Kill My Darlings?

The first time I read the phrase "kill your darlings" was while reading Stephen King's book On Writing. It seems simple and reasonable. But after NaNo, I've started the task of trimming the overgrown garden, and now I'm struggling with what to keep, and what to prune away.

For instance, the story didn't go the direction I initially planned, but my manifesto didn't allow for second guessing and since I was writing pretty much by the seat of my pants, I simply wrote what made sense at the time. And I got some good ideas out of it, but my one book is quickly growing and dividing. I've lost the whole sense of the story and have started considering plot lines that frankly annoy me in order to make the pieces fit.

The other option is to rewrite it all as I had initially intended, killing most of what I've written. Not a nice thought. At all. Amalgamating the two isn't possible without resorting to annoying plot lines.

I've decided to give it a rest for a while, just to let the story simmer in my mind over the holidays and pick up again in 2014. Maybe a bit of distance will lend perspective. Or I'll have a sudden "Aha" moment and kill half my characters with a bomb, i.e. The Stand.

And it may be that I took on more of a story than I can properly manage right now. Too many threads to weave, too much to take into account. I did the same thing with my graduate thesis. Overplanned, tried to stuff too much into a relatively small space.

I have what I submitted to NaNo this year, in case I have to do an emergency resuscitation. And just in case, I might tie the dead darlings' shoe laces together in case of zombie novel apocalypse.

The After-NaNo Manifesto

Last night, after the glow of happiness dimmed, I realized that I suddenly had a huge NaNo-shaped hole in my heart. I don't have The Big Deadline to work toward, to dream about. I couldn't let it roll around on my tongue like a marble - something hard and tangible. And now...well, now what?

So I looked over my NaNo manifesto. It helped me through many a moment of WTF Am I Going To Do Now, and motivated me. Especially that "I'm going to finish this MF-er" part.

Only...that's the issue now, isn't it? I haven't finished it. I wrote the 50,000 words, but the book is nowhere near done. So I realized at 5am this morning when I finally began to drift off to sleep, that the NaNo-shaped hole has transmogrified into a Novel-shaped hole that can, indeed, be filled.

So, leaving off where I did with the NaNo Manifesto, I have some new rules for my After-NaNo Manifesto.

1. I will finish this story. The story, not just a word count. It's rude as hell to create leave a creature mostly skeletal and minimally fleshed and soulless. Those kinds of creatures have a nasty tendency to haunt and terrorize. Or fester and rot and stink to high hell and kill you that way. So I will finish this story.
   
2. I will attempt to write on this story every day, but will be lenient with my soul if I should miss a few days, especially during holidays.
   
3. I will set word-count goals and celebrate when I make them. Perhaps not 50,000 words per month, though. I'm not writing the Narnia series, here.
   
4. I will maintain the fun. I will work on sections that I want to work on, rather than trying to plow through chronologically.
   

So that's it for now. I'm sure I'll devise more rules as I go, but these are the biggies. 

All the original Manifesto rules still apply. ;)

Goal Attained

All over Well...the numbers game is over. I finished the 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo tonight, copied and pasted like mad to get the words from WriteWay into Word, went through a mad spellcheck, then validated it.

And...laughed like mad. Because I got the word count in a month. Because I'm not finished, just beginning, the whole thing is sketchy, skeletal, nearly soulless. It's a shell. And ALL over the place. But the goal was met. The first goal.

So now what? No deadline, but still so much left to do. I'm afraid, now, that the whole thing is going to get swept aside, that it'll remain...part of a story. Just another stump.

I need another manifesto. The after-NaNo Manifesto.

Let me get right on that tomorrow...

Nearly There

Word Count: 36,266

I might actually "win" NaNoWriMo this year. After three attempts, I might actually write a 50,000 novel in a month. OK, let's be more realistic for the situation. I might write 50,000 words of a novel that is going to stretch much further than that.

