As I write this, the surf is crashing against the beach just a hundred feet or so away. Behind me, the rhythm of a live band is beating out another dance number, and fellow ThinkGeekers are making a retreat for more drinks and a little dancing before crashing. Alas, my bride isn’t here to enjoy the calm, having already succumbed to sleep.
Writing is on my mind. In particular, why its sometimes the easiest thing in the world to do, and others it feels like such a pain. Not a chore; I recognize that there are good days and bad, and that writing won’t always be something that just jumps from mind to words to screen. No, I mean a pain, as in it hurts to produce the words, and what comes out is stilted, languished, and, frankly, boring. I know you shouldn’t critique your own work, but if it can’t pass muster with your internal critic at inception, how can it survive to be redrafted and submitted?
More, this seems to be a pain I feel with novel length fiction in particular. Short stories are so easy to write, even when on second evaluation they fail to pass the critic. Granted, a short story doesn’t need a lot of build up – concept to story is usually a pretty fluid process, taking only a few hours to generate a 3-5 thousand word story in its first draft form.
This is why I know I’m having trouble with the novel. I’ve been working on Rust for weeks now and its only at 4 thousand words. And its hurt to get it here, physically pained me. I don’t even think its going well yet, and its barely out of the start up phase. Previous attempts at science fiction novels have met similar fates, although at least they managed to get further along in word counts. In fact, the only novel that’s felt like it had the fluidity and ease that I feel writing short stories is when I was working on The Dreaming Pools, which was at 76 thousand (or so) words before I let it falter.
Why did I do that? Sure, it wasn’t even close to being completed, at least not if I was going to try and keep it all in one novel, but at that high a word count, doesn’t it deserve a little more loving?
There’s definitely a lesson to be had here. And I think I know what it is.
Beach Party? Sponsored by work? Fork you!
Relax – we were outside the continental US at the time, so its less offensive that way. ‘Sides, tropical locations are notorious for having beaches.
Well, enjoy. You’ve earned some R&R.