The Crap Cycle

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You know the routine.  You go to bed Sunday evening with a mind brim-full of ideas, itching to get up the next morning and write.  On Monday you roll out of bed and sit down at the computer; you've got an hour, maybe several, and you're ready to go - until you open up the document and try to start.  And then everything is awful.  You struggle through a paragraph or two and move on, frustrated, to something else.  Everything is crap!  Your writing is rubbish!  This story is nonsense!  The characters are stupid!  You will never write anything as good as your last book (or chapter)!  You should just give up now!

But on Tuesday you try again and the story flows better; you've got over that trying bit of dialogue or description and feel like you've found your rhythm.  Things are great!  You love this story!  These characters are the bomb!  You're the top!  You're the Colosseum!

And then Wednesday?  Boom!

Crap again.

In case you couldn't tell, this cycle happens to me quite a lot - especially when, as with the past several weeks, I'm given the mixed blessing of plenty of writing time.  The ratio of good writing days to bad writing days seems skewed and you become frustrated with both the story and yourself, insecure about everything from the characters to that sentence you just wrote.  I've dubbed it the crap cycle, where the scene that sounded great yesterday sounds horrible today and you can't seem to heave the story out of the rut it's inexplicably fallen into.  There are plenty of blog posts out there to encourage you through this artistic slough, to pump you up and get you running again, but I would like to point out one thing:

the crap cycle

is a good thing

The days when we feel like our writing is rubbish and we're forced to evaluate our work through somewhat jaded eyes are good and necessary parts of the process.  We need to maintain a healthy cynicism, a recurring recognition that we are always capable of doing better.  If all we're doing is gleefully throwing out words, happy with everything we write, never suffering from the frustration of not achieving all we have in our hearts to achieve - then maybe our goals are too low.  Maybe our desires aren't big enough.  Maybe we need to step back and reevaluate, and then step forward again and try harder.

a little perfectionism

is a good thing

We do need to write fearlessly.  We need to ignore the editor side of us.  But not all the time.  Execution is as important as the idea.  We should take time to make our sentences ring true, our dialogue cohesive, our descriptions interwoven and spot-on.  If we leave everything until the editing process, I do not believe our finished product will be as good - as finished  - as it could be.  Allow yourself time to concentrate on making what you write solid, and the work of polishing, the punch-list at the end of the job, will be that much easier for it.

realism

is not pessimism

All things in moderation.  Both of these principles can be taken to extremes: we can obsess too much over details, spending so much effort rewriting yesterday's work that we never get to today's, and we can become negative. Remember to forge ahead.  When you've finally gotten through a tough bit, give yourself a pat on the back and move forward; don't go back and fret over it again.  Never let your recognition that improvement is always possible become warped into an attitude of depression, envy, or defeatism.  Rather, let it spur you on to better things.  Enjoy the times when you are the top, and remember that the times on the bottom are there to keep us humble and still striving.

When You Don't Want to Write

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We're writers.  Thus it is, or ought to be, a given that we write.  But we don't write all the time, any more than a farmer farms or a painter paints or a poet poems all the time: we have periods where we can't write, and we have periods where we just don't feel like writing.  In those latter times we tend to rattle around like a pebble in a can, not knowing what to do with ourselves.

What do we do, then, when we don't feel like writing?

And no, this is not going to be one of those cheeky posts in which the author says, "Just keep writing! SURPRISE!"  It is absolutely true that we should not give in every time, or even half the times, we feel the inclination to wander away from our work: if we have the ability to write and yet put it off over and over again, we're cultivating a spirit of laziness, which is no more acceptable for us than it is for a farmer.  But all the same, there are times when it is acceptable to take a break, to rest the mind, to gather creativity once more for another foray into our books.  So,

what do we do when we don't feel like writing?

1. Clean.  I think Jenny may have mentioned this at one point on The Penslayer, but there are few things that rejuvenate the mind as well as a good round of cleaning house.  As writers we tend to be fairly inactive - I know I do, at least - and it is good for the body and the mind to get moving and do something like scrubbing a bathtub or mopping a floor.  (I like bathtubs as well as the next person, I'm sure, but scrubbing them is horrible.  Its misery is only outdone by the task of formatting manuscript chapters in the body of an email.) 

