the blanket problem

[jazzfish]

tl;dr: I hate revising because my brain is terrified I'll screw up something that's currently not-terrible.

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So I have this story. It's okay, people seem to like it, but it needs more. So I'm adding in a scene or two and filling in some backstory.

I can't shake the sense that every change I make is, instead of improving things, ruining whatever it was that made the story good to start with.

I complained about it on twitter, and talked it over with a couple of people, and suddenly that looked really familiar.

Imagine it's the dead of winter, and you've woken up in the middle of the night. You're buried under blankets and you're mostly warm enough. Only mostly, though. You've started to get a little chilly.

There's a thermostat on the wall. You can get up and turn the heat up a couple of degrees, and then you'll be fine.

Trouble is, you have to get up. Get out from under the blankets, into the cold air, where you'll be genuinely cold instead of just a bit chilly.

Instead I have a bad habit of staying buried under the blankets and convincing myself that I'm not really that cold. And compared to how I'd be while I'm out, it's true! It just misses the point that I'd be completely comfortable pretty soon after, for some small effort and discomfort now.

Same thing. The story as it is works, sort of. Why mess with it? Why risk making it worse?

Answer: Because it doesn't work, because there is no 'sort of works' any more than 'sort of comfortable.' Because it's worth making the story better, and if that makes it worse to start with then I can correct that when I hear about it.

Comments

[okrablossom]

I commend your attitude and hope you follow through on this resolution to revise!

But I did want to point out that sometimes the learning is in the doing and that you can still learn without the end product being, well, a good story. I've written lots of things that went nowhere after multiple revisions, stuff people enjoyed, but that doesn't mean my writing didn't improve from it. Maybe think of it as "improving your writing ability" versus "getting this story right"?

I just mean to offer a different point of view and I apologize if it's not helpful for me to have posted.

[jazzfish]

Thanks!

That is a totally reasonable and healthy perspective, and... huh. One that I have a really hard time applying to writing. When I used to play cello it was easy to say 'this is a practice run' on a given piece, it's ephemeral. Writing is tangible.

Put another way: when I have an end product I feel compelled to make it THE BEST END PRODUCT POSSIBLE. This means both that I feel that I have to perpetually tinker with it, and that I'm terrified of tinkering with it.

I suspect that cultivating the idea of 'practice' would do me a lot of good.

[northboundtrain]

The cello analogy is imperfect, IMHO. With that, you are playing what someone else has written. With your writing, you are creating your own work; consequently it's more personal, and harder to let go.

Which doesn't make it any less true that the journey is at least as important as the end result, if not more important. It's just harder. :)

For my own writing, which startlingly few people have ever witnessed first-hand, each piece has been a journey in and of itself. Each new story becomes my favorite child for a time, and yet it's always the story I'm not working on at the moment that has my attention.

I've only ever really finished one story of the five that I've seriously put effort into. That was tough, let me tell you, to say "This is done" and mean it. I submitted it for publication (still haven't heard back) and haven't looked at it since. Part of me is afraid to, for fear that I'll discover how horrible it is. Should it be rejected (and part of me is convinced that it will be (of course), though another part of me is convinced it's perfectly suited to be published as-is), I will undoubtedly go back and tinker with it some more. Why? I'm always learning, and I always bring a fresh perspective to a reading, especially after being away from it for a few months.

[jazzfish]

I've been trying to come up with something useful/interesting to say to this and your other comment for a week now, and having little success. Other than 'thank you' and 'cool, you write!' and encouragement and similar things.

As for the cello analogy... Ursula Vernon has talked at least once about learning to throw pots on a wheel, and how when you do that you make an awful lot of really bad pots, and you get used to the sense of 'yep, that one's not very good, chuck it and try again.' That's a perspective that I feel like I'd be well served to try to take on in my writing... but I can't. I haven't been able to let go of the sense that this story has to be, if not perfect, pretty dang good.

Also, if you're looking for additional feedback, I'd be happy to provide some, and cushion it with things I like about the story too. :)

[northboundtrain]

re: letting go

For me, letting go was letting someone else read it. That was scary as shit, and still is, though as I said, I think I'm over a lot of that (but only for people that have already read any of it). Part of it is purely putting myself out there, opening myself up for criticism. The other part is a matter of subject matter, though, as most of the stuff I've written so far has been smutty. Why that? I dunno know. I suspect it's a lot easier than crafting a whole fantasy epic.

I still haven't told too many friends that I've done any writing at all (you'd be #8, I think) and I've only really talked about it with a few of them. I think I'm more afraid of being judged on the subject matter than the quality of the content, still, but eventually that will ease, I think. My current story (due at the end of the month - holy shit!) is completely non-smutty and has a sci-fi bent, and I'm more inclined to let people read that one (though its target audience is very narrow, so it may not make sense to most people).

Anyhow, as with most of these things in life, the trick is figuring what you're afraid will happen if you let go. Will the world find out that you're not a professional writer? Will it just be personal disappointment (which speaks to a larger perfectionist issue)? Will the cat piss in your Wheaties(tm)?

One last thought, which is very important, I think: just because you let go of a story, it doesn't mean the story is done. You can pick it up again in a few months, or a few years. And in the interim, you can still add to it, on occasion, jotting down a few notes here and there while you work on something else.

[okrablossom]

> One that I have a really hard time applying to writing.

I wonder whether this is easier for me because I began my "serious" writing with poems, which are much shorter, and while I find they can take as much effort as a short story (for me) they also can feel more throw-away.

Another idea might be to try writing exercises, if that appeals to you at all, because the whole point there is to try and not necessarily to complete? If that makes sense at all.

And thanks for the thoughtful response, it's fun to talk writing methods with another writer.

[jazzfish]

That makes sense. As I mentioned to Joe above, Ursula Vernon's story about learning to throw pots on a wheel, and how you make an awful lot of bad pots and you get used to the idea that that's how you get better, really spoke to me... but right now a story is so much effort it hurts to think about throwing it away.

Writing exercises are not a bad idea! I just need to find some I am okay with. Time to dig up Ursula Le Guin's writing book, I think.

And, yes. It's fun talking shop. I've missed it. :)

[okrablossom]

> Writing exercises are not a bad idea!

Woot!!

And it just occurred to me (because there are 1000 poetry writing exercise books) what it would be like to use them to write prose. Hmm...