In Love with a Line

Tags

creative writing, editing, writing objectively

Ever hear of the idea that someone is ‘in love with what they’ve written’? In the context I’ve experienced it, that’s almost always a bad thing. It’s someone else’s way of criticizing whatever you’ve written, because they either don’t like it themselves or don’t understand it.

The rational part of me says that that’s okay. Someone else needs to look at your work, criticize it, tell you when it’s not working. That’s what you ask them to do.

But… no, I don’t feel like that doing that right now. Fuck that. (Am I allowed to curse on my own blog? That’s a decent question, actually)

See, here’s the thing. As the writer, you’re allowed to fall in love with a line or a scene you’ve written. Everything doesn’t always have to make sense to the reader. Yes, you’re writing for them and yes, most of the time, I suppose it would be good to have the reader understand what you’re saying, but you don’t always have to do that.

For personal taste, you can toss things around, have your characters or narrators say stuff that’s out of left field. Some times, you can keep the line you live, because, screw the reader, you wrote it and you deserve to take some pride in it, even if no one else understands.

PS: In full disclosure, I’m writing this in retaliation against my brother, who made several comments, well intended and requested, about a draft and I decided I would ignore his advice because, well, I was the writer and if he cared badly enough, he could write his own stuff.

Advertisements

the Stages of Editing and Revision

Tags

editing, editing process, revision, writing

Writing is easy. Editing, that’s the hard part. Well, hard isn’t quite the proper word. It’s… more involved. See, when people discuss editing and revisions, I’ve found that they seem to utilize that as a blanket, catch-all phrase. Professors and teachers often ask us to edit our work, just as often not giving useful guidelines beyond stale grammar rules. I’ve found, over time and compiling useful tidbits of information from different teachers, that revisions are often dictated by feel.

That feel is a composite of grammar and rules and personal sense of pacing. Yet, despite this seemingly nebulous approach, I have discovered that the basics haven’t changed. The process follows the same approach each time.

• Writing: Okay, that seems straight forward enough. Put the words on the page.
• Leave it alone. Give it a rest. Read a book, go write something else. When I finish the first draft of a piece, I’m too close to it. I can’t properly see the flaws.
• Plot corrections: Here, I try and discern what the major holes in the story are. Do the elements of the story make sense? Does the conclusion make sense? Does anything need to change, from major story points to even whole rewrites. This part takes time, as much of the time I only have a vague sense that something isn’t working.
• Details: This tends to happen simultaneously with plot corrections, though often takes longer. This is where I work out the precise details of a story or chapter. This often involves deciding the pace, where do breaks for details need to happen, where does dialogue need more room to breath. Here, word choice matters a great deal more than in any other draft, but I don’t have to rush it. I still give myself leeway to push past a scene even if I feel the wording doesn’t quite work.
• To Be Hunting: Now, the words matter. I go back and highlight every “to be” verb I’ve written. It doesn’t matter if I intend to keep the “to be” verbs or not. Since these components represent some of the weakest possible choices for words, I can safely go back and change my wording to remove their existence. The process is complicated and, many times, I find that I have to keep “to be” verbs or I can’t say what I want. That’s how it goes, but trying to get rid of them does make a substantial difference.
• Read Aloud: This is the final phase of my editing process. Here, I read the words aloud, to catch all the fine details. Sentences that aren’t quite complete, missing words. This part can be a huge help, especially after staring at a page for so long that I think I know for sure what I’ve written. The main drawback is that I find that often I begin to mumble to myself. This also happens to be a good litmus test as to whether I think the work I’ve written is in good shape. If I’m too embarrassed to read the piece, it means either the piece needs work or my public speaking skills do. (Mostly, it’s my public speaking skills.)

What steps do you take when you’re revising your work? Does thinking about the process help at all?

Reading Writing and Editing

Tags

blogging., creative writing, editing, managing my blog, revision, types of writing

I talked about this briefly last week, but I wanted to discuss the merits of the idea of the types of things I write in more depth.

After looking back on what I actually spend most of my time doing, I realized that much of what I’ve worked on in the recent past—since I started up again—is this blog and editing. That is, if even the creative writing aspect of editing where wholesale new ideas are written to cover for ditched ones counts as revising and editing, thus not truly creative writing in the purest sense.

I think, to a major extent, that’s true. For the time I’ve logged, I still spend a fair amount of time just thinking about ideas or posting ideas. Last month, August, I spent about 10 hours working on this blog. I wrote all my ideas up at the beginning of the month and spent the rest of it editing. I don’t count the revisions and editing as time. Nor do I count the time it takes to actually organize A Journal of Impossible Things, because that’s kind of insane and also, tends to happen randomly throughout the day. Now, that means, since I recorded about 37.5 hours writing, that I only spent about 27.5 hours revising. Not an acceptable amount. I did say that, several times in previous posts.

The only minor upside would be that I have spent a fair amount—unlogged—doing creative writing. I know this because I have scraps of paper from my job and my notebooks when I am not at my computer, where I have jotted down ideas. Also, I did some creative writing for this blog.

All of which is to say that I need to do MORE creative writing that isn’t tied to my novel. Because, at this point, at much as everything else develops my skills from a technical perspective, I feel a bit rusty in terms of actually writing freely.

Also, I haven’t done nearly as much reading as I would like to do. Yes, I know, I did get a book review out for Star Trek – the Light Fantastic but that book didn’t take me long. I had been in the process of reading several technical manuals and science books, but too much of that linguists approach had filtered into my writing so I know I need to read more fiction.

In terms of making progress in reading, the process has to be similar to writing. With reading, instead of identifying the amount that needs to be completed (and then hoping my hands don’t stage an open rebellion) I can focus on reading one chapter a night. At least. That way, I know I’ve definitely made progress, but if I feel the need or desire to read more that night, I can. As long as it is a complete chapter.

