“Birth” of a Story
Today is my birthday. (Thanks. No need to send anything.) It got me thinking about birth of a different kind though.
When is a fiction idea “born? Our stories start somewhere, but is there a definitive moment of their birth for the writer?
Is our story born the moment the first flash of an idea enters our mind? Obviously this is the first transcendence of ordinary thinking necessary for all stories, even if they are reboots of something else; that seed must be planted in our minds.
Yet not all seeds take root. I myself have shelved my most recent attempt at a novel. I may come back to it someday of course, but right now it’s in limbo. There are plenty of ideas for stories of mine that I will almost certainly not go back to, however. Was the story still “born” even though it will never truly exist?
Perhaps completing a first draft represents the so-called birth of a story. First drafts mean different things to different people, of course. Some embrace the “shitty first draft” while others correct it as they go along. In either case, perhaps this is when an idea is born in earnest. That is, after all, the first fully formed version of said story, even if heavy edits follow.
Then again, if you edit something severely, is it the same story, or has it become something else? If you see it as an evolving entity, like a person, than the story’s birthday may indeed be the day you finish that first draft. But if subsequent edits feel like an entirely different thing you may not consider it a “birth” until you’ve made your own final edits, as I recently did with my first novel.
At this point, I am self-publishing. Maybe a story is born once it’s available to read? Self published, formatted and such. Those who traditionally publish likely consider the “birth” of their project the moment it hits brick and mortar bookstores. On the other side of that coin, is a fully polished, formatted and available book in either publishing world truly “alive” if nobody has ever read it? Perhaps a story is born when a certain number of people have read it.
Or here’s a thought; a story has multiple birthdays. Every time someone reads what we have written, and feels alive, or moved, or thoughtful because of it, a story is born anew. It takes on the life of both we, the authors, and the reader. It seeps into a reader’s own artistic view of the word, the words make up quotations in their conversations, and the characters inspire an action in actual lives. When the countless spinning orbs of a chaotic universe are set on a whole new course by which they shape the orbits of innumerable subsequent objects because of a story we have told to our fellow people.
I can’t speak for anyone but me, but that sounds like a birthday to me.
Introverts Are Not Specimens
I’m the organizer of a local introverts meet up group. Just less than two years ago, I went looking for a local group that catered to introverts and found none, so I started one myself and called it “Social Introverts.” It has by and large been a success. We meet this Saturday, in fact.
I’ve been thinking lately about two “incidents” for lack of a better word that have occurred at our meet ups in the past. One happened a few months ago, and the other about a year ago. Both highlight a potential annoyance that perhaps other introverts have faced. I didn’t write about either incident in detail until quite a bit of time had gone by, just to be sure I wasn’t “shooting from the hip.”
Not that I was angry either time, but as you’ll see I had every right to be at least annoyed, for more than one reason.
The first time, we met at a local cafe in the afternoon. Back then, I didn’t cap the number of attendees as much as I do now, and there happened to be about ten who showed up. (I keep it at seven or less these days. Better for conversation.) We’d all been conversing for maybe half an hour, when a woman approached our table. She asked if we were the meetup group her friend told her about. I told her I wasn’t sure, because I didn’t know what her friend had told her, but that we were the social introverts group. This interloper proceeded to repeat how her friend had mentioned that she should check out this meet up, but never confirmed we were even the one she was looking for. She did, however, want a definition for “introverted.”
Several of us obliged her question, (though part of the point of the group is not to have to explain ourselves to other people who are not introverted.) This woman pulls up a chair and sits down with us, (uninvited) and says, “I suppose then it’s my job to convert all of you to extroverts.”
I believe I said something like, “You’d be wasting your time.” I then tried to explain how one doesn’t just convert to another temperament, but she was already talking about something else.
I sensed that several others at the table, though not as put off by this behavior as I was, nevertheless would have been happy had this visitor never shown up.
I could have sent her away. As organizer of the group, I probably should have. But I wasn’t going to be that guy. I let her stay, and interject things into the conversation(s) we were having. I had a hunch the problem would take care of itself. And it did. After sitting mostly in silence for a few minutes, this conversionist excused herself and left. I never did know if her friend had sent her to us, and she never said who her friend was. I do know I’ve not seen or heard from her since.
Those that were present laugh about it from time to time when we gather at meetings. We share the story with newcomers. It convinced me to keep our meetup locations hidden to non-members from then on out.