But at any rate, no matter how clean your home or your writing area is on a day to day basis, you can always find something to clean: it's a law of nature.  If you find your creativity running dry, vacuum a few rooms!  Dust bookshelves!  Turn on a little music and scrub dishes!  Honestly, they could do a government study on the creative properties of suds.

2.  Organize.  This may come from being a fairly organized personality, but I find the practice of organizing helps to cheer me up and get my mind working again.  If you have a wardrobe or a closet, spend some time rifling through the clothes and sorting out things you don't wear: it is a productive task and has absolutely nothing to do with writing, which can be very nice. 

Or, on a more literary note, tidy up research material so it isn't tumbling all over the place.  This year I got myself a wicker basket - from Hobby Lobby; wonderful place, that - for some of the books that I use frequently and don't fit on shelves: The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady and W. Keble Martin's The Concise British Flora in Colour; an atlas of the ancient world; a Smithsonian Handbook of Birds of the World; a box of rejection letters.  It helps keep the room nice, and a clean room, I think, is far more peaceful than a chaotic one.

3. Exercise.  I'm pretty bad at this one: I find exercising incredibly boring.  But again, we tend to be inactive, and this is a good habit to inculcate no matter what your vocation is.  Turn on the music again - preferably sprightly tunes - and do some aerobics or some weight-lifting or whatever it is you prefer.  Go out for a walk, if you can, or just toddle out to get the mail (there might be books in it!).  It is not always much fun (though it can be), but it is good for you!

4. Read.  Some people find their reading increases when their writing is in a bit of a rut; I generally find that both flounder at the same time.  But at any rate, if you find yourself with more time on your hands, allow yourself to settle down with a good book.  Whether it is new or well-loved is not critical, although for myself I find that light reading is best.  I can't say David Copperfield has been terribly beneficial, but The Inimitable Jeeves seems to be doing wonders at present.  I think there have been splashes of Wodehouse in this post, actually.

5. Work.  Writing doesn't compose the whole of our work: there are other facets of being an author that can be turned to when the actual business of scribbling has slowed down.  If you have reached the stage of pursuing publication, take this time to work on query letters and research agencies or publishers.  (I know for myself I have no inclination to do this when my current book is coming along briskly.)  Spend a little while researching: more on that to come in a future post, I hope.  Respond to emails or think about marketing.  Edit a previous work, if you have the energy for it.  You can generally find some neglected bit of work that wants doing when your creativity is sparse!

Just because we aren't writing doesn't mean we cannot be productive in other ways.  There is nothing wrong with resting from one labor and turning to another for a time.  Laziness is not acceptable, but a timely break can be both well-deserved and helpful.

Boring and Bored

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A quote, wandering around on Pinterest as quotes are wont to do, states: "If you think reading is boring, you're doing it wrong."  It amused me at the time, but then I continued on and didn't think much about it until last night, which happened to be one of those where sleep seems to have gone on a brief holiday.  It occurred to me then that in many cases (not all, just many), "reading" can be exchanged for "a book" and that quote would be as accurate.

Don't get me wrong: there are some books I have attempted that I ended up finding indescribably dull.  But some of them, probably most of them, would have been redeemable to some other reader.  I don't think there are many books that are totally, irrevocably, objectively boring.  Even if a book is badly written, there is almost always some sort of amusement to be had from it - if only the kind of amusement derived from laughing hysterically over the sheer badness.  Other books have been written for a very small niche, and people in the niche find them fascinating.  I wouldn't enjoy a book on the different kinds of amoeba or the habits of the triple-eyed, red-spotted hairy antelope (actually, if there were such a thing I would be very interested), but others consider such works the cat's meow.  As Anna quoted just the other day in a different context:

there are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.

We ought to be careful, I think, before allowing ourselves to be bored by a book.  We are far too ADD in the 21st Century; why else would authors be instructed to have a "catchy" first line and to be sure their story grabs the reader's interest in the first chapter?  As readers, we are no longer willing to give the book our attention - it has to grab our attention.  And if it doesn't do so quickly, we tend to put it aside and pick up something more in line with our tastes.