But here's something else that has bothered me for a while. Once November is over, and the rush done, and I have another however many words to go until this story is finished, am I going to stick with the momentum, or will I "take a break" and never get back to it?

Maybe tonight's not the time to be thinking about this. Tonight, I'll think about finishing before Thanksgiving.

Cultural/Racial Diversity in Characters

The gaps are closing, the characters materializing before my eyes, and I'm beginning to realize how flimsy some of them are. I've also realized how much my protag depends upon her male companion, which is NOT my intention, so that much change. And I've realized that my whole character list is white. I mean, I haven't written in anyone who isn't, well, white. And I need to change that. I did change that. One of my favorite characters is now Indian.

Deal is, I've written a world where the slave trade didn't materialize and cultures were encouraged to continue unhindered (except for human sacrifice), based roughly on the best parts of the Roman empire. People of color are there and in abundance, but I just haven't created that part of the narrative world yet. Granted, I'm just trying to get protag and company from one scene of action to the next, and I know that I can add details later, but what bothers me is that the crux of the novel is, once again, in the hands of white people (one of which is the one who causes all the snafu in the first place), and that's not really what I want. In a world where an empire crosses multiple cultural and racial boundaries through trade, etc., the purely European white majority wouldn't exist as heavily as it does in many of the books of this kind that I've read.

So, that's something to consider as I push toward that 50,000 word goal.

You know, I still don't know how this story is going to end.

Word Count: 31,111

Triple Espresso Shot Mocha

That's what I ordered this evening when my friends and I went to our favorite local coffee shop for some Bananagrams, Phase 10, and hot beverages. This was after a lovely sushi lunch.

WHY did I need that much caffeine? Because I had to catch up. It was Day 15, the official halfway point, and I hadn't hit the 25k word count yet. But I wasn't stressin' because I knew I needed girl time as much as I needed typing time. And because I've been nearly faithful to my NaNoWriMo Manifesto, I'm not bashing my head against the computer screen. I'm having FUN! I'm regularly reapplying duct tape to the mouth of my inner editor and just plain enjoying the process of getting my little story out of my head and onto the screen.

I've even stopped stressing about potential plot changes. This time a week ago I was doing plot diagrams in my head while wondering why sleep eluded me. I think I've changed a few minor plot elements because they just felt right.

I've jumped over major plot points because I'm not "there" yet. I've written scenes based entirely on the music playing on Pandora at the moment. I've toyed with the idea of adding a dragon to the mix.

And a few minutes ago, I saw, for my first time ever, the balance of words written tip over the number yet to write. I'm more than halfway done.

Triple Espresso Shot Mocha aside, though, I'm freakin' exhausted. I'm going to check FeederWatch Cam and then go to bed.

OK, so I lied...

Due to an insane case of insomnia exacerbated by one of the trees in front of my apartment falling over from the severe wind, I ended up sleeping all day yesterday, and a rather large part of today. SO I haven't been writing. So my vow of never taking another day off zizzled in 24 hours. Alas.

Though, I inadvertently determined a few character traits by scouring Pinterest steampunk related boards. My protag is going to have an incredibly sarcastic perspective of the Continent's rapture with all things steampunk (and the fact that less than a quarter of what passes as steampunk does anything whatsoever). Everybody but EVERYBODY is going to be an "Adventurer" or "Adventuress" or "inventor" or "explorer" as stated on their calling cards. With only a paltry few who have the guts and genius to survive any real adventure, invent anything worthwhile, or explore any place beyond their general neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, back in my Protag's home citadel, it's not a trend, but a kind of junker's way of life. And she really is an adventuress, really does encounter danger where "run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint" is pretty damn good advice. So when she encounters the "stylish" and rather risque steampunk clothing in the Continental stores, she's baffled and amused. The only "adventure" the wearer of these gowns would encounter is a torn stocking or scuffed boots.

