The Hardest Part
My recent absence from the blog is due entirely to my focus on an SF story I've been working on (among other things, like life, the universe, and everything--to paraphrase Douglas Adams).
In the process of writing this piece (which is still not done, by the way), I've discovered what I find to be the hardest part of writing for me.
The hardest part of writing is the first draft.
Why is this? Because the first draft is the most amorphous draft, the one most constantly given to change. In short, it's controlled chaos. It's also the make-or-break point of any story. If you can't complete the first draft, then there will never be a second draft.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain how I typically work.
To use my personal analogy, I'm a "Road Trip Writer."
My approach to fiction writing is to have an ending (a final destination) and a beginning (a point of origin) in mind (I say it that way because that's typically how the ideas for stories form for me), with a few things in the middle that I might want to include. Also, I need a character (Character is the heart of all fiction), and they sometimes take a while to form in my mind, while other times, they come alive immediately on the page.
(The character I'm writing about now is named Jose Ignacio Ramirez, and he's an Interstellar Information Courier--that's all I knew about him when I began the story, but once I started writing him, he came alive on the page. I lucked out).
Once I have all these pieces in mind, I start, and I basically see what happens. I try not to make any major changes to the story until I have a completed draft in front of me, but I don't always follow that rule. (Today, for instance, I deleted about 2000 words from the manuscript--about an entire scene--only to rewrite it and tack on an additional 800 words).
This midway point between the famed "Architect/Gardener" spectrum, however, has its drawbacks. The main one is that, in the process of writing the first draft, I'm constantly plagued by thoughts that I'm writing total, unsellable, unreadable garbage. Since I don't have a full picture of where I'm going (Neil Gaiman described it as walking through a thick fog, with a torch--flashlight--that enables you to see just far enough ahead of yourself so you don't fall into a ditch), I'm not sure if the story is worth anything, particularly the time I'm taking on it. Once such thoughts begin to encroach on your mind, they're a constant hindrance.
This, though, is where the discipline of writing comes in. Even if you think what you're doing is hot garbage, you owe it to yourself and to the story your writing to see it through to the end. And perhaps, when you look at it, once it's done, you'll see the merits of it.
So that's what I've been doing--plowing on. Some days, writing is slipping into a bath that is just the perfect temperature; some days, writing is standing naked outside your shower waiting for the water to finally warm up.
Either way, the story will get done. Today was a shower day that, slowly, transitioned into a warm bath day. As for tomorrow, we'll see.
In the process of writing this piece (which is still not done, by the way), I've discovered what I find to be the hardest part of writing for me.
The hardest part of writing is the first draft.
Why is this? Because the first draft is the most amorphous draft, the one most constantly given to change. In short, it's controlled chaos. It's also the make-or-break point of any story. If you can't complete the first draft, then there will never be a second draft.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain how I typically work.
To use my personal analogy, I'm a "Road Trip Writer."
My approach to fiction writing is to have an ending (a final destination) and a beginning (a point of origin) in mind (I say it that way because that's typically how the ideas for stories form for me), with a few things in the middle that I might want to include. Also, I need a character (Character is the heart of all fiction), and they sometimes take a while to form in my mind, while other times, they come alive immediately on the page.
(The character I'm writing about now is named Jose Ignacio Ramirez, and he's an Interstellar Information Courier--that's all I knew about him when I began the story, but once I started writing him, he came alive on the page. I lucked out).
Once I have all these pieces in mind, I start, and I basically see what happens. I try not to make any major changes to the story until I have a completed draft in front of me, but I don't always follow that rule. (Today, for instance, I deleted about 2000 words from the manuscript--about an entire scene--only to rewrite it and tack on an additional 800 words).
This midway point between the famed "Architect/Gardener" spectrum, however, has its drawbacks. The main one is that, in the process of writing the first draft, I'm constantly plagued by thoughts that I'm writing total, unsellable, unreadable garbage. Since I don't have a full picture of where I'm going (Neil Gaiman described it as walking through a thick fog, with a torch--flashlight--that enables you to see just far enough ahead of yourself so you don't fall into a ditch), I'm not sure if the story is worth anything, particularly the time I'm taking on it. Once such thoughts begin to encroach on your mind, they're a constant hindrance.
This, though, is where the discipline of writing comes in. Even if you think what you're doing is hot garbage, you owe it to yourself and to the story your writing to see it through to the end. And perhaps, when you look at it, once it's done, you'll see the merits of it.
So that's what I've been doing--plowing on. Some days, writing is slipping into a bath that is just the perfect temperature; some days, writing is standing naked outside your shower waiting for the water to finally warm up.
Either way, the story will get done. Today was a shower day that, slowly, transitioned into a warm bath day. As for tomorrow, we'll see.
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