Joe Vasicek

AUGH!!!!!!!!!

Shoot! Today was a crazy day! I feel almost like it was a waste! The last couple of days, I was thinking about how great it would be once the weekend comes, how I’d have tons of free time to write in my novel, and how many thousands of words I would write, how awesome it would be. But now, it’s the end of the day, and I haven’t even written anything at all!

It’s weird. I think that it’s a tendency that we all have–procrastination. Some people have it worse than others. I’m extremely horrible at it. I read on a photoblog I read that we spend about five years in our lifetimes just waiting for buses, subways, cars, doctors appointments, etc. If you could add up all the time I’ve spent in procrastination, it would probably add up to five already! The weird thing is…this is something I actually enjoy doing. Why procrastinate THAT??

It reminds me of a priesthood lesson we had once in church last semester. This guest speaker came to speak with us on the difficult subjects, like chastity, pornography, etc. He started out by discussing a conversation he had with a neurologist once, about how we are hardwired, through our brain, to try and get a maximum output with a minimum input. Basically, the idea is that we are naturally disinclined to do the productive, creative things that require effort, and naturally inclined to waste time on mindless activities that give us basic, low-level pleasure. It might be a LOT more satisfying to do something creative, but that requires so much effort to do that we have a natural impulse to avoid doing it–and to waste time instead on video games, tv, staring at the wall, and other stupid stuff.

The other weird thing is that even though I did almost all of my homework yesterday, I spent the whole day today stressed out about that tiny little bit that I hadn’t yet done. It was very, very weird. I did about three or four hours of homework yesterday, and had only about an hour (half an hour of focused effort, but I never focus) left. I KNEW that I had a significantly lesser load of homework, and yet, despite that fact, I still felt weighed down in the back of my mind! All day! AUGH!!!

So, I guess I’ve learned two things from this experience: the urge to procrastinate is not confined to unpleasant tasks, and that no matter how much or how little work you put off, it will still weigh on the back of your mind.

Freak!

Well, there is some good news though. I have NO homework that I need to do tomorrow! (except blog in Arabic, but that’s fun and isn’t strictly necessary for my Arabic homework anyways) I am FREE! What’s more, the day is almost totally open! At least, as far as Sundays are open (and believe it or not, Sundays are actually fairly busy for us students). What’s more, it’s not all that late right now! I’m going to go to bed before 2:00, which means that I’ll be able to wake up in the morning and actually be awake! I’ll actually get sufficient sleep! So, tomorrow is looking good. Even though I didn’t write today, I will spend lots of time writing tomorrow, inshallah.

freaking tired

Yes, I got the minimum in. Just barely. I guess you could call it 500 words. In any case, I’m becoming incoherent, so the time has come to get some sleep. Man, if I could have a super power it would be the ability to go indefinitely without sleep, and still be perfectly functional! I suppose my body is trying to tell me something, though. They’ll probably come up with a study sometime that shows that sleep deprivation robs years off of your life. Something like that. But when I think of that, I think of all the bad things that I could be doing, like drugs, alcohol, smoking, etc, and I think “well, this is my pet vice. And it’s not even all that bad. Even though it is hurting me.” And then I start to wonder why it is that we all humans seem to have our pet vices, how it’s part of human nature to have at least one irrational stupid thing that we do that hurts us more than anything. And I ponder that for a little while, until I’m distracted by something else. But yeah, 500 words tonight. And I’m probably going to put a story bible together in the not too distant future, so that I can have some good direction. Occassionally I’ll throw out words and forget them a few pages later, so I need to remember. We’ll see. And now I’m getting to where typing is difficult. So I’ll have to write later. Except for yesterday, I’ve been doing 500 words per day. Yay! Will continue. But after sleep. Sleep…

More on worldbuilding: specifically, religion

So, in this novel that I’m writing, I have this quasi-primitive tribal medieval culture that develops on an isolated planet. An important part of the story is actually creating this culture, figuring it out, how it works and how it doesn’t, etc. And one of the most important parts of this particular culture is the religion. The idea that I have is that this culture was basically anarchic and unstable until a religion developed that established some norms, a basic system of justice and morality, an hierarchy, and a value for knowledge. The problem is: how do you invent a fictional religion?

