writing about writing blah blah
lately, i've been trying to be a little more systematic with how i approach my writing.
not in terms of writing schedule, or wordcount goals (though there is a bit of that), more like-i'm keeping a little log of the problems/decisions/tradeoffs i encounter while i'm writing any particular piece, and i'm trying to figure out how i make those decisions, if i can make those decisions faster, etc.
because-look, i'm a slow writer in general, but if i'm in a groove, 1k/day isn't too hard to hit. if i could hit that groove consistently i'd be golden. the problem i often run into, though, is that i'll have a piece mostly done, but then i'll spend like, damn near a week rewriting the same transition over and over because nothing's quite working, and i'll try fiddling with every damn lever available to me (do i need to switch PoV here? does this one scene need to be three scenes instead, and if so, how does that change the overall flow of my narrative? can i word this in a way with the desired conciseness that's still clear? etc), and so on. and i usually find a solution eventually (or, give up, throw hands, and push out something suboptimal), but then two months later i've forgotten all the shit i tried to make that work, and how i decided on the thing i did, because my brain's a damn sieve. and i'm hoping if i record that process, i'll be able to internalize it better, and converge on a solution faster, when i run into similar problems in the future?
in a way this feels not-unlike when i was learning mathematical theory-i was playing catch-up in college on that front, trying to figure out how proofs even worked, and of course the kids who'd been doing this stuff for years couldn't really explain their process. "idk, i looked at it and it felt like an inductive approach would work, so i just did that" i managed to catch up to them only when i started thinking of math in terms of tools-you've got a bunch of math widgets and theorems and axioms lying around, can you use any of them in some fun way for this problem?-and i'd just grind through trying shit out until something stuck. and that works! eventually you internalize some things!
so, hopefully being explicit about my thought process will help me figure out why sometimes the words come fast and why sometimes it's a slog. we'll see!
* * *
at some point i got annoyed at Writing Advice Books, because so many of them focus on more basic elements of craft, or writing prompts for "inspiration", or religious adherence to some Fixed Way Stories Much Work-but maybe there's some book that addresses this sort of thing? stuff like "if you're having an issue introducing a character [x] given [y] complicated situation, here's some stuff to try that you may not have thought about?"
maybe what would be helpful is something like that "writing as a craft q&a" that Ursula Le Guin ran online for a while. (maybe i should pick y'all's brains more...!*)
* i've also toyed with the idea of posting some of the stuff from my "writing decisions" log, but i somewhat suspect that'd only be of academic interest and/or only of interest to me, so
or maybe i'll discover something entirely new about "when the words come easily" vs "when words are horrible"; i'm reminded of this old bit from Virginia Woolf:
"Style is a very simple matter: it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can’t use the wrong words. But on the other hand here am I sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can’t dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm. Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it; and in writing (such is my present belief) one has to recapture this, and set this working (which has nothing apparently to do with words) and then, as it breaks and tumbles in the mind, it makes words to fit it. But no doubt I shall think differently next year."
anyway yeah that's what's up in writingtown lately, thoughts welcome
not in terms of writing schedule, or wordcount goals (though there is a bit of that), more like-i'm keeping a little log of the problems/decisions/tradeoffs i encounter while i'm writing any particular piece, and i'm trying to figure out how i make those decisions, if i can make those decisions faster, etc.
because-look, i'm a slow writer in general, but if i'm in a groove, 1k/day isn't too hard to hit. if i could hit that groove consistently i'd be golden. the problem i often run into, though, is that i'll have a piece mostly done, but then i'll spend like, damn near a week rewriting the same transition over and over because nothing's quite working, and i'll try fiddling with every damn lever available to me (do i need to switch PoV here? does this one scene need to be three scenes instead, and if so, how does that change the overall flow of my narrative? can i word this in a way with the desired conciseness that's still clear? etc), and so on. and i usually find a solution eventually (or, give up, throw hands, and push out something suboptimal), but then two months later i've forgotten all the shit i tried to make that work, and how i decided on the thing i did, because my brain's a damn sieve. and i'm hoping if i record that process, i'll be able to internalize it better, and converge on a solution faster, when i run into similar problems in the future?
in a way this feels not-unlike when i was learning mathematical theory-i was playing catch-up in college on that front, trying to figure out how proofs even worked, and of course the kids who'd been doing this stuff for years couldn't really explain their process. "idk, i looked at it and it felt like an inductive approach would work, so i just did that" i managed to catch up to them only when i started thinking of math in terms of tools-you've got a bunch of math widgets and theorems and axioms lying around, can you use any of them in some fun way for this problem?-and i'd just grind through trying shit out until something stuck. and that works! eventually you internalize some things!
so, hopefully being explicit about my thought process will help me figure out why sometimes the words come fast and why sometimes it's a slog. we'll see!
* * *
at some point i got annoyed at Writing Advice Books, because so many of them focus on more basic elements of craft, or writing prompts for "inspiration", or religious adherence to some Fixed Way Stories Much Work-but maybe there's some book that addresses this sort of thing? stuff like "if you're having an issue introducing a character [x] given [y] complicated situation, here's some stuff to try that you may not have thought about?"
maybe what would be helpful is something like that "writing as a craft q&a" that Ursula Le Guin ran online for a while. (maybe i should pick y'all's brains more...!*)
* i've also toyed with the idea of posting some of the stuff from my "writing decisions" log, but i somewhat suspect that'd only be of academic interest and/or only of interest to me, so
or maybe i'll discover something entirely new about "when the words come easily" vs "when words are horrible"; i'm reminded of this old bit from Virginia Woolf:
"Style is a very simple matter: it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can’t use the wrong words. But on the other hand here am I sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can’t dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm. Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it; and in writing (such is my present belief) one has to recapture this, and set this working (which has nothing apparently to do with words) and then, as it breaks and tumbles in the mind, it makes words to fit it. But no doubt I shall think differently next year."
anyway yeah that's what's up in writingtown lately, thoughts welcome