Rediscovering Your Own Work

Today I was cleaning up the writing folder on my had drive, moving bunches of old stuff to subfolders like, "needs work", "bits and pieces" and of course, "pretentious garbage." In the midst of all this I came upon a rather large file I had completely forgotten about. It's a 25,000 word story titled HEAVENVILLE about a professional wrestling promoter who own an RV park that was once a drive-in theater. Surprisingly it's pretty good. It needs a major rewrite, but it's all there.

How could I have forgotten about this? I searched my memory and seem to recall that i wasn't able to resolve problems with the plot, particularly the climax. i must be maturing as a writer because I now see simple solutions for what was, at the time, insurmountable difficulties.

Encouraged by this gem I spent several hours reviewing all my old work for some other salvageable beauty. Unfortunately all this yielded was the movement of a great many files to the "pretentious garbage" folder. Ah well.

Suffering From Character Envy

My characters have much more interesting lives than my own. Every day for them is an adventure. Oh sure, occasionally they're murdered or dismembered, but they will never die of boredom or suffer the unending horror of having a day job. Many of them have cool cars and nice houses and get to have sex with lots of people without worrying about getting a disease. 

Does all that balance out that their existence relies on my whim or whimsy? Perhaps they must live life out loud in an attempt to find favor with me, their creator. To avoid having some new horror befall them, or worse yet, being left forever, hopes and dreams unfulfilled, on the unfinished page as has happened to so many of their kind before them.

Well, that still sounds better than sitting though two hours of budgeting meetings.

I Hate Good Advice

Many people give me advice. Mostly I ignore them. I'm an I-know-what's-best-for-me DIY kind of guy. You either know someone like that or you are someone like that.

However some advice just can't be ignored, no matter how painful it might be. I've been working on a novel for over a year now. It sucks, but quality isn't mandatory for a first draft. For a long time now my inner critic has been telling me that it doesn't suck because of its draft status. He says it sucks because it sucks. Of course that's just my inner critic talking. It's his job to be an asshole. The problem is, lately my more positive writing forces, the skull of the muse and the dream lizard, are agreeing with him.

I've lost all focus. The book is a collection of unconnected scenes. My villain has lost all his edge. My heroes their whimsy. The story arc has become a slinky in an Escher drawing. It's a mess and I just don't want to play ball with it anymore. Worst of all, I realize that this isn't, even if it didn't suck, a book that I would want to read. I realize that this isn't the book I want to write. It is the book I thought I was supposed to write.

In the midst of my inner critic's victory dance I considered, "What now?" So I sat at my desk, did my meditative breathing, and starting writing out a recent dream. Then I wrote some notes on the possible meanings of this dream and filled a page with "what ifs" and came up with a possible conflict/conspiracy. Looks like I've got a story write.

Am I My Critic's Keeper?

My inner critic won't speak to me. He sits on my desk with his head in his lap, weeping. The Skull of the Muse keeps telling him jokes, but he won't laugh. The glass rabbit, who I think represents my feminine side, keeps telling me in German that I need to feed the critic. She says that he will die if I don't write something soon. Quite a dilemma.

Can I survive without the inner critic? Sure, he trashes my work and makes me doubt and question everything, but he also keeps me from hoisting confusing and unpolished drek upon the unsuspecting reading public.  

Can I survive without writing? Sure, if I don't mind becoming an alcoholic flesh-eating zombie. Such a choice.

The Dream Lizard is no help either. Last night he had me trying to impress a bunch of skateborders by bragging about my clothes only to realize that I was dressed like Herb Tarlek from WKRP. I know there is a message in there somewhere but the allegory escapes me.

Writing Was Easier When I Sucked

Ah the days of bliss, happily pounding out drek with no responsibility to the readers that did not exist. The resulting stories would be so bad that it would be immediately obvious what was wrong and what must be done to fix it.

Then I started getting better and everything went wrong. Now when I read what I write it's not bad, but it's also not great. There is always something missing, something to add, something to take away, but it's a subtle something lurking unknown in the shadows.

So I try to fix it through trial and error hacking away at characters, plots and scenes, till the whole thing is transformed into something brand new, but equally not so great. Lately all my rewrites seem to take me sideways rather than upwards in quality.

The Guilt of Leisure

Maybe it's the puritan upbringing, but I've come to realize that I feel guilty about spending time writing. I feel like I should be doing something practical and productive like cleaning the back room or repairing the deck or feeding the homeless. 

I know this is just my inner critic trying to devalue my writing. Hey, just the money I save on therapists makes my writing worth it. Still. I can't shake the feeling that I'm not serving the world as I should. 

I think the main problem is that I enjoy writing, so how could it be of any value? In my underlying belief structure things that are fun are not important.  Being important is important. In my school days I was often accused of having my priorities mixed up. Who knew I was listening?

Prep

Just decorated my desk with the dream lizard, Kokopelli, the Skull of the Muse and the inner critic fetish. Now I can write.