I was kind of worried about this a week or so ago. I was getting to the part in the book where the religion starts to influence the characters and the plot, and I still hadn’t figured out some of the basic beliefs of these people. When I did start to write this religion, it ended up sounding way too…Arab. And even though this story is influenced by a lot of the stuff that I’m studying in Political Science and MESA (Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic), I DON’T want this novel to be about a bunch of Arabs on another planet. These people are unique. Plus, as I’m learning now, the problems in the Middle East are completely different than anything that could possibly develop on this planet. However, there are some similarities, and some of the conflicts are going to be similar to the ones that we face today.

So, when I saw that I was patterning things too much off of my own ideas of Arab culture and religion, and not enough off of original ideas, I thought that I had to go back and completely draw out the religion in my head–that I needed to come up with all the specific details of it, and that these details had to be sufficiently unique and different from anything else that they would be truly “original.” The result was that I started toying around with some crazy ideas that sounded pretty weird, and since they didn’t tie in directly with where I’m going with the story, I started feeling a little bit embarrassed when I thought of putting them on paper.

So, I wasn’t sure what to do. Then, the other day I had this gchat with Aneeka, and she let me bounce off some of these ideas off of her. It was actually very helpful! She offered some ideas of her own, which got me thinking about directions I could take things. More than that, it got me excited about the whole subject again. I think one of the basic reasons you write stories is because of a sense of wonder about the world, or an idea of it. Without that, it just doesn’t have the same life to it.

But, more important, the more I got to talking with her, the more I realized that it WASN’T important to answer every question–or make the religion completely unique. Instead, it would actually be BETTER to focus on the basic concepts, like morality, justice, and good vs. evil, that can be found in EVERY religion. That way, instead of being this strange, weird thing that no-one can relate to, it can be sufficiently unique, and yet have something that people from ANY religion can relate to. I don’t need to know every detail of this religion, just the basic cosmology, history, and the moral code. I need to touch on things like the afterlife, accountability, the nature of God, etc, but only lightly. In fact, it’s better not to try and control it. The important thing, when you come down to it, is how does this religion affect the way that people see themselves, their world, and the way they live their lives.

Other than that, the writing is generally going well–when I have the time to do it. Speaking of which, I have two minutes to dash from the HBLL to my Philosophy class. See ya!

I feel an emotional roller coaster about to begin…

You know, I used to get really freaking emotional about my writing. I’d post these notes up all over my room, some of them philosophical, others just giving myself general encouragement, and I’d read, revise, analyze, reanalyze, tear apart, and thrash my own writing. And then I’d get so emotionally wrapped up in it that when I got to about 120 pages I’d decide that the whole thing was crap, take down all the notes, put away the story, and just leave it all behind me. Totally cut it out of my life. And then I’d be depressed for a long time–until I could finally work up the courage to take out the wretched manuscript and look at it again.

Well, those were the old days. That’s what I USED to do. I’m much too grown up and enlightened to revert back to that. After all, it was just teenage angst. I’m past it. I’m capable of looking at my writing rationally and keeping its quality detached from my own view of myself. I can be brave, self-confident, and not get hung up on the little things. I can look at the problems with my writing and fix them without getting upset or depressed. I can take criticism and it won’t be all that painful.

Well, these were the things that I USED to believe. But now, I’m starting to realize that it’s probably all crap.

I’m approaching 120 pages again. My story is at 25,000+ words and I’m definitely committed to it now. More committed, perhaps, than I’ve been to a story since returning from my mission (at least, more committed to a novel-length story since I’ve already finished two short stories). And now that I’m committed, and right in the middle of the story itself, I’m starting to feel the unpredictable emotions coming on.

It’s like I’m on a roller coaster as it slowly gets pulled to the top of that very first drop–the machine is going <click> <clack> and I’m about 200 or 300 feet up in the air. The first drop off is maybe 30 feet away and I’m already starting to feel sick.

I think this realization came today during the writing meeting. It was a very good writing meeting, and I got some good and much needed feedback on my story. But I really started to feel kind of anxious as I heard people analyzing my story. I’ve felt that a little bit before, but I’ve always been able to put it aside. This time, it felt a lot stronger, and came when I wasn’t expecting it–even when people were giving my praise.