I don't like to let myself not finish a book, generally not because of any well thought out reason, but because it goes against my grain.  Sometimes I do set one aside; just recently I tossed away a book I had been reading for research, highly disgusted with its lack of helpfulness and the author's obnoxious use of the word "hegemony."  But most of the time I stick to the book with a kind of grim will, while a series of thoughts run through my mind.  I start out by telling myself, "Maybe it will get better," and that takes me through about half the book.  At that point I lose hope, but start telling myself, "I've gotten this far, and I'm just too stubborn to quit!"  That gets me three quarters of the way through.  Then, if the book still hasn't picked up, I've stopped being at all hopeful and started being desperate, but can't bear to give up so near the finish line.  That would be like the blonde who swam three quarters of the way across the Channel, got tired and swam back.  (My apologies to all blondes!)

All of that to say that as we read, we should be cautious of our opinions, considering them closely and not cementing them too soon.  If a book is neither dirty nor mere drivel, we ought to give it time to develop before "pronouncing an adverse judgment," as Mary Bennet would say.  If it is outside our usual range, good: we might find we like these new stomping grounds, and if not, we can at least have a glimpse of how they look.  If we find the style or language trying, fine: our brains can always use a bit of exercise with wrangling out the meaning of Shakespeare.  If the book is huge, it's good practice for keeping our minds engaged - and besides, the feeling of success is greater in the end.

None of this is to say that we should never put a book aside as long as it isn't obscene.  But I do think we ought to consider why we're not finishing it, and be able to give ourselves a good reason.  We should not let ourselves turn away for the mere trifling reason that a book seems "boring."  Perhaps the real issue will turn out to be not that the book is uninteresting, but that we are simply uninterested - and the book might even be one that we would do well to make ourselves be interested in.

All Your Might

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I came across a quote today.  I was already familiar with it, and probably you are as well, but it sprang out at that moment because I happened to be thinking about working on projects I didn't want to be working on; I was, in fact, pretty actively procrastinating - if that is even possible.  So the quote was very pointed indeed.

whatever your hand finds to do, 

do it with all your might.

ecclesiastes 9:10

Granted, the Preacher was not exactly a cheery fellow; judging from the whole of Ecclesiastes, and from scholars' arguments in favor of Solomon being the author, it appears that he was a world-weary and perhaps God-starved man looking at life through jaded eyes.  His proverbs tend to be negative; the full verse quoted above reads, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom."  Not particularly bright and sunshiny.  It sounds almost like Russian literature.

And yet it is nonetheless true, and for a much more glorious reason than the Preacher brought out.  Another quote sprang to mind as I read this one:

so, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

first corinthians 10:31

The two verses mesh; they complement each other.  The Preacher, world-weary and God-starved as he may have been, was yet a wise man: it is true that whatever our hands find to do, we ought to do with all our might.  But not merely because we will eventually no longer be able to do it.  We put our might into these things for a greater reason; we have a higher goal, we march to a more joyful beat.  And that reason, that goal, that beat, is the glory of God.

It is not only our duty, but our greatest good and, we hope and pray, our greatest happiness to glorify God.  We were made to glorify Him.  What does the catechism say?  "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever," or, as some would rephrase it, "...to glorify God by enjoying Him forever."  This is an ongoing, lifelong, daily process, worked out in our most common actions - in our praise and prayer and meditation, and also in our work and our rest.  I Corinthians and Ecclesiastes can be put together, I think, because whatever our hands find to do, we do it with all our might for the glory of God.  

Most of us on this block of the blogosphere are writers.  Some are published; some aren't.  Some are treated by acquaintances as though "writer" were synonymous with "lazy bum."  In this context, I don't think it really matters.  The point is that, no matter what stage of life we are in, no matter the praise or disapprobation of others, we must do what we do with all our might.  If we're putting our hand to this plow - to any plow - we aren't meant to look back.  To co-op a third and totally extra-biblical quote, we shouldn't know how to dabble in things we should be earnestly pursuing.  Perhaps "dabble" shouldn't be a word in the Christian's vocabulary at all.  Labor and perseverance, prayer and praise - those are words much better suited to us.

kudos if you know the reference of that third quote

Moving On

A great deal is said, and a great deal deserves to be said, about the importance of perseverance in a writer's life. Some books need more than others (spoken with an extremely pointed glare at my work in progress), but it is a trait necessary at all times in the life of a writer, and, for that matter, in anyone's life; giving up at the first difficulty may be more common in our society, but it doesn't help in completing a novel.

