I have never before had writing advice at this standard, and level of detail, or anywhere near it. The only problem is, in a really gentle, kindly way it rams home every few days how clueless I've been with pretty much everything I've written to this point. Gah.
"As we’ve recently discussed, here’s one thing we writers really can get better at: precisely judging how good a scene or paragraph is, vs. the best we’ve done in the past."
As mentioned above, I've had to learn that I don't really have anything that deserves the description 'best'. One of the benefits of editing your own work off an e-reader, though, is that you can quickly switch to writing by true prose masters and kind of humiliate yourself into wanting to somehow bridge the gap in quality, even a tiny bit, between your own writing and the genuine 'best'.
Maybe George could write a post sometime about the upside of relentless humiliation.
I don't know if this is helpful but I have found it a relief to acknowledge that I know nothing as I begin a story and work through it, and that I embrace that I am not a master of the craft. As such it doesn't have to be good. Having no expectations, there's no reason to be disappointed. Having no goal everything I do is a success.
I know what you mean, Chris. For years I wrote with no thought of an audience at all -- weird meandering projects involving remixing and splicing together out of copyright fiction, that kind of thing -- and therefore no expectations about being good.
But the book I've been writing this past year doesn't really seem to make sense unless it finds some kind of audience. It's also likely to be fairly controversial, if it ever does find a readership, and I suppose that's meant I've become more perfectionist and therefore anxious about it, trying to anticipate every last weakness before they're identified by those I'm guessing will dislike it. Whether this is any more fun than my old private projects, I really amn't sure.
This is a bit circuitous but--I admire Jonathan Franzen--his books and also I appreciate him as a person, participating in the local Santa Cruz literary scene - e.g. he showed up at Community Writers, with his estimable partner Kathy Chetkovich, and they were both totally present and available for all the readings - and he read too, a sneak preview of a scene in Crossroads, not yet then published. Anyway. Decent bloke. Great writer. Recently I read an interview with Franzen about the new covers for his to-be-re-issued backlist, and he said this: "The message I always want a jacket to send is that the book inside is is fun to read, full of drama." So wow - I took that -- "FUN TO READ, FULL OF DRAMA" and elevated it to kind of a motto. I was a bit surprised at his comment - it's not exactly how I might characterize his stories, much as I enjoy them. I guess it depends how you define fun! But I love it, this motto. This fun approach. The buoyancy. I really don't write well when I'm depressed or excoriating myself. But - whatever floats your boat, even if it's a hook, line, and sinker! And of course my project is a light-weight one by Proustian or Tolstovian etc standards of course - it's a kid's novel. But I take it seriously too.
How to define fun... hmmm. Difficult. I find that when reading something that I'm truly enjoying, I'm smiling. Sometimes I notice this and other times I don't until my smile broadens. Same thing happens when in a great performance of music or theatre, provided I'm enjoying the content as well as the form. Movies, even very good t.v., to me, can be "fun" if I find myself smiling as I experience it (I don't mean just the laugh-out-loud stuff - I smiled through the recent Macbeth on Netflix, especially the scenes with the splendid Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth.)
Yeah! I recognize what you're saying about that smile! It's kind of a deep or complex feeling of appreciation, satisfaction with the, um, multivalent experience, even if there's a lot of - blood or suffering! Your Macbeth example w Frances McDormand fits that bill! And writers like Franzen too, or even more intense - David Foster Wallace. He's like a too-hot chili for me to enjoy - but I do appreciate his greatness. And, whether one can smile also depends on where one is at, of course. Some of those experiences are not fun at all, then. But can be worth the pain.
Maybe you might try, and find the joy, of not being so relentless in 'beating-up on yourself' Sean?
A word and a phrase that I've found resonate with me most times George drops them into a Newsletter are: 'fun' and 'goof around'.
My creative sinews seem, even as I write this, to be loosening towards writing some fresh short fiction . . . maybe there's even a working title, emerging from its hitherto hidden chrysalis . . . to set a story draft going . . . 'Chillax'?
But what if my idea of fun is relentless humiliation? ;-)
Honestly, though, Rob, I really do think a kind of strong embarrassment about my writing can be useful. If I write something truly awful (not an infrequent occurrence) and then later recognise it as such, that self-disappointment seems to burrow into the subconscious and result in writing that simply wouldn't have happened without that embarrassment. It's as though it acts as a weird mild form of creative ECT. Make sense?
The key of course is to never get so disappointed that you quit writing completely, and in this sense what I'm saying here is close enough to what George tells us. He says *welcome* the mild flaws you perceive in your writing, 'park' them, let them marinate, etc. I suppose I'm just saying, about myself at least, that the same approach can be taken with my/our very worst howlers.
Good to see you still posting here, man. Your wit is appreciated.
I can really see, more likely imagine I can see, that first line Sean:
'Today began much as yesterday. Normal for me I had breakfast, washed up, took a walk around the pond in the park and then spent three solid hours writing, as usual, something truly awful . . . '
You are the Story Horse Whisperer ;)
I have never before had writing advice at this standard, and level of detail, or anywhere near it. The only problem is, in a really gentle, kindly way it rams home every few days how clueless I've been with pretty much everything I've written to this point. Gah.