Last Winter, when Aneeka was still around, I remember the expression she would have on her face as I would give her feedback and criticism on her writing. She’d get really tense and almost a little bit scared, like an animal backed up into a corner or like a prisoner watching the torturer approach carrying some kind of unpleasant looking tool in his hand. It seemed very strange to me at the time, but I think I started to feel like that today.

And also, I think that it’s getting easier and easier to doubt my story. I’m past the honeymoon stage, where the story has just begun, I’ve got all these great ideas in my head and everything is in front of me. Now, I’ve covered some sizeable distance, and I can look back and say “oh, I need this character to be more like this,” or “I really did a poor job of this and it’s going to affect what I want to write in this upcoming scene.”

At the same time, I’m approaching the point where all these crucial questions and concepts about the world I’m writing need to have concrete answers. When I started, I could just generalize and say “well, the universe of my story is kind of like this,” or “this culture has a certain religion, and it’s kind of like this, but I’m sure I’ll work out the details when I get to that point.” Well, I’m at that point now, and I haven’t finished working out the concept. And because I don’t have the answers that I need in the concrete and specific form that I need them, it’s very easy to doubt the story and say “is this idea really any good anyways?”

So, things are starting to get a little bit tough emotionally. I can only expect it to get worse as I go along. If it happens even to the pros, so how can I expect to get away unscathed?

But there is some hope. Plenty of it, in fact. Right after the writing meeting today, I decided to go through and quickly make all the revisions that I felt the story needed (and there were plenty of them, including the embarrassing fact that Jorgen praised me for how villainous I made out this one character to be, when in fact that character was supposed to be one of the good guys!). As I thought about the revisions that I needed to make, I got really worried about them. My story, I felt, was pretty bad, and needed some major work. Well, as soon as I put in my flash drive and pulled up the story, those thoughts of “my story isn’t very good, it needs a lot of work” went away, and I just focused on what was in front of me. I saw a problem, fixed it, worked in some new stuff that made that area a little bit better, then moved on to the next thing. In a couple of hours, I had made all the revisions that had been suggested and really felt satisfied with the changes. I was excited to move on and keep writing. It was great!

So, I guess that once you REALLY commit to a story, you start to experience some pretty intense emotions. But not all of them are going to be bad. My experience so far has been that the more distanced I am from my story, the worse I think that it is, whereas the more I sit down and work on it, the more satisfaction I get. That may change in the future, but for now, it’s enough to keep me going.

Some thoughts on writing, reading, and stories

I’ve had some interesting thoughts recently about stories. It’s come mostly from interacting with the writing group and with friends from the writing group. As I’m getting more and more into writing fiction, my thoughts about fiction, stories, and science fiction get more and more complex and interesting. This post is going to be a little bit abstract, but I think it will be a bit shorter than usual. And probably a bit more interesting.

There was this thread on the Quark board going on in the last couple of weeks about giving and taking criticism, and one of the points was that, as a writer, you really shouldn’t defend your own work. You shouldn’t argue with the readers.

I’ve heard this same argument before, but on slightly different terms. Those terms were “you should let your work stand on its own, without you trying to defend it.” I think that’s good rationale, but I would go a step further: I would say that you shouldn’t argue with readers because criticism is never objectively true or false. Criticism is a reaction from the reader’s experience, and no matter how much you argue with the reader, you can’t change the fact that that was the experience that he (or she) had with your story. The reaction isn’t objectively true or false; it simply “is.” And therefore, if you start arguing and saying “that’s not true about my story!” then really you’re just wasting your breath. Criticism may be helpful or unhelpful, but it isn’t going to be true or false–at least, not in some objective way independent of the reading experience.

So then, I was reading Aneeka’s personal writing blog (notice, Aneeka, how I preserve your privacy by not linking to you, even though it’s a really good blog), and I read this really depressing post about how bad her novel is (even though it’s not that bad) and about how she’s doubting that she can ever be a writer, etc. I wanted to say something, so I left this really long comment. And I wasn’t planning on saying anything in particular, but as I was writing, this really interesting idea came out:

I guess that at some point you just have to transfer ownership of the story to the reader. Since everyone has a different life experience, they’re going to experience your story a little bit different. When you want it to be “perfect,” you might actually be trying to control what cannot be controlled. Everyone who reads your book is going to come away with a slightly different story in their heads, just because they’ll approach it in different ways. You can’t really control the readers’ experience, so trying to do it is futile. I guess all you can do really is open a door and invite the reader in. Your story needs a reader just as much as it needs a writer in order to exist.