At the same time, however, there is a place for moving on. I won't necessarily say that this point is ever reached because of difficulties alone, but there are other reasons for abandoning a work and continuing on to something else. One reason is stagnation. I spent about a year, and possible more, writing a mystery thingy (thingy is really the best description I can give it, looking back on it) that was very near to my heart, although my actual writing of it was somewhat sporadic and I didn't get far. Still, I toiled over it with great perseverance for a long while...and I believe I can safely say that my writing did not improve a jot throughout that time. It was not until I broke away from the Thing and began working on little bits of an incomplete story based around Stonehenge that my writing actually began to develop. Stonehenge was never a tight novel, per se, and likely never shall be, but it was a stepping stone, and after a while I deleted the Thing forever and moved on to write The Soldier's Cross.

Staying with a story is commendable, but there comes a time, especially if the novel is an early one or even a first, when starting something new is advisable. The comfort zone of the old has to be left for something different, and likely not as comfortable at first, if one's writing is going to progress. The same thing goes for such endeavors as fanfiction, which is another good experiment in writing to start off on, but which should give way to original works at some point.

Another time for moving on is when a novel is finished. In theory it doesn't sound as though this would be so hard - after all, the novel is finished - but it has its difficulties as well. Once a writer reaches the last page of a story he has been working on for months or perhaps years, there is a bond between him and the characters, and the novel has usually become comfortable for the author to work with. Thus it becomes quite easy to keep rewriting and editing and rewriting and editing, rather than starting work on another novel. (This is, of course, not to say that editing is bad; it is quite necessary, but can be taken to extremes.) Not being a fan of editing in general, I can't say that I would rather be editing Wordcrafter than working on anything else, but compared to the difficulties of The White Sail's Shaking, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea...

Attachment to a novel can also lead to series. Not the sort of series that are basically one storyline cut up into several books, but the Nancy Drew or Boxcar Children series that just. won't. die. This would be Disney, who makes one movie, sees its success, and promptly follows it with a sequel or two. This is a way of "moving on," since the writer is leaving one novel for another, but it can easily be as stagnating as staying with one story. The characters become so much a fixation that developing any others is more and more difficult - perhaps impossible - and the plots are often so familiar to the writer that they never bother to break out of the mold. Change, even for those of us who are not fond of it, is healthy.

Perseverance

New Years is the time of resolutions and good intentions, when people take heart at the dawn of a new year and set out to remedy all the problems they had in the last year. Unfortunately the new year fails to remain new, and as the second or third month rolls around, people begin to realize that it is just as difficult to change in 2011 as it was in 2010. So, generally speaking, resolutions are dumped and we go back to our usual ways.

I know, I know: a very depressing look at the bright new year of 2011. However, it does highlight a trait that most Americans of the 21st Century profoundly lack, and that is perseverance. It is a necessity in all aspects of a Christian's life, in "running with endurance the race that is set before us" (Heb. 12:1), and yet we live in an increasingly ADD society that finds sticking to any one thing an insurmountable task. In an age where video games have surpassed books, where men and women change churches, homes, and even spouses as easily as they change clothes, it's not surprising that words like "perseverance" and "persistence" are no longer popular. However, they are still characteristics that should be manifested in every believer's life, and cultivated in every writer's work.

At interviews and book signings last month I was asked several times what advice I would give to beginning writers, and my first would be to read. Writing is not something that can be done by a person who will not read extensively and well. But my other thought for writers is that if they wish to make something of their work, they must persevere. It's easy to skip from one story to another as the ideas appear fresh in your mind; it's also very easy to abandon ship when the story goes through times of bad weather, where writing is more like pulling teeth than anything else - trust me, I know. However, such flightiness will never produce a finished work, but only leave you frustrated with bits and pieces of a dozen plots.

For the most part, even deciding that your current story is dumb and worthy only of the compost heap isn't a good excuse for bailing out. You may not necessarily be wrong - your story may be dumb and worthy of the compost heap - but the only way to grow is to keep at it. I know my writing was stymied for a long time until I actually buckled down, wrote, and finished The Soldier's Cross. I will not set this down as an ironclad rule that you must stick with every story you begin, since only you can know the pros and cons of continuing the work in progress, but we should all be very cautious about scrapping one story for any reason.