[Writing/NaNo] :/ This... doesn't seem right....
So, I'm reading the post-event pep talk by Peter Carey from the NaNo mailing list thing. And I gotta say, the following is probably one of the most contradictory paragraphs I've ever read:
If you feel at all unhappy with your work, there is a good reason for it. Trust your judgment. Write the draft again, and again. This is the strength you must build-to work alone, in solitude, and write and rewrite and rewrite. Even when you finally succeed in making the original work you wished, you will still live with doubt and uncertainty. All writers learn to live with this. In this way you and I feel exactly the same about our work today.
If you feel unhappy with your work there's a reason and keep writing until it's right, but a writer must learn to live with doubt and uncertainty?
Here's my experience: the first draft will never be finished if something is insanely wrong that the writer doesn't realize, and the writer will never, ever be satisfied with their work.
See, with The Hakkan, there are shitloads wrong with the first draft. There are scenes, plots and characters that need expanding, there are scenes that need rearranging, and there are entire swaths of plot that never made it in the first draft to begin with. But I know all this. So I kept writing, and finished, and made notes on a hard copy when I was done.
With TTTWNSW, it wouldn't stay written, indeed couldn't even be completed, because the plot as I'd envisioned wasn't working. It wasn't going to work, it never would have, but it took six years for me to realize it, and in that six years I never finished a first draft. I didn't even finish half of a first draft. Currently, I have about 10,000 more words on the shiny new first draft than the original, and I have a completely new plot that's unfolding before me and it's working and yes, there will still be problems with it when I'm done, but they will be problems that can be fixed.
Will they ever be completely fixed to my satisfaction? Will I ever feel like I've said all I intended to say with this novel, that it's everything I wanted it to be? Probably not, because the reality will never be able to live up to the vision in my head. This is ever the issue of the artist.
So, to me, telling a writer to keep plowing through and keep rewriting until they feel it's right is extremely detrimental to the new writer, who will wonder why it never feels just exactly right. Sometimes, you just have to stop. Stop editing, stop rewriting, stop questioning yourself and let it go. Sometimes, yes, it will needs to be fixed, but sometimes the creator is far too close to the work to see the flaws, and that's when the opinions of other people make all the difference.
(Carey also says "Trust me-your own uncertain opinions are worth one hundred times more than the judgments of your friends. Your friends love you and are may be very smart. But they cannot imagine what you have not yet imagined. So don't show them stuff you fear may not be right." Obviously I do not agree with this. When you've done all you can do on your own with your ideas of what the story is and could be, that's when you need second and third opinion from people you trust. Hence why I'm trying to put together a First Readers group for my work. Which, by the way, I'm going to try to set up in the next few days.)
Basically, I very strongly disagree with the idea that a writer will ever be able to feel they've accomplished everything they set out to do exactly the way they meant to do it, and their novel is perfect. I think this entry by Peter Carey misleads new writers into thinking this is possible, which is a disservice to those writers.
Thoughts?
If you feel at all unhappy with your work, there is a good reason for it. Trust your judgment. Write the draft again, and again. This is the strength you must build-to work alone, in solitude, and write and rewrite and rewrite. Even when you finally succeed in making the original work you wished, you will still live with doubt and uncertainty. All writers learn to live with this. In this way you and I feel exactly the same about our work today.
If you feel unhappy with your work there's a reason and keep writing until it's right, but a writer must learn to live with doubt and uncertainty?
Here's my experience: the first draft will never be finished if something is insanely wrong that the writer doesn't realize, and the writer will never, ever be satisfied with their work.
See, with The Hakkan, there are shitloads wrong with the first draft. There are scenes, plots and characters that need expanding, there are scenes that need rearranging, and there are entire swaths of plot that never made it in the first draft to begin with. But I know all this. So I kept writing, and finished, and made notes on a hard copy when I was done.
With TTTWNSW, it wouldn't stay written, indeed couldn't even be completed, because the plot as I'd envisioned wasn't working. It wasn't going to work, it never would have, but it took six years for me to realize it, and in that six years I never finished a first draft. I didn't even finish half of a first draft. Currently, I have about 10,000 more words on the shiny new first draft than the original, and I have a completely new plot that's unfolding before me and it's working and yes, there will still be problems with it when I'm done, but they will be problems that can be fixed.
Will they ever be completely fixed to my satisfaction? Will I ever feel like I've said all I intended to say with this novel, that it's everything I wanted it to be? Probably not, because the reality will never be able to live up to the vision in my head. This is ever the issue of the artist.
So, to me, telling a writer to keep plowing through and keep rewriting until they feel it's right is extremely detrimental to the new writer, who will wonder why it never feels just exactly right. Sometimes, you just have to stop. Stop editing, stop rewriting, stop questioning yourself and let it go. Sometimes, yes, it will needs to be fixed, but sometimes the creator is far too close to the work to see the flaws, and that's when the opinions of other people make all the difference.
(Carey also says "Trust me-your own uncertain opinions are worth one hundred times more than the judgments of your friends. Your friends love you and are may be very smart. But they cannot imagine what you have not yet imagined. So don't show them stuff you fear may not be right." Obviously I do not agree with this. When you've done all you can do on your own with your ideas of what the story is and could be, that's when you need second and third opinion from people you trust. Hence why I'm trying to put together a First Readers group for my work. Which, by the way, I'm going to try to set up in the next few days.)
Basically, I very strongly disagree with the idea that a writer will ever be able to feel they've accomplished everything they set out to do exactly the way they meant to do it, and their novel is perfect. I think this entry by Peter Carey misleads new writers into thinking this is possible, which is a disservice to those writers.
Thoughts?