"As we’ve recently discussed, here’s one thing we writers really can get better at: precisely judging how good a scene or paragraph is, vs. the best we’ve done in the past."
As mentioned above, I've had to learn that I don't really have anything that deserves the description 'best'. One of the benefits of editing your own work off an e-reader, though, is that you can quickly switch to writing by true prose masters and kind of humiliate yourself into wanting to somehow bridge the gap in quality, even a tiny bit, between your own writing and the genuine 'best'.
Maybe George could write a post sometime about the upside of relentless humiliation.
I don't know if this is helpful but I have found it a relief to acknowledge that I know nothing as I begin a story and work through it, and that I embrace that I am not a master of the craft. As such it doesn't have to be good. Having no expectations, there's no reason to be disappointed. Having no goal everything I do is a success.
I know what you mean, Chris. For years I wrote with no thought of an audience at all -- weird meandering projects involving remixing and splicing together out of copyright fiction, that kind of thing -- and therefore no expectations about being good.
But the book I've been writing this past year doesn't really seem to make sense unless it finds some kind of audience. It's also likely to be fairly controversial, if it ever does find a readership, and I suppose that's meant I've become more perfectionist and therefore anxious about it, trying to anticipate every last weakness before they're identified by those I'm guessing will dislike it. Whether this is any more fun than my old private projects, I really amn't sure.
This is a bit circuitous but--I admire Jonathan Franzen--his books and also I appreciate him as a person, participating in the local Santa Cruz literary scene - e.g. he showed up at Community Writers, with his estimable partner Kathy Chetkovich, and they were both totally present and available for all the readings - and he read too, a sneak preview of a scene in Crossroads, not yet then published. Anyway. Decent bloke. Great writer. Recently I read an interview with Franzen about the new covers for his to-be-re-issued backlist, and he said this: "The message I always want a jacket to send is that the book inside is is fun to read, full of drama." So wow - I took that -- "FUN TO READ, FULL OF DRAMA" and elevated it to kind of a motto. I was a bit surprised at his comment - it's not exactly how I might characterize his stories, much as I enjoy them. I guess it depends how you define fun! But I love it, this motto. This fun approach. The buoyancy. I really don't write well when I'm depressed or excoriating myself. But - whatever floats your boat, even if it's a hook, line, and sinker! And of course my project is a light-weight one by Proustian or Tolstovian etc standards of course - it's a kid's novel. But I take it seriously too.
How to define fun... hmmm. Difficult. I find that when reading something that I'm truly enjoying, I'm smiling. Sometimes I notice this and other times I don't until my smile broadens. Same thing happens when in a great performance of music or theatre, provided I'm enjoying the content as well as the form. Movies, even very good t.v., to me, can be "fun" if I find myself smiling as I experience it (I don't mean just the laugh-out-loud stuff - I smiled through the recent Macbeth on Netflix, especially the scenes with the splendid Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth.)
Yeah! I recognize what you're saying about that smile! It's kind of a deep or complex feeling of appreciation, satisfaction with the, um, multivalent experience, even if there's a lot of - blood or suffering! Your Macbeth example w Frances McDormand fits that bill! And writers like Franzen too, or even more intense - David Foster Wallace. He's like a too-hot chili for me to enjoy - but I do appreciate his greatness. And, whether one can smile also depends on where one is at, of course. Some of those experiences are not fun at all, then. But can be worth the pain.
Maybe you might try, and find the joy, of not being so relentless in 'beating-up on yourself' Sean?
A word and a phrase that I've found resonate with me most times George drops them into a Newsletter are: 'fun' and 'goof around'.
My creative sinews seem, even as I write this, to be loosening towards writing some fresh short fiction . . . maybe there's even a working title, emerging from its hitherto hidden chrysalis . . . to set a story draft going . . . 'Chillax'?
But what if my idea of fun is relentless humiliation? ;-)
Honestly, though, Rob, I really do think a kind of strong embarrassment about my writing can be useful. If I write something truly awful (not an infrequent occurrence) and then later recognise it as such, that self-disappointment seems to burrow into the subconscious and result in writing that simply wouldn't have happened without that embarrassment. It's as though it acts as a weird mild form of creative ECT. Make sense?
The key of course is to never get so disappointed that you quit writing completely, and in this sense what I'm saying here is close enough to what George tells us. He says *welcome* the mild flaws you perceive in your writing, 'park' them, let them marinate, etc. I suppose I'm just saying, about myself at least, that the same approach can be taken with my/our very worst howlers.
Good to see you still posting here, man. Your wit is appreciated.
I can really see, more likely imagine I can see, that first line Sean:
'Today began much as yesterday. Normal for me I had breakfast, washed up, took a walk around the pond in the park and then spent three solid hours writing, as usual, something truly awful . . . '
Then 3000 pages later the Proustian ending informs the reader that they've just read the product of all those days of awfulness.
Form an orderly queue, agents and editors.
Hmmmm...All the Pretty Horses^^^^^^^^