I wasn’t planning on saying that, but the idea just came to my head and I said it. Usually, when I do something like that, it ends up a) offending people, or b) making me say or do something that I regret, or c) both. But this time it just got me to thinking: does a story exist independent of someone reading it? What is a story anyways? What does “perfection” mean when you apply it to writing fiction?

Once you realize that a story doesn’t exist independent of someone reading it, it can really free you up in a lot of ways. First of all, you realize that you aren’t going to please everyone, since the story will be different for different people. Second, you realize that “perfection” is not something that you create alone. It’s something that is created by the writer AND the reader. You aren’t, by yourself, going to write a “perfect” story. At least, not independent of someone reading it. Your goal is not to write some story that is objectively “perfect,” independent of someone reading it, but to reach through the narrative to connect with the reader in some way, and allow them to realize the “perfect” story.

Sometimes (in fact, quite often) writers will have this fallacious idea that there is some possible combination of words, sentences, paragraphs, and other elements that is the “perfect” version of their story. They’ll slave and slave just to get that write combination, then get discouraged and fed up with it all. But if you can realize this point–that it is impossible for a story to exist independent of it being read–it can free you up to realize that there isn’t any one perfect combination of words, letters, sentences, paragraphs, structure, form, etc. Once you try to get down to that level of minuteness, you are trying to exert too much control over the reader. The truth is that the reader has some work to do as well. We don’t call it “work” because it’s actually pretty fun, but the reader is the one who puts things together and actually “creates” your story from the ink that he (or she) sees on the page. So, really, you shouldn’t be focusing on the words, sentences, paragraphs, and other structure, but on the reader and how the story will be read. It’s not about getting the perfect combination of words as much as it is helping the reader to construct the story in his (or her) own head. And really, you have to free yourself up to the idea that maybe the story that the reader reads isn’t the same story that’s floating around in your head. You have to leave freedom for that, otherwise you cut the reader out of the act of creation. When that happens, your story starts to suck–but if you can, essentially, open a door for the reader and enable the imagination to spread its wings and take off–if you can do that, you have got the potential to write an amazingly good piece of work.

So, those are basically my thoughts at this point. I may be right about some things, and I’m probably wrong about most things. But it’s a fascinating journey. I love pondering things. And these are my latest thoughts. Feel free to share your own, debunk mine, or otherwise enlighten me. I’m very eager to hear your own thoughts.

Eid Sayeed! and 1587 words!

Man, this whole week I never got around to writing! I seemed to be stuck on this one scene, too–when I would write, I’d write a little bit more of the scene, but never enough to finish it. So, yesterday, I decided to just sit down and WRITE. And it was good!

But…you see, I have a whole bunch of Arab friends. And, if you understand at least a little bit about Arab culture, you know that the way they see friendships is a little bit different than here in America. Specifically, with demands on your time. Last week, one of my good Arab friends thought that something was going wrong in our friendship because it had been five days since I saw him. That’s actually a little unusual, I hear–in Arab countries, they’ll think something’s wrong if they don’t see you every DAY.

Not that I really mind it all that much. I’ve been hanging out with my Arab friends just about every day for the past week, and it’s been fun. It’s also been fairly good for my Arabic. It’s just that writing isn’t something you can really do while hanging out with friends.

In fact, writing is pretty solitary. You can get together with a bunch of people in the same room, but if you’re really writing, you’re probably not going to be talking very much with those friends. Really, writing is something that requires you to shut yourself up in an imaginary world. Not a very social activity.

So, yesterday, I had just gotten back from an awesome jujitsu practice, and I was ready to take a shower and finally WRITE, when my roommate gives me a call and asks me to give him a ride from this party on 700 North up to Glenwood where Malik and Huthifa live. And then I started to wonder…am I going to actually get a chance to write tonight?

It didn’t really annoy me that much to break away and give him a ride, but it was a little annoying that he expected me to do it. But I guess that’s the difference between our culture and theirs. He probably couldn’t understand why I’d want to spend a Friday night by myself. Also, yesterday was the last day of Ramadan (which makes today Eid! Eid Sayeed! Kul 3m wintum bakheer!), so he was in a party mood. In fact, if I don’t hang out with my Arab friends at some point today, they’ll probably think that something is wrong with me.