Am I picking on steampunk a little? Yeah. I have to. It's in my blood to blast what I love. Mainly, I lampoon the viral trend that sweeps the Continent even though they have no idea where it came from and don't know what to do with it in reality. But for those who live that life by necessity, the trend is silly, superficial, and sometimes rather crass. And useless.

SO while I haven't physically added to my word count, I have found some ingredients that will add richness and will, in time, help the word count to soar.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

Week Two...

That's IT! No more "I'll catch up" days. No more. I hate looking at my "at this rate you'll be finished by" date sometime in early December. NO! To quote Paramore "I REFUSE, I REFUSE, I REFUSE!" It shall be done in November.

Now that I've stopped flopping around about my plot, I can just write. Which is great, except sometimes I have the mental capacity to write in the quasi-Victorian style, and sometimes I don't. And I've also managed to write myself into quite a corner. I might have to leave this section alone for a bit as I fill in bits of crucial "when did THAT happen" narration. And it's all pretty skeletal as well, with hardly any introspection and little to no real character development.

Eh, I'll figure the rest of that out later. Right now, let's just figure out how exactly to get from point C to point J.

Tomorrow. After I sleep a little.

Word Count: 18,861

Sacrifice Word Count for Much Needed Socialization

OK, so I took a few days off on the novel because I needed human interaction and I really needed to get out of the house. So the word count has suffered. I can catch up quickly enough.

And since I slept for a couple of hours earlier this evening, I should be able to stay up all night again, clacking away.

Total count so far: 16,787. We'll see how that's changed tomorrow morning.

Fire Bad. Tree Pretty.

I apologize for the blatant Buffy quote, but that's about how I feel at the moment. Over the last couple of days, I've chugged out nearly 4 thousand words on my Nano novel, and my brain won't let me rest. For instance:

Tonight I wrote and wrote and wrote. Brain decided it was through with thinking and I shambled off to bed drunk zombie style. I floated in that blobby world between sleep and wake for maybe an hour.

Then, an idea hit me. An idea so mind-blowingly perfect for my story that I couldn't risk the sandman whisking it away or having it dribble out of my ear as I slept. So I got up, drunken zombie walked to my computer, and started clacking away again. That was at about 11pm Thursday. 4 hours later, here I am, in the wee morning hours AGAIN, having squeezed nearly all the juice from my cranial spaces, leaving just enough to write this post. I'm dangerously close to "Fire bad. Tree Pretty" once more.

Maybe I'll get two hours out of this sleep attempt this time.

It's only Day 8. Save me from this madness!!

How do you write your characters?

I'm several good scenes and most of a prologue into my NaNo novel, and I've discovered something about my characters.

Most of them are pretty skeletal right now.

I have an overall idea of who I want then to be, but since my real goal at the moment is to get the plot out before I talk myself into changing something major, I've pretty much glossed over the characters, dropping little hints now and then, but not really fleshing them out.

Last year, when I was prepping for NaNoWriMo, I did all this character analysis (part of the writing program I use, so why not?) in order to really understand my characters. And while that was helpful, I spent an inordinate amount of time fretting about demonstrating these little character ticks while I was working on laying out the plot. If I had months and months to do this kind of edit-as-you-go writing, I'd have been ok. But my word count was deplorable simply because I couldn't get things out.

So this year, I'm letting the characters kind of exist for the most part until I get the plot out, and then I'll start adding in those endearing or annoying or nauseating traits when I have to start plumping up the word count.

Not to say I'm not recognizing some of the character traits already. Some are just...cardboard at the moment, or paper dolls. They serve a purpose, perhaps demonstrate some of their ultimate selves in tiny glimmers.

So, how do you write your characters? Do you plan them out first? Let them write themselves? Maybe a little of both?

NaNo Update

Going well. Lots of words. Manifesto is helping immensely. Don't care about spelling. And I think I've changed narrators three times. owell. I'm enjoying the hell outta this. 

Day 4 - nearly 8000 words and I haven't started writing today.

