Writings and ramblings

This past weekend I had hoped to write. Truly. I had hours to spare, and the story idea I wanted to focus on. The thoughts of that story turned like wheels in my mind.

But it didn’t happen.

I was blocked. Which, even though there are days where I avoid writing like the plague, was a very strange feeling. It was like the very idea of me opening up a word doc or a text file or anything to just start writing was just. un. bearable.

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Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

A regular reader of Writing Anxieties asked if I would talk about the fact that there are just too many books to read. I will. But not today. Instead, I’d like to focus on a related issue, one a bit more pertinent to the fears of a writer. And that is the over-crowded market.

For me, it’s why I don’t like going into a book store, or these days, browsing titles online at places like Amazon (the same applies to libraries and second-hand stalls at markets). For right in front of you is the constant reminder of all the other people out there who a) have had something published, b) are trying to make it too, and c) are vying for the same attention as you are.

Well, not always the same attention. I can’t say I’ll ever be in competition with the writers of flower manuals and books on deep-sea fishing. Even in fiction, I’m not really in competition with the likes of Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, or the other classics that have been around for years (me and Homer have no quarrel… or comparison. Anyway…). Children’s picture books, religious texts, tracts on thermodynamics are, likewise, no cause for concern. There are whole shelves of the store, in real life and virtual, that I can safely browse without the slightest anxiety bubbling up in me.

That leaves the rest of them. The popular fiction writers, the literary fiction writers, the other erotic writers, the speculative, the mystery… each of these I look at think ‘well… shit.’

There are a couple of things going on. One, the gnawing feeling of ‘why aren’t I there yet?’ Two, the overwhelming sense that there are so. many. names. that you just haven’t heard of, and the fear is that ‘well, even if I make it to publication, what if I become one of those names? And ‘also ran’, the one that maybe a handful of people read but is just not, well, read all that much?’ (To my mind, at least – one might hazard that these writers must have readers in order to have more than one novel out.)

I suppose there are a couple of tricks to this. Learning to be happy for the success of others, perhaps – but I think I’ll save my generousity for those I know personally, rather than Jane Doe, writer who I’ve never heard of but dang namit, has gone and managed to get herself out there. Another way of thinking about it is that it takes some of the awe and mystery out of publishing, that it turns out, rather than being something only a veeerryyy special select few can do, there are more people at this game than you might realise – so if they can do it, so can I.

In terms of getting the attention of a J.K. Rowling or a Stephen King (or in erotica, an E.L. James)… not sure with that one. On the one hand, having a name with that kind of impact would be awesome, but I’m slowly getting drawn to the appeal of not having that kind of following. Of having my name know by a few people, enough to keep me writing, enough people who appreciate it, and that’s it.

Of course this is all pie-in-the-sky stuff – need to actually get a novel, you know, finished, before any of this becomes relevant. But it is the kind of thing that can threaten to overwhelm a writer, and worth watching out for so it doesn’t ruin what should be pleasant experience, that of browsing and looking at and enjoying books.

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

Writers trade in words. We use them, play with them, manipulate them, use them to make sense of the world, to express ourselves, to obfuscate, to distract, to amuse, to affect. Words are the very root of our trade. Some might say that our true root is storytelling, but that is the remit of a narrative writer, either fiction or non-fiction. Words connect the novelist to the poet to the journalist to the screenwriter to the technical writer to the blogger to the cook writing up recipes for publication. We express ideas through the medium of words.

So why are they an anxiety for me? (Well, to be honest, it’s more of a general worry than a deep anxiety, but I’m curious to hear how other writers deal with it.)

Several reasons. I look at my work, and I see repetition of words, often in the one piece. ‘Oh look,’ I said on the second glance over a short story recently, ‘how many times have I managed to use delicious? Crap.’

I have fall back words too, the ones that keep cropping up not matter what I write. This could be when it is erotica in particular – ‘press’, and ‘against’ are two I notice. Let’s have a ponder why I could possible rely on those ones…

I worry that for a writer I don’t have a large enough working vocabulary. It’s not that I don’t know the meaning of lots of words – I’m not running to the dictionary with every page of literary novel, for instance. It’s more a matter of using them in my own work, and using them naturally, for at the same time you don’t really want to write a piece that looks like you’ve scooped out the contents of the thesaurus and dumped them on the page. I was criticised for this recently in something I did, and the critique-er wasn’t entirely incorrect – at the time I was writing, though, I did think it was necessary though because there are only so many times you can say ‘shiny,’ for instance. The smart thing, though, would be to recall that it’s a matter of selecting the right word for that precise moment.

A further thing I noticed is that I have a problem with little words, the filler words that are a symptom of first drafts. ‘still’, ‘then’, ‘just’, ‘even’ (actually, ‘even’ is very much part of how I write. A stylistic tic, maybe?) It’s like the apocryphal story of Mozart – instead of too many notes, too many words. This does get better with practice, and is a symptom I think of beginner writers, the need to overstuff a paragraph to make it absolutely clear what you mean, but in doing so, lose the overall effect; just as a four line caricature sketch can convey loads of personality, the correctly chosen four words can create an immediate, powerful image.

