Tag: On Writing

These last couple of days, I’ve been writing in the morning/midday, and it’s been a lot more productive than waiting to do it as the last thing.  I think that if I could get into a routine of doing it early in the morning, maybe before classes, it could be really good.  The way I have my schedule next semester, that’s probably what I’ll end up doing.  And, if I end up writing on the side of a regular job, that’s probably what I’ll end up doing after college as well–getting my fiction writing in each day before I go to work.  I’ve heard that it works very well for some people.

The story is definitely progressing nicely.  However, I think I may start turning to some short stories in the near future.  There are a couple of reasons.

First of all (and some of you, I know, will laugh at this), I’m a little bit worried about getting too far into this novel before the beginning of winter semester.  You see, for English 318 in the winter, we’re going to all start writing novels, but I’m hoping to get away with working on the one I’ve already got going.  That becomes kind of hard, though, when I’m already 45,000+ words into mine, and everyone else is at the beginning.  And I want to at least finish the rough draft of this one before I start another.  So, either I go too far and have to start something new for the class, or…well, I just put it on the back burner for a while.  Maybe I’m just stressing about it too much–after all, Sanderson seems like a pretty cool guy–but I dunno.  Laugh if you want–it’s what I’m good for. 🙂

Second, I want to get a couple of short stories published in the not too distant future, and if I want to do that, I’d better write a few more.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  First, I want to prove that I can do it, both to myself and to my parents.  It would be really awesome to sell something and see it in print / hear it in a podcast.  It would help me feel a little bit more self-validated and encouraged to write more seriously–to feel like I can actually get the ball rolling on this writing dream that I have.  And second, it would help validate what I’m doing to my parents.  Rightly or not, they feel that I’m stretching myself thin, and want me to focus on the things that I’m passionate about and see if I can make a practical living off of it.  I’m passionate about writing, but I don’t plan on doing that as a primary vocation, and I haven’t gotten published yet (although I have made some money off of it–$200 last year with the Mayhew contest!).  If I can sell a few short stories, hopefully it will prove that I can actually do something legitimate with this writing thing that I have going.

Now, talking about this reminds me of what I’m reading in this book of L’Engle quotations, about how one of the ways the world marginalizes the truths found in fiction is by saying that writing isn’t a “real job.” And I don’t feel like my parents are doing that.  It’s just…financial independence and providing for a family is also very important.  I don’t think that they’re telling me not to be a writer–just to evaluate how important are the things I’m doing, and cut out the things that aren’t important.

But the thing is, writing is very important to me.  It always has been.  I was wondering the other day if I could ever get to a point in my life where I stop writing fiction altogether.  And I have to say that I don’t think that that’s possible.  When I came back from my mission, I found myself with a completely empty schedule–a life without anything to really keep me busy.  And it took me only a week or two to jump into creative writing again–and in 8 months I had a 69,000 word novel.  And after the winter semester, when I again found myself with a mostly open schedule, a number of ideas came together to compel me to write the short story The Clearest Vision.  Then, while I was in school again, I wasn’t doing too much writing at all, but this idea came to me so strongly that I felt overwhelmingly compelled to write it down.  And so I gave birth to another story (ok, the giving birth analogy is kind of weird, but it’s kind of…true…).

What I’m finding nowadays is that ideas are constantly developing in my head, sometimes quickly, most of the time very slowly, always on a subconscious level if not on a conscious level, and that when a number of them get to a critical point, I feel overwhelmingly compelled to write.  Before that happens, I can go about my life doing whatever, not even thinking about writing the story, but when it gets to that point, it just has to come out.  It’s just the way my mind works.  And for that reason alone, I don’t think that I could ever become an un-writer.

The key is to embrace this condition that sets me apart and use it–not only to serve myself, but, according to L’Engle, to “serve the work” as well.  Because some of these ideas could probably help to bring people to truths that they didn’t have before, and to see and experience life-changing things.  So I want to embrace this, and get good at it.  I don’t want to write just to sell something, or to entertain, but to tell stories as good as the ones that have profoundly impacted me and my life.  I hope I can do it.

So, that’s what the vision is.  And the way to do it is to stop waiting until the idea absolutely must come out, and to try and work with it while it’s developing.  Writing is hard work, not just flashes of inspiration and word sprints that turn into golden stories.  If I’m going to make this writing thing work, I’ve got to learn how to write regularly, submit my work and get it published, and work with my ideas before they get to that really pregnant stage.  And so I’m probably going to work on a couple of short stories in the near future.

This post is getting pretty long, so I’d better wrap it up, but the next post will have some of the short story ideas I’d like to work with.  And also, when I get a chance, I’d like to write some reviews of some of the books I read recently, like Mistborn, Princess of Mars, and 2001: A Space Odyssey (a piece of really hard sci fi, but a d*** good book!)

Tonight, it was late, and believe it or not I actually do value my sleep (not as much as other things, but I do value it nonetheless), so I didn’t write anything original today.  Instead, I went back about ten or fifteen pages back and did some light revision while reminding myself what’s going on so far.

It was actually quite good!  Helped to renew some excitement for me in the story, which was nice.  Good motivation for writing tomorrow.  And, day after tomorrow, there is a writing party over at Jakeson’s and Gamila’s (who actually live on the same block as me, I found)!  I am definitely looking forward to getting WAY ahead during that night!

Man, I suppose I’m either a wimp or just really busy with other things to only be doing 500 pages a day, and some days less than that!  I hope I can learn to balance writing with my career (not to mention career and writing with family!).  As it is, I can’t hardly balance anything.  Not the important things, anyways.  Temple, scriptures, friends, homework, tests, papers, readings, reading for recreation, vs. all the stupid things that can waste one’s time…shoot man!  It’s a hard, difficult battle!