It's not pretty. It's not completely fleshed out. It's skeletal and the dialog is kinda...cardboard. But I can work on that all later. When the words are out. When the ideas are out.

Last night, I was trying to go to sleep after midnight, and I had a flash of conversation for the story, and I had to get up and scribble it down before I forgot it. I've lost many a glorious passage through swearing I would remember it overnight. Not this time. I wrote it down as fast as I could, because the words were materializing before my hands could scrawl them on the page.

I had forgotten how amazing this feels. Here we go with a few more hours of writing, a few more hours of dissolving into this little world in process, a story that refuses to stay on track, but seems to work nonetheless.

Raise your oversized mugs of straight espresso, folks! I need a battlecry!

My NaNo Manifesto

I tried to sleep tonight. I really did.

But then I started thinking about little details for my NaNo novel and suddenly I couldn't shut down. So I left my nice warm bed and came out to the living room to start clacking away at this year's story.

But not before making some rules for this year.

1. If I decide at one point that I want to shift from 3rd to 1st person, I will not waste time revising what I've already written.

2. If I have a "what's the damn word" moment (which happens a lot with Fibro fog and pain meds), I will find a close approximation and go from there. No scouring the thesaurus for "just the right word."

3. I will NOT let my failed previous attempts discourage me.

4. I will NOT make this a deep, thought-provoking exploration. It's gonna be action. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be apocalyptic steampunk fun with little consideration of the exact hows and whys. It's going to have some blatant references to Doctor Who. Because I want it to.

5. I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this story. I'm going to throw some twists and flips and WTFs in.

6. I'm going to finish this MF-er.

So, there are a few of my rules for NaNoWriMo 2013.

Now that I've written more than my daily allotment of the story and set up my rules, I think I'll go ahead and sleep. Yes, indeed.

Yes, People, Yes.

Last week, before my back surgery, I was fearing the worst about NaNoWriMo - that I wouldn't be able to do much in the first couple of weeks because of altered mental states due to medicine and not being able to sit up much. I was, honestly, dreading this whole recovery process. While I love to read, it loses much of its luxury when it's the only thing I can do. I don't do well with cabin fever, either.

Turns out, it's not an issue. The medicines that I'm taking don't alter my mental state more than make me rather sleepy and perhaps a bit more likely to write what first enters my mind rather than what gets filtered through the fine muslin of my perpetual mental editor. Add to this the capacity to sit for a couple of hours at a time at least three times a day, and November is shaping up to be pretty damn productive. I have no work obligations, and no where to go except for walks to build up my endurance.

I also have a great story idea this year that promises to give me plenty of imaginative romping room. I'm exploring some steampunk/apocalypse punk ideas within a framework of time manipulation.

As such, I've been playing around with my writing music list. I've recently been introduced to Armin Van Buuren, a Trance DJ, whose music provides me with just the kind of ambiance that I need to push my story forward. I started listening to trance when I was a graphic artist, when I needed something to engage my mind while I played around visually. I love the repetitive nature with few lyrics. Lyrics, I've noticed, snatch my attention too much, causing me to listen too closely to what they words are, to analyze rather than create. I've also found that classical music takes too much of my attention as well. Trance just let's me bob on the surface and play.

So I'm likely to be listening to a lot of Armin Van Buuren next month.

My husband just asked me why I wait until November to focus on my story - why I don't just start now. I've asked myself that, periodically, when I have an idea that I can't wait to flesh out, but have to settle for sketching in the meantime. I'm getting antsy to start writing on this baby. But for me, NaNoWriMo gives me the competition that I like to have, and the deadline. I can set myself deadlines all I want, but I suck at keeping them. Even when I tell my friends I'll have something done, I just...don't hold to it. But NaNo is a set time, a set date, and if I don't make the deadline, I feel rotten.

Have I mentioned how much I like Armin Van Buuren's music? I'm listening to it now, and I'm just...yes. Yes, indeed.

