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.

[northboundtrain]

I started out writing about five years ago (I wish I had started 25 years ago!). For me, writing is a slow, painful process. I like to be very precise about the words I put down, and I think way, way faster than I can type, and in ways that don't convey well into the imprecision of these things called words. But I push through it because I get so much enjoyment out of it, and such a sense of accomplishment.

After about six chapters into the first story I started on another one (and basically haven't touched the first one since). This second one was unexpected and has turned into a labor of love that will, undoubtedly, never be published. At 146k words and 32 chapters, I figure I'm about 55-60% done (just one of the many reasons it will never be published). I let a friend read it and he encouraged me to write more and has encouraged me that it needs to be read by others some day, so I harbored secret hopes that maybe one day it could possibly be published at some point.

I hooked up with a writing group last January and let more people read it, which was terrifying and awesome all at once. I got such incredible feedback from two or three people, and my writing abilities evolved tremendously, which made me, quite literally, pause to re-write 30 chapters of work (I've only done about 12 chapters, with maybe another six partially re-written and two written "correctly" the first time). Thank god for Scrivener, that's all I can say.

During the course of that month-long writing workshop I found a publisher that I would like to work with one day. Problem is, they're an invite-only publisher, but they do open calls, on occasion (and once you've published a story with them, you're invited). So, at the beginning of February I decided to answer one of their open calls, due at the end of June, I believe. Given that I've never finished anything yet and that my progress is glacially slow, this was a stretch from the get-go. I also decided to change POV (from first to third) and styles (I don't even know if the style has a name -- have you ever seen the movie or play Same Time, Next Year?) and went from strictly a pantser to laying out the plot up-front with an outline and everything -- I was playing with fire. And then I decided to let another dear friend (Kevin) read it, which was terrifying. Needless to say, I got burned.

About 20-25% of the way through I stopped and wanted to get a sanity check to see if it was even worth continuing. Of the three people who were my beta readers, not one liked the story, the style or even the characters. So I re-worked the story from their input, doubling it and adding more details and softening some characters and such and they still didn't like it, one of them so much that he couldn't get through even a single chapter. I eventually realized that my third-person POV just sucked. I didn't have enough experience with it (i.e. any) to write a whole, 100k word story in a coherent manner. So I re-wrote it again, turning it inside out, almost, and wow, did I ever love the thing after that! Sadly, no one else did, still, and my deadline was fast approaching with 75% still to be written, so I put it aside.

I had learned so much, though. And about a month later that same invite-only publisher posted another open call, this one for October 1. I started yet another story, this time with the intention that it be a short-story (10k words), and my goal was simply to finish it, which I did. Two of the three people reading it liked it, the other (Kevin) hated it. Like, hated-it-with-a-passion kind of hated it. And he was friend enough (and courageous enough) to tell me. It took me almost a week to bring myself to read his critique, which was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. And he had some valid points, too, which I incorporated back into the story. All-in-all I was happy enough with it that I submitted it for publication. I should hear in another couple of months whether or not they will take it.

In the end, that experience right there, with a very close friend handing me some harsh feedback, was the best, most liberating thing to have hit me. If someone I cared for deeply, whose opinions I valued greatly, could rip apart my work, my baby, and I could not only survive it but learn from it, then I could submit this story to a bunch of nameless, faceless strangers and survive their possible rejection.

All of which is to say...look at this amazing journey I went on.

[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]

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. :)

[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...

[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.

Another analogy :)

[okrablossom]

I saw this yesterday and thought of you. (Still hoping I'm being useful and not annoying. Apologies if the latter.)

http://joanniestangeland.com/2014/01/what-are-your-scales/

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Ah, I understand this feeling.

Have you devised any methods for overcoming it after discussing it with folks?

[jazzfish]

Not really! I am starting to come round to the view that there are no tricks, no methods, for getting past any of my self-destructive and/or avoidant behaviors. I am not enough smarter than my brain to be able to trick it into working the way I want it to. About the best I can do is 1) acknowledge that this is what's happening, 2) acknowledge that this is why it's happening, and 3) talk myself into doing it anyway instead of avoiding it. The hope is that I'll be able to make this a habit of a sort, so I can spend less time and effort talking myself into doing things.

[zargon.livejournal.com]

You're just not past the "ass point". When working on anything, there's a point where, up until you get there, it "looks like ass". And that's because it is. It's no where near done, it's all structure and underlinings and framework to build on and all the *pieces* but not really anywhere near complete. Then, there's the actual "ass point", which is where you cross the threshold of going from something you are working on to what you want it to be. It might not yet be complete, but HERE is where you can see what it WILL be and how great it's going to be. You are now past the "ass point".

[andrewducker]

Does it help knowing that you have the current version, and you can always go back to it if you need to?

So even if you mess it up completely, you can always go back and start making changes in a different direction...

(Because that's what makes life easier with code, for me.)

[hwestaa.livejournal.com]

Regarding editing, if you don't already follow Ursula Vernon you might find this helpful: http://ursulav.livejournal.com/1568113.html

[jazzfish]

Sure, there's some of that going on as well. (Ira Glass's bit about being just good enough to know how much you suck rings very true.)

[jazzfish]

It does, actually. Although I had to remind myself that I had in fact kept a copy of the original. :)

[jazzfish]

Yeah, that is exactly why I hate revising and adding.

(Ursula is in fact totally awesome.)