A Writer's Woes

A Labor Of Love

Writing is not always easy. Sometimes, it’s really hard. Sometimes, you really don’t want to do it. And sometimes, like any other job, you just have to sit down and make yourself write. As romantic as the life of a writer sounds, it is more often than not like any other job. It takes effort, self-discipline, and once in awhile, flat-out bribery.

As I’ve written here before, stories are a delicate balance of research and fiction, a world based in some loose framework of what we humans perceive as possible and real. Because I was so anxious to put my story to paper, I did not do all of my research upfront. In so doing, I missed a critical piece of history that made the first one-third of my book impossible for the era in which it was written. Readers are intelligent and unforgiving; an error such as this would make me lose credibility instantaneously in their eyes. And so I was faced with the grueling task of rethinking and rewriting a good portion of my book.

Talk about hard work. Thursday was the day. Come hell or high water (a little cliché, don’t you think?), I was going to bridge my book once and for all. It was a task that had been hanging over my head for far too long. On Thursday, I sat down in front of my computer and I started to write. And then I thought: I should pay bills. I’m hungry. I should call that friend from college I haven’t talked to in ages. I really should walk the dogs. The house is a mess. Hey, what about that pile of laundry? I’m still hungry. I wonder if that cool website has been updated lately? The procrastination demon was alive and well inside of my head. It took a lot of strength and fortitude to say, “No, today is the day I will write. Today I will forgo everything else in life. Today I MUST bridge this story.”

And so with each new temptation, I waged a bloody internal battle. It was NOT easy. I didn’t want to write. I didn’t want to sit in the same place all day long and force my story back into line. But I did it. And when I was done, it was an incredible high. It reminded me why I so love to write. When the story comes alive and the characters speak to me, everything feels right in the world. I was high for a week with my accomplishment. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t perfect or that it would take more work; I had finally bridged my story. I had won.

posted by chrmisha @ 12:32 PM 0 comments

I Know Something You Don't Know (Yet)

As part of a writer’s group that reads and critiques my book chapter by chapter, I struggle with what they don’t yet know, and what I do. What I wonder is, will they still feel the same way once they know how the story turns out? Unlike someone who buys my book and can read it from cover to cover, my writer’s group suffers a 2-week lag time between chapters.

I tweak the foreshadowing, lay hints throughout, and wonder—did anyone catch that? Will they remember this seemingly insignificant piece of information? Do they realize how important this little tidbit is? Or what a remarkable difference this will make later to the story?

It is the art of storytelling, I decide. Gifted authors do it well; not-so-gifted authors lose you halfway through. It is an intricate web woven throughout a story that ties it all together. If it is done well, the web is firm and unbreakable. It springs back when you touch it, new knowledge warbling through your fingers with each inspection of the fine threads that hold it together. If it is weak, it breaks apart; its dangling strands leaving the reader stranded and confused in its wake.

Tiny treads
woven together
A silken story forms;
A web of illusions,
deceptions galore,
telling a tale:
its core.

posted by chrmisha @ 1:09 PM 0 comments