SIX DAYS, MY FRIENDS! SIX DAYS AND THIS ADVENTURE WILL COME TO LIFE!

Damn, I can't wait.

Getting Ready for NaNoWriMo

Alright, ladies and gents. I know it's only halfway through October, but I've been gearing up for National Novel Writing Month since - like - May. Now it's only a couple of weeks away and I'm gettin' giddy. I've been batting around a story idea in my head and I'm newly armed with wisdoms gleaned from my past attempts. This year I'm pretty much a captive author so I will have little to do but write.

I haven't "won" a NaNoWriMo yet, and for a few good reasons. Last year I was dealing with the death of my mother and then a knee injury, so I just couldn't focus. The year before I was rudely interrupted by thesis revisions. But my biggest nemesis is myself: my tendency to edit as I go and second guess every inch of plot. Basically, I'm scared that my stories are too predictable, too Been There Done That. My love of storytelling loses all its warm glow and turns into a cudgel with which I beat my brains. Not to mention that, should I decide I need to go a different direction that requires some revision to the previous storyline, I feel I have to go back and fix what I've already written for the sake of continuity. Not exactly conducive to meeting word count goals.

This year I'm toying with time manipulation and post-apocalypse-punk. Not Mad Max. More in the steampunk vein, but including technology from a lot of different time periods from updated siege engines to bombers to mind-manipulation and time-manipulation tech.  To be honest, I'm just exploring all the different off-shoots of steampunk for kicks and giggles. Last year I tried very hard to write something serious and deep and significant. To hell with that. 

As a matter of fact, that's my motto for this year's Nano novel. What the hell, sounds like fun!

Some things write themselves

This may be my last post for a few weeks. I'm having spine surgery on Wednesday and will be highly medicated while lying down, sitting, or standing as the case may be as I recover. However, as I'm pretty much homebound for at least a month (I can't even get in a car for that long), I may be craving non-spouse human interaction and may also encounter some glorious moments of lucidity and will brave the pain to share them. Here's hoping.

Alright, back to the writing craft.

When I took a creative writing class in college, my instructor encouraged us to "write what we know." Every aspiring author has heard these words and has either taken them to heart or cast them whirling into the winds as they desire. I took them very seriously because I've found that life + poetic license = pretty good fiction. So far all of my stories have drawn deeply on actual events reinterpreted or bent to my will. For instance, I fixed my romantic naivete and ultimate dumb mistake in one story. But the events up to the end were almost entirely exact to what happened in real life, all the way down to the songs that played at the club. That story wrote itself. All I did was tweek it a little to salve my bruised ego.

Since then, I've continued to draw heavily from my life, even if it's just details and locations. The home in my YA novel is a variant of a house I lived in as a teenager, and the location itself is my childhood home. Some of the events are true as well. I'm even going to keep the name of the road. It's simply too appropriate.

Real personal events and details are like an umbilical cord. While the story develops, you feed it with emotions and rich details that sustain it even as you're creating something entirely unique and ultimately independent. It's also like letting a child run wild in home territory, exploring all the hidey-holes you'd forgotten. New eyes, new adventures, new revelations.

It can also be therapeutic. I've rewritten and explored some painful events in my life, and just the act of remolding them or imbuing some unifying perspective makes them easier to handle. Not to mention that you get to right some wrongs or recast yourself as the hero instead of the fool. Or vice-versa. Sometimes it's fun be wild in print. To explore the not-so-logical options, to slip the bonds of morality for a while. It keeps you from going insane.

So why is this important? To me at least? Think about that child running wild in a familiar place. You know all the details, all the potential hiding places, all the creaky boards and groaning hinges. You know the smell, the quality of light, the way the dust swirls in the slanting sun-beams. You know the place. The action might be new and hard to describe, but the locale is familiar and perhaps beloved. You can imagine it without effort and that can make writing about it almost automatic. And again, you can imbue the place and your writing with all those interlacing connotations swelling inside you. It can mean a scene or story that writes itself.

