Tuesday, April 5, 2016

IWSG: Once More, With All the Feelings

I planned to start writing a book in April.  April is here, and I haven't started.

Yet.  I mean, c'mon, we're only five days in.

But this is where it all starts, isn't it?  This is the point where it starts to sink in, when I know it's time to get started on this mad process again.  This is the time of reviewing a plot I've been working on for nearly two years, going back over character and setting notes to make sure everything works and I haven't missed a plot hole I won't find until I've nearly finished the book.  (Again.)

This is, for this particular story, the time I make sure all the character name and gender changes I've made are reflected in the plot, lest I confuse myself forty-two thousand words down the line.

So it seems natural that this is one of the times of greatest insecurity, hence me saving this moment for IWSG.  No matter how much I talk about the story finally being ready to write after so long, knowing that it'll soon be time to sit down and get to it brings back all the fears.  As much as I like writing interplanar tales, I've never written one that turned out well.  And while I know those were all different books and that doesn't mean anything for this book, the fear's still there.

To say nothing of feeling absolutely sure that the book itself is going to turn out too damn odd and defy categorizing too much for anyone to ever want to buy it.  "Interplanar fantasy space opera race/scavenger hunt" might be the best way to describe it, and who the hell's looking for that?  I think this even as I take steps against it.  Yes, everyone says to not even think about publishing at this stage, and I'm trying not to.  But five months of querying BoLR has embedded those thoughts in my head.

I am, of course, not letting any of this stop me.  It's impossible to know how a book's going to turn out when it's still inside my head.  Every story changes in the writing, and this one will be no different.  I've been going over scenes in my head as I work on other stuff, and it seems like things have gelled and it's all ready for me to get started on this giant chunk of literary weirdness.  And I have not, and will not, change a single damn thing because I think it'll make the book sell.  That way lies madness - okay, more madness.

I just . . . I can't escape the fear that this will turn out like everything else I write.  (I refuse to call it "knowledge", as I can't predict the future, and I'm forcing myself not to listen to the parts of my mind that insist it will happen.)  That this book, a year or less from now, will end up my fifteenth trunked book, possibly never even queried, possibly with nothing of it ever seen by anyone but me and the few people I somehow got to read it.  I know that everyone says to keep going and you'll find the book that works.  I know that trying a bunch of different things is the best - perhaps the only - way to make that happen.  And I know there's no way to see what will happen than to start writing it and find out.

So I will.  Soon.  Wish me luck and/or skill, as I think I'm going to need both.

Final note: I nearly called this entry "Once More, With Eeling" since one of the book's characters is a snake from the waist down.  But I figured no one would get the joke and she'd be very upset at being called an eel.  And I'd be ripping off WoW.

Next week: how to make things harder.  No, not for me, I can handle that on my own...

12 comments:

  1. Okay, first of all NONE OF MY BOOKS TURN OUT WELL. It's not until I've totally rewritten that awful first draft that I see a lining of hope. Even then, I have a love hate relationship. By the 5th draft (which often means 2 to 3 complete rewrites), I begin to believe in the story, and by the 10th draft, I have gold. So here's the deal, all those "awful books" are just stories waiting to be polished into awesomeness. I love the advice, "Give yourself permission to write crap." It's the only way to get to the gold on the other end.

    Crystal Collier

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    1. I seem to have fewer first draft issues than a lot of other writers, not sure why. >_< It might be because I spend so much time in plotting; by the time I actually start writing, I've already been through a bunch of revisions and thrown out a ton of things.

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  2. Well, you won't know until you write it down, right? Hey, you know it won't be great the first time around. Good thing we get to keep editing then.

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    1. This is true. Though a lot of it is whether or not I can stand to look at it again once I'm done with the first draft.

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  3. I wrote a comment but the internet hates me and deleted it. I think I said something like "enjoy this part. It's the fun/discovery part and put publishing out of your head." Yeah. All that. You can do it!

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    1. I'm trying for that, thank you. ^_^ If I wasn't in the middle of querying, it would be less of an issue. I think I'll think about it less once I get started.

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  4. Every story I write is bad. Horrible. No good. But editing with all that CP and beta input, and taking time to rework it over and over again--that's when the story starts gaining maybe okay. And even then, I shudder.

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    1. I think I'm some sort of weird inverse of that. I'll either like it or hate it when it's done, then I'll spend a lot of time editing it and think it's great. A little while later, I'll be wholly convinced it's utter crap. >_<

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  5. I like "Once More With Eeling", but I don't play WoW. I play Runescape3 which is just a pun repository at this point. Or, more correctly, it's Petscape, Outfitscape and Emotescape.

    All of this is beside the point. Every story I write stinks on ice, but that hasn't stopped me. No sirree, I keep writing dreck and keep on writing dreck. Right now, I think I have a pretty good story. My problem is getting the 2 main ass-, er, I mean characters off the couch and getting them to stop spewing rhetoric at one another, which is what I know how to do. Not riveting for an "action-thriller". Sigh. We all have our crosses to bear. But, stick with it; write long enough and keep at it, eventually something good happens. Especially with all of these fine folks about you! Viola Fury, co-host, aka Mary

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    1. It does help a lot to have this kind of support, yes. ^_^

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  6. I planned to write something in particular in April, but it didn't turn out that way. But I did write something else which I've revised four times already because my first draft was crap! Not saying that the latest one isn't crap, but hey...

    I hope your month of writing is going well!

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    1. It is so far, thank you. ^_^ And it's always hard to tell if something is crap or not... even if you once thought it was good. Gah.

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