Follow Through

Art can exist within the shroud.

I have to wrack my brain to remember, but I’m pretty sure the first time pen hit paper in regard to my debut novel K [phantasmagoria] was about two years ago. That would mean I started writing the first bits of the concept right about the time I was just starting to pull out of a debilitatingly vivid depression over what the experts call a “life event.” Suffice it to say that personal loss can drive an artist to produce amazingly potent and relevant work, which I believe this work will be. Never mind that it’s taken so long to write it.

It’s funny that when I set off on K [phantasmagoria] I wasn’t much of a writer. I didn’t know much about fiction beyond what Aldous Huxley and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had donated to me from beyond the grave. I had no concept of what passive voice might be. I was unaware of the dangers of direct address in fiction. I didn’t know the rules. So I started to make some of my own. I’m vaguely aware that it’s a no-no to use contractions in the narrative now. But I do it when it fits, for instance, because it just reads better.

Basically there are no sacred cows. Including that old chestnut about not dwelling over the work. And not re-writing anything until the rough draft is done. And the whole idea of NaNoWriMo, which encourages writers of all stripes to bust something out from start to finish every November. Sorry, mate. Not this time round, anyway.

You ever hear that old joke about how something happened on the way to the theater or whatever? Yep. It’s the same with me and my novel, only my novel is what happened to me on my way to finishing it. I’m sure someone out there can relate.

It’s not that it’s in need of salvage. Far from it. It’s just that, in a way, I started writing it too soon. Again, I’m sure there’s a writer out there who can relate.

All of this baggage conspires against completion, though, y’know? It’s true. Better to get things done quickly. Better to resist some of the more controllable, optional distractions and slug it out, get it done. All that conventional wisdom.

But as it turns out, all the delays and distractions have served a greater purpose. They’ve given me time to think my way through the plot forward and backward, get to know the premise, lay things out just right, fine tune everything…and learn how to write, let alone write a novel.

This is just to encourage you. Follow through on that project that’s been shelved for God knows how long and for God knows how many reasons. Follow through on it and start to finish it. It will be worth your time. Your effort. Because it’ll be as much a part of you as you are of it when all is said and done. Follow through.

How to Deal With Inspiration

And you thought Monica Lewinsky was scary...

Oh sure. The life of a writer is all fun and games, a creative laugh riot. Inspiration comes easy, wearing pajamas and carrying a silver platter stacked high with the topic du jour, and all the heroic scribe needs to do is hover above the plate, whereupon something witty and profound will fly to his hand, cheating certain death-by-a-thousand-keystrokes. Yeah, that’s how it works.

No, it doesn’t happen like that. Hence this post. This is why I’m writing about what a bitch it is to write. The muse isn’t just a harsh mistress. Sometimes she’s Hillary Clinton in jackboots and a patent leather negligee, brandishing a large cigar in one hand and a cat o’ nine tails in the other.

But the show must go on. That’s not just some fancy witticism from the halcyon days of Broadway. It’s the truth; and it’s also true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That goes for especially vivid metaphors as well. Me, for instance, writing about…all this…even though I don’t really know what I’m trying to say, is an example of a guy just pressing on. Listen: writers, you’ve got to find a way to push through.

Not every day is a Hello Kitty kind of day. Sometimes you’ll sit to write and you’ll have nothing. But you write anyway. Don’t you. That’s what makes you a professional. If you don’t write through the painful times, the hard times, the times when inspiration isn’t fancy or even wistful but mechanical, peach sherbet-colored and horrid, then you’re just a hobbyist. That, by the way, is how the IRS classifies writers. You’re either making enough money to be a professional, or you’re a hobbyist. But, I argue, such a mindset applies in ways other than the strictly monetary.

In other words, and to use a coaching term, have you got heart? When it gets difficult to go on, and you’re clearly on a plateau physically or even mentally or emotionally, what do you end up doing? Do you throw up your hands and collapse into whatever’s comfortable? Or do you crack your knuckles and grind out 500 words on the laptop just so you can tell it who the junk is running the show around here? It’s cliché, but games are won and lost in the second half—which is also usually the most difficult because your opponent has got you figured out by then.

This week’s random Monday post is for all the writers who’ve got something that’s keeping them from ratcheting up the pressure on that manuscript, telling it what happens next. People who are up against deadlines. Writers who have a lot going on in their personal lives. Creatives who are struggling with all kinds of other work they’d rather not be doing, but work that pays the bills nevertheless. You’d be surprised that it doesn’t take much, though, especially after that initial step.

Look at that. 500 words. Kinda. It may not be pretty, but it’s on the f&^%!@n’ page. And that means Hillary can get the hell out now. But she’d better leave my damn pantsuit; I paid twenty dollars for that, and I ain't just giving stuff away for nothing around here.