Move forward in time to just before Christmas, last year. Same cafe, if you can believe it. A smaller group of introverts this time. After a while a guy in a suit is sort of hovering nearby, but doesn’t say anything. New people come to meetings often, and I don’t always recognize people from their picture, so I think he may be someone who RSVPed. Just as I am about to ask him something, he introduces himself.
“I’m not officially a member of this group,” he says, (as though there were an unofficial way to be a member.) “But I was looking at your meetup page, and after reading some of the comments and doing a little investigating, I determined this had to be where all of you were meeting.”
So much for not revealing where the meetups are to non-members.
This dude told us that he’d hoped to learn more about what it is to be an introvert, and he thought meeting some of us was the best way. After another round of playing, “what exactly is an introvert?” this guest mentioned, “Then I must be an extrovert, as I thought.” More questions about what it’s like to be introverted, and what we do and how we think.
He wasn’t without intelligence, but as you can imagine I wasn’t thrilled with the nature of his visit. And whenever anyone tried to turn the conversation back on him and his career, he had a curious lack of information to share about his own profession. He was, however, on his way to a formal dance that night, about two hours away. This he mentioned more than once.
As he was leaving, I mentioned to him that he could always join the group officially, and not have to sneak around to find out where we are. (Translation: Don’t do that any more, it’s rude.) I also told him he could contact me if he had any further questions. He said he’d have to do that, but I’ve not heard from him since.
That visit inspired me to change the description of the group to be more specific.
I hold no malice toward either of these peaceful invaders. I’m sure neither meant any harm, though both were, in my view, quite presumptuous. There is a reason people have meetup pages, with RSVPs and such. They are in place to control who comes to what. Ignoring that is rude. And while I don’t mind some healthy curiosity about what it means to be an introvert, there are plenty of places to learn about such things online and off line. If someone does want to talk to a person about it, there is a right way and wrong way of doing it. Standing up in the middle of a Catholic Mass to ask questions about the church is not appropriate. Though what we do in my meetup is not a religion, it is a group with a purpose, and we have every right to expect that to be respected.
Though I own the group, I don’t speak on behalf of its members. I don’t know their thoughts on these things. But as for me, both times I felt as though being introverted were something weird, rare, or in need of repair. A curiosity. I felt that the group was being used at both of these times as a case study, more than a social occasion. There is a time and a place for learning, as I said, but introverts are not such an unusual “breed” that people must surround them, like fish in an aquarium to gawk and ponder. We make up about half the population, after all; we’re not that unusual.
Am I overreacting? In some aspects perhaps. Yet not totally. That’s why I waited so long to blog about this, so I wouldn’t appear to be venting as opposed to expressing a concern. My guess is that other introverts have at times felt treated as more of an oddity than a type of personality, and I wanted to express solidarity with such people through this post.
Iced.
And I don’t refer to the atrocious winter weather Maryland has experienced lately. I’m referring to what I’ve been calling Novel 2. I’m disappointed to report that as of now, what was to be my second “official” novel is being iced. Stuck in a drawer. Shelved. Whatever term you prefer, the point is this; I am no longer going to pursue completing that novel. At least not for the foreseeable future.
After consulting with some colleagues and friends about this issue that has been weighing on me for months, I came to this difficult decision. I avoided this conclusion for quite a while, despite having not progressed much in the first draft for the better part of a year. I don’t believe in quitting, you see, and I am always cognizant of how much discipline writing requires. The last thing I wanted to become was someone who wrote half a novel and then blew it off.
I got to thinking though, that if a warped sense of pride, and fear of being labeled “lazy” are the biggest reasons I’ve sought to continue a stalled project, then I’m not looking at things in the proper light. If those fears have kept me, at least technically, still in pursuit of Novel 2, as opposed to being moved by the story, or feeling a gripping need to explore a theme, I perhaps have no business continuing the manuscript.
It likely would have been a different story had a finished first draft existed. That to me is a success, a first draft. That is the lump of clay into which something solid and artful can be molded. But over the last several years, wave after wave of my work on this novel has rolled, crested, but ultimately crashed upon the rocks. Reboots, Nanowrimo experiments, severe edits, tone changes all have given the work a new sputter of life for a few weeks at most, only to stall again a short time later.