That can't be bad.

My writing genre list

Have you ever heard a song and suddenly have a scene in your mind for a story? That happened recently. It was like Pandora was poking me in the shoulder - hey, write this! - and I just couldn't resist. It rechurned within me a story that I hadn't really touched in over a year, even though the heroine often came to mind. It wasn't until this song played that the tumblers in my head fell back into place so I could restart. And instead of just that one scene, it became the impetus for the entire closing of the novel, complete with the climax action. 

Since then, I've started thinking more about mood music, and what I listen to when I need to write scenes. This is usually a tricky subject for me, because, depending on the kind of writing I'm doing, my ambiance ranges from techno to meditation music to Celtic to metal to Steam Powered Giraffe to bare silence.

If I really need to think about what I'm writing, like during dialogue, I need silence. I need to hear the characters in my head so I can capture their cadence. Or I need to focus on something very detailed. No distractions. And I tend to get rather grumpy about it, too. My husband has experienced the snappishness that is me when he interrupts in these silent times.

Note to self: set writing boundaries with husband.

If I'm bashing through an action sequence or just trying to set up the bones of a scene I pick the music according to the action. I rely heavily on Celtic myth in my current project, so I listen to a lot of Celtic music, especially when the mythological characters are the main focus.

Since it's a YA novel, there's a considerable amount of angst, and that requires rock. Linkin Park, Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Dresden Dolls. Sometimes I need snark, too, so I head for Lily Allen. Nothing better for a snit fit than "Fuck you very, very much!"

Also since the novel has quite a bit of fantasy, I like listening to Within Temptation for the modern fantasy element. And the lead's voice is angelic to the point of pain at times. Eisley is also great for this, since their sound is so ethereal. Bjork, too.

I have an element of steampunk in this novel as well. A co-worker recently introduced me to Steam Powered Giraffe, and I have made them my official steampunk scene go-to on Pandora.

Sometimes I just need to write, to get a scene out that isn't a particular mood. That's a good time for techno - trance in particular. Repetitive and driving.

So that's my writing genre list. I'm always up for suggestions, so if you have any bands that you think I simply must hear, do share!

Tweak it, Turn it, Repackage and Resell

Whatever you've written, it's been done before.

I know it's cynical, but it's a part of the process. At some point, you have to accept that someone, somewhere, at some point in history, has already written this basic story.

And that's good.

I used to get so frustrated with my story ideas because I always knew what my influences were. A story I read here, a TV show or movie, a poem. Someone's random statement. I knew that my ideas were in no way original. Until recently, that was a huge irritation for me. That and forgetting stupid common words and having to dredge the thesaurus until they reemerged.

Here's the deal. We like familiar things. We like stories that follow familiar patterns because it reinforces a sense of community. Other people have had similar experiences and have survived and turned out relatively ok. Or, they follow understood paths to predetermined ends, and we just like watching the progress unfold.

What we really like, though, is when we get knocked sideways in the midst of the familiar. The plot twist. The reinterpretation. The change of perspective.

Like Hamlet from the perspective of Rosencrantz and Gildenstern. Red Riding Hood told as a mystery. Fairy tales where the princess has to rescue the inept prince. Well-worn paths, reimagined. Stories that play off what we already know and take for granted. Twisted tropes. Fractured Fairy Tales.

The other night, I read a story by Lovecraft ("The Outsider," in case you're curious) that got my little hamster wheels creaking. Lovecraft's stories are out there. People are ghastly or see ghastly things or get swept up into demonic events that reduce them to quivering masses (or sometimes free them). We don't have experiences like that. But we do have experiences that parallel them in more mundane ways. Instead of climbing out from under the canopy of an eternally dark forest, we climb out from under depression. Or grief. Instead of being so physically abhorrent that people run scared from us, we have emotional and psychological scars and gashes that drive people away. Outwardly normal, inwardly putrid. Like Dorian Grey.

