why not write these possibilities?
These alternatives need not be for public consumption. And I’m not suggesting that for every story you write you put in as much time writing an alternate version. We are talking about infinite possibilities after all. I do suggest however that perhaps outlining an alternate course of events for your novel, or even a novel by your favorite author can be a great way to work on cause and effect, sequential action, plotting, character, and any number of other concepts important to writing quality fiction.
Just to keep your imagination limber and your skills sharp, outline the result of The Wizard of Oz had Dorothy not defeated the Witch of the West near the end. What would that have meant? How would she have accomplished her goals then? Or would she? When is the next moment wherein she would have a chance to defeat the witch? Would the rest of her crew still be together at that point, and if not why? How would Oz, Dorothy and everyone else have to adjust from what we know of them now if this key event did not take place when it did?
This is in many ways what fanfiction is, when you think about it. Not an exact match, but in both cases a writer is exploring the inner working of a world and a set of characters to see what makes them tick, and how that ticking might be differently if XYZ occurred.
As I said, it works with your own fiction as well. Rewrite your climax. Only this time proceed as though the main character experienced the polar opposite. They key character didn’t escape. The protagonist got the girl after all. Or pick some other point in your story and change a single thing. Prevent a meeting of two characters. Remove one of the conflicts. See where the characters and story will take you after you do that. If you explain it to them, I’m sure their oblige your flight of fancy. You may even find your experiment in alternate history works better for your work in progress than what you had planned at first.
It’s all about recognizing the wonderful complexity and fragile consistency of stories. The gust of wind that can change the course of the whole ship. Even if you remain on the course you set, you can only improve your craft by taking a peek at the alternate universe that lies just around the cosmic corner.
Progress Report: Novel Number One
This month I will begin the fourth draft of my novel, Flowers for Dionysus. I have kept mental distance from it for the last few months since I finished the third draft, and sent it to a few test readers. (Most of whom have not progressed with it as quickly as I had been led to believe, but I digress.)
Whether my test readers meet their deadline or no, August is the time I had set aside to begin the next set of revisions, due by Christmas time. What will the revisions entail?
I think that this time around I will be concentrating on two things by and large. The first is making sure the characters are well drawn, and interesting to the reader. I believe they stand on their own right now quite well, but part of revisions is to make sure what seemed true before is still true. So I will be thinking particularly of how characters are introduced and presented throughout the piece. How they interact with one another. Determine if anything needs to be edited to make each one interesting as well as distinct from the others.
The second focus of this fourth set of revisions will be in sprucing up some language here and there. This isn’t intended to be literary fiction, and again I believe that as written the language works well for the story. Nonetheless I will keep an eye out for specific places that might benefit from an upgrade of some kind. I don’t much believe in formulas or lists when it comes to writing, but I may research what writers/editors feel are the most overused words in fiction today and see if I can, or even want to eliminate them from the piece.
To me, this piece is about characters and story. Which sounds obvious at first, but many writer oriented sites, articles, and message boards talk about the importance of spending all month on one paragraph until you are certain every single word will grab a reader by the throat, and make them desperate to read the next one. Advice about using “said” as a tag too often, or about using it exclusively. About never using a “to be” verb, or showing and not telling. Advice that will contradict itself if one reads at least three articles. These are significant aspects of writing in their own way, and I can’t say I will never obsess over them, but for the time being, if my story is clear and moves people, I don’t much care if I have a sentence in the passive voice, or 5% more adverbs than others would recommend. Stories matter, as I have always said here on TyUnglebower.com
So character and language spring cleaning are focuses of revision number four. I will of course keep my eyes open for any confusing sections, plot holes, or unneeded scenes, just as I have been for the first three revisions. I will correct anything glaring like that which I notice. But nuance will be the main focus for the first time in this set of revisions, as opposed to broad structural issues. It could be an interesting challenge.
Ty Unglebower 