And I really hope that writing is more than just a “good thing” on that list.  I really do.  If it’s just a “good thing,” then it means that I should cut it out of my life, because there are already so many “good things” that I could be doing that I don’t have time to do them all!  It would be a matter of cutting them to allow time for the “great things” and the “best things.”

But then again, I think it’s quite likely that writing fiction IS something more than a “good thing.” I’m reading this collection of quotes from Madeline L’Engle, the fantastic writer of children’s literature who wrote A Wrinkle In Time, the book that (believe it or not) hooked me onto Science Fiction and becoming a writer.  In this book, L’Engle talks about writing as something holy and sacred, about serving the story, and about how art and creative writing is a profoundly important and spiritual thing.  It’s quite interesting, because it’s very different from my current view of writing (which is basically “I want to write because it’s cool and there’s something compelling me to do it that I don’t understand”).  Very thought provoking, actually.  I really want to understand where she’s coming from and see it for myself.  It could really change the way that I approach all of this, in a very positive way.  I’ll have to blog about it once I’ve read the book.

And you know, this might be me going out on a limb, but if writing really is a way that I could profoundly shape the world for good (or the life of an individual, which really is the same thing ultimately) then it would make sense that Satan would want to put doubts into my mind about my writing and my stories and the possibility of getting published and all of those other problems.  If it has the potential to be that good on a spiritual level, then it makes sense that there would be so much opposition.  In which case the answer, of course, really is faith–stepping out into the unknown, trusting in something greater than yourself to show you the way and lend power to your writing that you yourself could not have put into it.  I believe quite firmly that all of this is possible–I just need to make the leap.  I’m still trying to control my own writing too much, and not focusing on the ultimate potential that lies beyond my limitations.  If it is true that there is a place for spiritual significance in writing, then I need to make space for God and enter with Him in a partnership to do this.

I honestly don’t know.  Until I sat down to write this, I didn’t know that I had these doubts–indeed, maybe they didn’t enter into me until I started to write this.  And I honestly don’t know what I’m saying or where I’m going with all this spiritual stuff.  It’s something I still need to think about.  But it really does seem like it’s something worth pondering and contemplating.  I feel that it has the power to profoundly and fundamentally change my approach to creative writing in general.  For that reason alone, it is worth focusing a fair measure of my attention.  I will definitely be doing this, because I have a lot of questions.

Man, I was reading Mistborn tonight, and it was freaking amazing! I’m about 500 pages in, right up close to the end, at the part where the house war finally begins. And MAN!!!! That chapter was so awesome! The fight that Vin gets into…(dangit, can’t give away spoilers!), it just felt so GOOD! Just how Vin finally says to herself that she loves him, that was just AWESOME! (I assure you, my creative writing is of a much better quality than the language I use to express myself on this blog) And right as soon as that happened, I couldn’t put it down! I mean, I was going to go to bed before 1am, but here I am, 2am, and it took me a lot of effort just to pull myself away from that book!

This, I think, is one thing that really makes for good sci fi and fantasy–how you are really drawn into the story and it becomes something really close to you, to the point where you can’t stop reading it, you’re so into it! I guess not every story has to be that way to be good–I read The Left Hand of Darkness recently, and it was good, but I never got sucked into it like I’m getting sucked into Mistborn now. But man, all of the REALLY good books seem to do this to me–The Neverending Story, Ender’s Game, Second Foundation, The Chronicles of Prydain, A Wrinkle in Time, and now Mistborn.

But you know, as an aspiring writer, it can actually be pretty intimidating too. I mean, there is something really powerful about these books which sets them apart from the others. How can you expect to create that yourself when you’re just a beginner? Wouldn’t it be a little pretentious to think that you’re that good? How do you get to be that good?

When I came back from my mission, I got the writing bug again almost a week after I was released. I guess something had really been pent up for those two years, because over the course of the next 8 months, I wrote 69,000 words in that novel alone (not to mention that I started–and, about 4 months later, finished–two short stories). But after I got 69,000 words into this novel, I realized that some of the premises were flawed, things weren’t working out, and that most of those 69,000 words were as boring as heck. If I cut all the fat out, I would probably be reduced to about 30,000 words or less. There were no hard feelings, no shattered hopes and dreams, no crushed self esteem–I figured that it could still work, it would just need a major overhaul, and that it was better to leave it for a little while and come back. It’s been about 15 months now, and I’m not sure when or if I’m coming back, but there are no hard feelings about it.

It’s just…that story didn’t have the same magic to it that these really great sci fi / fantasy books have. Maybe I just needed the practice to do better on the next one. I don’t know. But man, I would really like the novel I’m writing now to have this kind of power to it! This kind of overwhelming significance!

I figure that if I really want to do that, I need to spend more time with my characters–figure out who they are, what is driving them, what their struggles are, what their desires are, and how they grow over the course of this novel. I think I’m more idea driven and story driven than character driven–which isn’t bad, Asimov was much more idea driven than character driven–but I want the characters in this story to be personal and compelling, like they are in Mistborn and the others.

So, I’ll probably spend some time blogging on these characters, throwing out what ideas I have for them so far, and where those ideas came from. Hopefully, by doing that, I’ll be able to think more about them and know what I want to show of them as I continue writing. And I’m open to suggestions, if you guys want to share them.

PS: man, I think my blogging word count exceeded my creative writing word count today! I need to repent of THAT!