A story began to glimmer through all this introspection. Not a Lovecraftian gothic horror, but a more mundane tale of discovering how your circumstances can disfigure you socially and emotionally.

Lovecraft uses the word "nepenthe" in "The Outsider," which automatically makes me think of "Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!" from Poe's "The Raven."

What if Lenore didn't die? What if Lenore was "lost" in another way? And what kind of "nepenthe" would she take to forget her lost self? What would that do to those around her?

What if...I take the basic plot of "The Outsiders" to explore poor Lost Lenore? Hmm...

Lots of ideas, lots of influences. But the story is mine. It's not glittering new, but it's different. And that's the important part. It's mine.

Critiques

I sent part of my YA story to a friend, Cody, who sent it back to me bleeding and trembling. Poor thing. It hid behind the fridge and I had to let it rest for a few days before it would let me near it again. Even today it whimpers a little when I mention Cody's name.

Cody has asked me to copyedit his short story collection. And I've realized something important that might help me win back the love and trust of my story. I like my friend's writing style. It's raw and kind of painful. He doesn't hold back, and has a tendency to tackle painful topics. He's a good writer. I don't like everything he does, but he doesn't like everything I do, either.

That's what is so liberating about sharing with other writers. We can respect each other's style and choice of topics, but we don't have to agree with each other's critiques. After reading a few comments about my word choice, I got a little...disheartened. I have a tendency to reuse words a few times in paragraphs, something that Cody doesn't like. So I turned to one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, to see how he does it. Know what I found?

Gaiman does it, too. He reuses words multiple times within the same paragraph. And it doesn't really stunt his style.

I'm in no way suggesting that I'm as good as Gaiman. But if he repeats words, I don't feel too bad. And I'm hoping I can coax my little story back into the light. Without whimpering.

Breaking Through

I haven’t finished a story in over a decade.

Not a gleaming start for a writing blogger. Blog entries, I have plenty. But finished short stories? Nada. Novels? Zilch. So I started asking myself why.

Part of it is the Red Dot syndrome I talked about before, but there’s something deeper and more insidious. It’s good old fear.

As any student of great literature, I’ve read some amazing stuff. Stories that altered my view of the world. Writing styles that made my mind fizz like the foam of a fresh soda. Books that I’ve read over and over for the simple joy of getting lost in them. One I reread immediately after finishing it the first time round. Books that made me wonder how the author lives with all those dazzling fireworks careening around in his or her head. Characters that I mourned like close friends. And some whose demise caused heartfelt cheering.

And then I look at my own writing.

Stunted, shallow, formulaic swill. Why do I even try?

It’s not that bad. But compared to (insert name of literary genius here), it’s less than splendid.

Then one day (ok, yesterday) after hearing it a zillion times, the phrase “Comparison is the thief of joy” hit a few of the right binaries in my head. I’d been comparing myself to Austen and Dickens and Lahiri and all these other authors and of course my writing is crap in comparison. But the point is not to put my stories next to those of a published and celebrated author and despair. The point is to write, and let the writing polish the roughnesses away.

But what really got me was when a painter explained that her final product wasn’t achieved whole and at once, but was the cumulative result of dozens if not hundreds of mistakes and rough drafts. That’s a lot of chances to say “I suck; I give up.” But she didn’t. I don’t remember who she was, but I’m glad I read the article.

I have been afraid that my work isn’t on par with my favorite authors and is therefore rotten and unworthy of submitting. Hell, not even submitting, just finishing. Not having perfect work spring forth from my mind unbidden made me think I had no talent at all. And while there are those whose talent does reach that effortless level, they are not the only ones with talent period. And even the greatest literary geniuses had editors. And critics.

So, what’s holding you back? Comparison?  Try incorporating some of the author’s style into your own just for fun. Fear? Fight it. Write anyway. And have someone give you an honest, gentle critique of it. Learn from it. Improve. Can’t focus on one story? Try devoting a specific day or amount of time on the story and do nothing aside from writing on that story. Give yourself a deadline for the story and stick to it.