The funny thing is, I generally know where the plot is going. It is not writer’s block, per se. Last fall I called this general feeling, “writer’s weight,” though with Novel 2 it has become severe, and has removed much of the excitement of writing. Butt-in-chair? I have my problems with that as an overall philosophy, but for the sake of argument I can point to a number of other things over the same time frame for which I have kept my butt sufficiently in the chair to complete, or head towards completion. My first novel. Thank You For Ten. My one-man show that opens this month. Two drafts of another play. Nanowrimo, both short stories and a mystery novel. Not to mention my non-fiction, job related writing. I won’t claim I’ve never been lazy, because I have. Yet over the last two years my body of work, (if I am fair to myself for a change) displays a distinct lack of laziness when it comes to my writing. Novel 2 is just not working right now, and my avoidance of it will not be cured any longer by delving even deeper into it. I’ll resent the work if I go on like this, and I don’t want that to happen. So, I’m icing it.
I could come back to it someday, of course. That freedom, (of which more than one colleague reminded me lately) is helping me live with my decision. I’m not quitting this book; I am postponing it. I may or may not ever return to it, but I always can. I’ve wrestled in the mud with it so long, however, that everything is covered in that mud, and I can’t distinguish as well anymore. If it is to have any hope of ever being a novel, it has to go on hiatus for a few years. (Barring something unusual taking place that would expedite the process.)
This happens in the course of a career, I know. I knew it would occur with me. I just didn’t think it would happen with what was to be only my second “official” novel. And since I had no developed idea at all for what would have been the eventual Novel 3 I have no long-form project to jump to at the moment. Sentence fragments and the broadest of broad concepts are all I had in the tank for future novels. If I’m to continue novel writing in the near future, I’ll have to coax one of those shadow-ideas into solidity, or otherwise brainstorm a bit and come up with something new. Maybe that is one positive that can come from this; opening avenues in my imagination to new possibilities which I kept somewhat at bey while Novel 2 occupied priority seating there. It may prove a useful decision.
Yet still I don’t like it. Still I fear the stamp of “lazy:, or “undisciplined.” I can’t be certain that I’ve made this decision for the correct reasons. Yet the decision is made, and I grew weary of wondering what to do about it. President Truman is alleged to have said, “Some questions cannot be answered. But they can be decided.” I’ve decided to ice an incomplete first draft. Hopefully I will also decide that this was the right thing to do.
Eccentric!
I had a plan for this post.
Today I was supposed to explore idea I’ve had for a while; I was going to provide you with a list of my most definitive eccentricities. I would go on to describe the ideal world or situation for me, based on each of the eccentricities I described. It was to be equal parts frank and entertaining. In other words, the sort of post they say you’re supposed to write. (All the time…)
I assumed that when I sat down to write this post, I’d simply rattle off ten or so of my most eccentric characteristics or desires, make my witty, self deprecating comments about same, and publish it for all the world to peruse. “Oh what a card that Ty Unglebower is.”
Here’s the snag I encountered; I could only come up with one or two eccentricities of mine, and neither were especially interesting at the moment.
At this point it’s vital for you to understand one important fact; I don’t for a moment believe that I am eccentric in only one or two ways. On the contrary, I know that given time, the average person could probably augment my aborted list ten fold after knowing me for a few weeks. I’d be in agreement with about half of what they said, I’m sure.
So what happened? Why did I get stuck? Am I that self unaware? Like anyone, I’m in need of greater introspection at times, but in this case my stymied list of eccentricities I think is due to perspective. Unless I spent a few weeks undertaking a study and writing down those things about me which are eccentric enough to be noticed as well as to be enjoyed by a reader, it’s not easy to just call them up to the surface to discuss. That’s because my oddities are a part of who I am. Indeed the very nature of “eccentricity” requires a society of some size surrounding the eccentric man, and observing/behaving in a contrary manner. In other words, what is an eccentricity if not a value judgement we place on other people that perform actions, think and prefer things that most others in the same circumstance do not? Which is in part to say one behavior is eccentric here, but may not be at all eccentric over there.
Given this, determining one’s eccentricities is not simply a matter of self-reflection, but rather a quasi-academic exercise.