What helps me through this? A few things. One, to remind to myself to read more, and widely, to see how people make use of their words. Two, that I’ll probably get better the more I write and the older I get. Three, the Find function in most word programmes is very effective in weeding out repetition.

Any other thoughts folk on words, words, words?

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

My writing anxieties post earlier this week was very pertinent to this article that I’ve just read:

Writer’s Cramp: In the E-Reader Era, a Book a Year Is Slacking

Got there from this post at Writer Unboxed, though, and this is worth remembering for sure!

Respecting Your Natural Rhythms

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

(Really must not try update wordpress between 10-11pm – seems to slow right down and eat half my posts! So this is finished off from last night.)

There are benefits of a tight deadline you are determined to meet. For one thing, it focuses your energy and thoughts onto finishing it, everything else, the peripheral distractions, dropping away, or otherwise you figure out how to use those distractions as a genuine break from your work rather than as a time-sapping way to avoid doing your work. In the midst of writing this latest one, I was getting into Memrise, and it was a very nifty way of taking time out from the story, being both fun and productive and only taking up a little bit of time.

Trouble is though, that deadlines pass. Once they are gone, then so does my focus. I know there are other projects to do, I know there are other things to write, but after that extreme, tightly focus, almost forced energy, there is also the desire, and dare I say, need to have a break. Well, break-time is well and truly passed. True, I have finished reading one of the dragon books I’ve been meaning to for a while (review to come soon I hope), and yes, I have managed 700 words of a new story, but that one is irritating me as I have the crux of the sex scene, but I’m still figuring out the character dynamics, which are not coming easily. There is time before that’s due and it is only allowed to be short, so that’s something, but still, brain is trying to decide between that and half a dozen other projects I could be getting on with and it’s starting to bug me. Trouble is the simple ‘pick a direction out of a hat’ thought doesn’t really seem to have worked in the past, so that’s going to be a joy in itself finding the next one to really get my teeth into.

It worries me because it relates back to an earlier post I made about finishing things. If you can’t focus on one thing, or even two things, at a time, how can you possibly hope to get stuff done? Yet I know it’s doable, with a deadline breathing down my neck. Perhaps the thing to do is wait until a week before the next deadline?

Yes, you’re right – stupid idea that. Ok, off to work where maybe something will inspire me in the right way.

(On the bright side, I’ve had a big clear out of my Firefox bookmarks. That’s something, right? Right?)

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

As a writer just starting to get work published, though one whose been writing for a long time, this seemed like an appropriate place to start.

Will I succeed? It’s a thought that plagues all writers at some point. Even the most arrogant, because unless they are actually delusional, those who are so full of themselves and sure of their talent have their moments of doubt too. Trust me on this.

The thoughts that go through our heads on this topic are vast and numerous. Will I succeed, we think, as we read about the latest book deal for thousands of dollars or pounds for that awesome debut novel that everyone in the publishing industry is talking about. Will I succeedd, when the print and online media, writing blogs, publishing blogs, and off the cuff twitter remarks declare how hard it is to get published in today’s world, how the whole scene is changing with the uptake of eBooks and eReaders. Will I succeed, thinks the script writer, wondering who the hell amongst the people they know might have a line to someone who can get films made or plays produced, because it’s all about connections, don-cha-know? Will I succeed, when we look at the top ten best-sellers and wonder if our work just doesn’t fit any kind of marketable mould that could be sold.

Then we open up our word documents, stare at the blank page, and the fear of not succeeding, that all our efforts will be for nought, that we could put years and years of work into this and get precisely no where…and it paralyses us. (Or me at least.)

And that’s just the question of publication and production. Getting that first foot in the door is one thing, but then after that…you begin to wonder what actually counts as success. Am I successful, for instance? In some people’s eyes, yes. I’ve been published. And that is a really wonderful feeling. But then other questions come up. Will I be read? Will people remember my work in a long time to come, or will it just be a flash in the pan? Am I successful if the critics love me but my books sell poorly, or if I make piles of money while the critics groan and wish I never put pen to paper? Which of those counts as ‘success’?

Then we make a cup of tea/preferred hot beverage and contemplate these deeper questions. We wonder what our options are. Should I go for the traditional path of agent/publisher/print book? Do I try follow in the steps of eBook success stories like Amanda Hocking? Do I try for short stories, do I focus on my novel ideas, do I seek out network connections before my work is even finished? And what’s this social networking thing over here…

So many questions…but the answers will not come. Because I won’t really know if I am successful until, well, I am. Sure, I may have some predefined set of criteria that mark success, and I’ve hit the first one of those (publication), but will I be satisfied with just good feedback from people but no monetary gain? Will I be content to rake in the dollars but also the contempt of intelligent folks I respect? Will any of what I do matter?

All I can do is keep writing, keep trying to get work published, and hope.

And try not to be so anxious about this question.

Mirrored from Edge of Genre.