I say all this, and I’m learning how to do it myself. It’s still a little scary, but it’s better than measuring out my life in story stumps.

It's getting loud and crowded in here...

I never finished the first story I remember writing.

It was an assignment in 5th grade, and while I had the illustration finished, I hadn't actually finished the story. It was about a girl's first ride on a roller coaster (write what you know! I had ridden my first coaster the previous summer), and I got caught in the trap of first writers: I described everything. Details that weren't important, what the characters looked like down to the design on the clothing, what the coaster looked like. Given enough time, I'd have described the bird poo on the sidewalk. But I don't think I ever got to the actual roller coaster ride. As my teacher gathered other students' finished products, I was still scribbling away at all the details. And I had to hand it in unfinished.

In a way, the story of my life.

I collect story stumps. Ideas for stories, paragraphs, plot synopses, one liners that I don't want to forget. I have two novels in the works at the moment - one of which has been in mental cold storage until a song I heard on Pandora while at work inspired a scene and I had to write it before I lost it (thankfully it was a slow day at the office).

I have a Pinterest board where I post visual ideas for stories or things I want to include in the novels. There's one picture that started as a "how in hell did that happen?" and somehow wormed its way into a scene.

And when I start a story, I have complete, heartfelt intention to finish it. But then I might hit a plot snag, get bored with a section and put it away until inspiration strikes, or I come across another brilliant idea and the process starts over.

I tried NaNoWriMo three times. Even bought the writing software to help keep track of my lilypad-hopping writing style. I have two stories and a poetry collection on the writing software. And I’ve just started another short story. Writing ADHD.

So, while I have all these great ideas, they remain ricocheting around in my head, causing considerable psychological damage while I pounce on the next shiny thing.

It’s my own form of chasing the red dot.

I realized recently how many stories I have clanging around in my head because it occurred to me that I haven’t finished a story since college. That was over a decade ago.

No wonder my mom said I’m not really a writer.

So recently I’ve started hammering away on the story with the most vocal character – not surprisingly a teenage girl. The YA novel. It’s the most fun, too. And I have set a deadline for finishing the most recent short story. Off to my first reader on Monday no matter what.

It'll make my head that much quieter.

Poem: Phage

Phage

I hate the blank page’s contagion

The way its stark void instantly infects

If I don’t pin me down to the page

With the points of p and q

Discover the creeping rot

And cut it out

I might lose whole pieces

To my plight

Words are my incision and my deep penetration

The lens of my microscope

My agur and autoclave

The tiny pills that cure by killing

By my filling this infectious space

Willing to let tiny pieces of me die

To save the whole

I need an IV of saline tears and blurred ink

On a page slowly losing its infectibility

Shrinking beneath the rush of my words

I fill my pen with my blood

Inject it into the fiber and lines

Stain the page and watch the contagion die.

I'm A Writer, Really!

A few years back, I said something to my mom about being a writer, and she uttered The Dreaded Phrase.

"You're not paid for it, so you're not really a writer."

Thanks, Mom. Let's ignore that I've written stories since elementary school, have worked on literary magazines, have been published twice (once in high school and once in college, but those don't count, apparently), won an award (also in college, though, so see above).

But she just said what many writers and non-writers think about the writing craft. If you don't make money at it, you're not really a writer. It's an unfair and unrealistic assertion. But there it is.

The truth is that for every published author on Amazon.com, there are dozens of writers vying for the next open slot, and hundreds more who don't write for the money, but for the sheer joy of writing. There are also many of us who are struggling to discover and hone our signature voice. We may not be professional writers (yet!), but we are writers.

That's where I am right now. A non-professional, unpaid writer struggling to discover my little shimmering element, attempting to find words that glow.

I will once in a while include excerpts of my stories, links to writing craft articles and blogs, and other topics related to writing and literature. This is, above all, a space to explore writing, a place to play around and innovate.