So, yes. I’m not thrilled with my own personal progress, but recognizing the problems and attempting resolutions is the best way to make actual progress.

Do you ever fail to accomplish your goals in terms of reading and writing? Did you think you were meeting them, only to realize upon self inspection that this was clearly not the case?

Writing is the Easy Part

Tags

creative process, creative writing, editing, first drafts, revisions, writing, writing process

Writing is the easy part. Those moments when the words can’t help but find the pages, right? That’s writing. That sensation so pure you know the words as they come to you may have been gifted by god and can never be taken away.

Unfortunately, that’s just the beginning. After you have those words, you have to sit down and put some serious effort into making them better.

That’s right. Writing’s the easy part. I’m sure there are some authors out there who sit down and their first draft is absolutely so amazing that they can just submit it and everyone loves it, but that doesn’t work for anyone I know. That’s lawyers and doctors and physicists and astronomers and creative writers. Even the best of them requires some time to sit down and edit their work.

EDITING!!! (Ahem… sorry…)

This isn’t a fair fight. Nor should it be. Not between the red pen, tip already dripping searing ink, and those vain words called a draft. But, it’s not supposed to be. This THING you assault is a first draft, where the great characters and idea go to hide or become born under the stress of having a world they can rule. That 1st Draft should not survive. For a more mundane comparison, we’re mining for ideas. Someone’s identified the vein of gold or iron and we’re mining to get to those pure deposits. Along the way, 99 percent of that’s just dirt, crap we don’t need.

This red pen is your lightsaber, given to you for a holy purpose, find the errors and the Sith and burn them out. Despite knowing they’ll just come back in another draft.

For me, editing often takes far longer than actually writing. I have to sit down and consider the piece that I’ve written as a whole. Often that means plenty of rewrites and fifth and sixth drafts, but as I go, my sense of what my writing is meant to accomplish coalesces. Newer drafts, though often containing wholesale revisions, come closer to my nebulous intent.

Have I become clear yet. Writing requires no thought. Writing requires no one to take the blame, no witness to the structural weaknesses in your tale.

Your first draft is the illusion of a Dream. REVISION reveals this dream as the siren she truly is and we just need to plug our ears to ignore her call.

How long does editing everyone else? Do you take the time to consider every word before it goes on the page?

A Memory of Writing: A Paper on Artificial Metalloenzymes (Inorganic Chemistry)

Tags

editing, inspiration, late night writing, memory of writing, research paper, spontaneous writing, writing process

Another day, another memory of writing. Not all writing is inspired or original. Sometimes, it’s just a grind, taking ideas we’ve read a thousand times before and regurgitating them in our own way. Other times, it’s required, for a research paper or a class you’re taking.

9 P.M. on a Saturday night. Spring, 2008.

I’m supposed to be at work. And, I am. The student supervisor at the college library on a Saturday night because, well, I didn’t have a real social life, so what the hell was I going to do on a Saturday night? So, I’m at work.

Work isn’t taking much effort. Not many people are in the library yet. Finals aren’t for another week, so no one’s really packing it in. When that happens, you won’t be able to find a free table or chair. For now, it’s slow.

Beside my chair, slumped on the ground, lay my backpack (the same one I carry with me to work right now, actually). Inside my backpack sits a chemistry paper—already written, researched, cited, and footnoted—I had just retrieved from my professor’s mailbox outside his office. Written on artificial metalloenzymes and their affinity in protein bonding, I had notes from my professor on how to improve the paper. And, the next morning, Sunday, he had set aside time in the morning to answer any questions students might have about his notes. 10 A.M. On a Sunday. I think he had church before that.

Side note: When you’re given an entire semester to chose a subject, research, and write a paper, waiting till the last minute is not a good idea, as a proper paper is often—at minimum—12 pages, more in all likelihood when footnotes and graphics are added.

That’s a long way of saying ‘I have this paper and it’s Saturday night.’ Obviously, what I need to do was ignore the notes and enjoy my Saturday. Which is what I did, right? Except, not so much. I took the paper out and read the notes.

Work closed at 11 P.M. and I headed back to my apartment, still working on the comments.

4 A.M. Sunday Morning. My brother, who lives in Japan at this point, sent me an IM (remember IM’s?). What could I possibly be doing up at 4 A.M.? At this point in my life, 4 A.M. is late. That would change in the next two years, but, as always, that’s another story.

Still working on my paper, I tell him. Full of energy and enthused by the notes and the process of making the words I put on the page, well, better. So, basically, I spent most of Saturday night working on a paper, then got up the next morning and went for more notes.

I mention this particular memory because, while this particular event doesn’t revolve around fiction or creative writing—unless you count chemistry as science fiction—writing and editing a research paper on artificial metalloenzymes wouldn’t actually make the list of what anyone thinks of as “fun”.

Except… to say this:

The feeling that drove me to pick up the paper and fix it are the exact same emotions I feel when I get deep into editing my creative works. The excitement and the drive, the adrenaline surge when I know I’ve nailed that line and conveyed with efficiency and detailed the point I wanted to. Putting red ink to paper. The flow of a scientific paper and the process for writing one is, for me, similar to creative writing. I identify the points I need to make, the goal of the paper (or chapter), and fill in the blanks.

All writing isn’t the same, I know that. But, certainly, the drive to clarify my vision with the written word feels the same. The feeling of success knowing I’ve completed that paper and that someone else will, hopefully, learn something or enjoy what they’ve read. Those aspirations remain the same. The sense of elation remains the same.

And, isn’t that the point?

One small side note: I forgot to write the abstract on the final paper. When my teacher pointed this out to me the next morning at 10 A.M. I added it. In the process, splitting a graph across two pages. Never split a graph across two pages.