What society do I find myself in at this particular moment? What do I do in this particular situation that stands in clear contrast to the preferences and perceptions of that society? We ask ourselves these questions to determine in what manner we are eccentric. In some cases, this is determined with ease; wear a suit of armor while shopping downtown and in the vast majority of cases you’ll be viewed as eccentric. (At least.) Other things are conditional; have sauerkraut at Thanksgiving as I do, and you’re eccentric in Kansas but rather normal in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Even in both of those cases, one extreme and one subtle, a judgement is involved. So to determine my eccentricities in a list for your enjoyment, I’m not only required to study the scenario a bit, I’m subjecting myself to a judgement, and that’s not automatic.
Now, it’s a judgement I can live with in many cases. If you think it’s eccentric of me, being an average sized man to only wear extra large t-shirts, okay. I’ll accept that. In truth, I’d probably agree with that one; that is a little “eccentric” of me. Yet in the end it is still a judgement. A perception. Which means I could wear a suit of armor over my extra-large t-shirt while eating sauerkraut, and in the end be nothing more than just some guy doing stuff.
I may yet one day consider more deeply what about myself most people might consider eccentric, and post commentary on same. It will take a bit more thinking, though. Even then, you might not think I’m that eccentric after all. Until that post, though, I’m content to propose that there is no true eccentric behavior in the world.
Or is that an eccentric view to take on being eccentric?
The End, and the Beginning, Have Arrived.
Last night, around 7:00PM, I made the final revision in the final draft of my upcoming novel, Flowers of Dionysus. Barring any mistakes that I spot during formatting, (and a bit of waffling I’m doing on some character names) I have altered the manuscript for the final time. From here on out, the focus is on preparing it for self-publication in June. (Thanks to J. Lea Lopez for her professional proofread of the previous draft.)
For the author, a moment sch as this may be more significant than getting the book published, in either the traditional or the self-published route. The final set of revisions means that the straight up writing and creating of the novel is complete. Up until that point, the characters, the sequence, the world we as author’s have created is somewhat in flux. That flux usually solidifies a bit more with each draft, but during any given round of revisions there is some pliability. When revisions are over, things are in a sense crystallized. If you want to be poetic about it, you could say the story ceases at that point to belong to the author. The final revisions of the final draft mark the very first baby step in the books journey into the hands of readers, wherein it will be something different to each person.
In other words, though there is a lot of work left to be done in the dreadful world of publishing and promoting, the completion of revisions is a big deal.
How do you know when you’ve reached the end of the revisions process? I suppose those lucky enough to be traditionally published know it’s over when the various professionals who work at the publishing house say it is over. Perhaps their moment like this comes when they start shopping their finished manuscript, I really don’t know as I have never done it. For me, it was over when I declared it over. In other words, I had to recognize that every time I went through a round of revisions, I could potentially go back and read the novel again to see how it sounds. And while doing so, I could detect another several dozen things to tweak, or change or eliminate or add. That cycle can lead to perfectionism, which can be deadly to productivity. At some point an author must have faith that they have been diligent in their revisions and edits, and declare them complete, so they can move on with the next phase of things. That is what I did last night.
The idea for Flowers of Dionysus came about as a result of several different unexpected inspirations in the summer of 2009. A few moments and experiences in my life at around the same time led me to develop the concept of the novel, as well as elements of a few key scenes and lines. I also read a fantasy novel around that time which inspired me with its tone. All of those things came together at just the right time to motivate me into writing this novel.
The rough draft took about a year, and I let it sit for about six months before I began revisions on it. I’d wait a month or so after finishing each subsequent draft as well, before moving on to the next round. Nine rounds in all. Six years total from concept to final draft. Total length, just over 87,000 words. (The first draft was about 25% longer.) I read the first page of the first draft again last night. While as the author I can see the common concept between it and the final draft of the first page, it’s quite different. I’ve learned a lot about my writing since I composed that first page six years ago, which is probably why future novels won’t take that long to complete. I don’t think I can afford to take that long doing it anymore, anyway. But this being my first novel intended for outside eyes, I guess I wanted to make sure I got it as right as could be.
Naturally you’ll be hearing a lot more about this novel now, over the next few months. I’m going to promote it as best as I can on what little budget is available to me. My short story collection from last year did not do what I hoped it would do, so I am more nervous this time than I was last year when I thought word of mouth support from acquaintances would help me attain my modest goals. Yet I move forward anyway, knowing that writing nothing will sell nothing.
And as for Matt, Marcus, Tanya, Centauri, Ben, Kurt, Frieda and all the rest of the characters in this novel; welcome to completion.
Ty Unglebower 