Well, I gave him and Basseem a ride, and visited with Malik for about ten minutes or so, but then they started to watch a movie, and I excused myself. I guess you could say I had a date with my novel. Three hours later, I was 1500 words into my story, past the scene that had been hanging me up the whole week, and very very happy. But…I’d told my friends that I’d come back in an hour. I called my roommate, and he said that they were going over to Denny’s. I contemplated coming, but it was 3am, so I ended up calling him back and apologizing that I couldn’t come. You see, I wanted to actually be alive on Saturday (when I left the apartment at 11am, my roommate was still asleep).

So, now, I don’t only have to juggle schoolwork, but I have to juggle all my Arab friends. Not that I don’t mind hanging out with them. It’s just that sometimes I want some time to write. How to balance all this out and not offend my new friends? I don’t know. I’ll tell them that I’m writing a novel, and hopefully they’ll understand.

question on novel length

So, I’m coming up to about 25,000 words, and I’m starting to get worried that I’m not as far in the storyline as I should be for this time. I’m not all that sure what to do. How long is a normal novel? Is there a length in particular that I should aim for? How do I know if the story is progressing as it should?

I figure (as with everything) that I’ll just write it and cut out all the unecessary stuff after I’m finished. But I do want to know what I’m aiming for right now. There is SO much stuff that I want to have happen in this story, and I hope I’m not at page 150 or something by now.

And I fell asleep like five times trying to write this. Good freaking night!

only 278 words

Yeah, I know it’s not a lot. I was going to write more, but I’ve been falling asleep while typing this. Although, I must admit, it’s funny to read what I’ve half written in my sleep.

This week was crazy. Next week probably won’t be quite as bad. I’ve got a test I need to take tomorrow, and another one on Monday. Plus a paper on Monday. I don’t think it will be too hard, though, and if I don’t wait until 1am (like tonight) to completely finish all of my homework, I think I’ll be good.

I was going to write a couple thousand words, but everything in the world (including my own procrastination) is conspiring against me. Wah!!!

All I really want to do is write in my novel

It’s true. Unfortunately, the universe is conspiring against me. The homework alert level has been raised to orange and a half. Fortunately, it should die down by the weekend.

I’m still sticking by the 500 words per day goal that I had before. I just decided to modify it so that if I write more than 500 words on a particular day, it will count for missed words from the day before. I’ve noticed that when I sit down to write 500 words, I usually write 1,000. Since, with papers and tests throwing things out of whack, I can’t always make 500 words each individual day, at least I can write 500 words FOR every day. I’ll probably have some time to catch up on Wednesday.

1,066 words and I don’t think I’ll be doing nanowrimo this year

I put in about a thousand words. I’m at a point in the story right now where a lot of stuff starts happening. There are about three or four new characters that I want to introduce, and I have all these great ideas about how to do it, about who they really are, what ideas really move them, what they really believe and stand for, what they will struggle with, and how they’re going to play into the story, but I’ve been stuck at this one scene for the whole week–not because I don’t know how to write it, but because I haven’t had the time to just sit down and finish it. It’s the scene where Leila finally gets back, and she talks with her father the King about Ian and Aaron and what happened in the desert. It’s basically the kingdom’s first contact experience with the “aliens”–the rest of humanity. There are going to be a lot of first contact experiences in this story.

So, the problem is basically that I’ve got a TON of ideas, I know where I want the story to go, I keep running the story through my head over and over during my free time…but I never have the time to write it. It doesn’t help that I write really long blog entries, either. 🙂 Or have tons and tons of homework. It’s honestly a huge incentive to learn how to use my time efficiently. I think by the end of this semester, I’ll be doing my homework first thing after my classes (GASP!!!! I’ve NEVER done that before!) and setting more goals and stuff.

One thing, though: since I’ve got so many ideas for this story, I don’t think I”ll be doing nanowrimo. I just don’t want to pull myself out of this universe and stop working on my ideas for this story. It would be too big of a break in what I’m doing right now. I will, however, be doing a lot of writing during November! We’ll probably be having some Quark get togethers for nanowrimo participants, and it’ll be a good opportunity to get some writing in.