Be careless, reckless! Be a lion! Be a pirate! When you write.
This is the title of a favorite chapter in Brenda Ueland’s classic book If You Want To Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit.1
God knows, we are rarely taught to be Pirates. In fact, most of our education is hell bent on drowning the shit out of our fledgling inner rogues.
We’re taught to use commas like this, capitalize that, show that run-on sentence who’s boss. In art, our trees must only be green, our sky blue, and any color inside the lines.
What this education does, if not tempered by equal study in Piratology, is teach us not to trust our own vision. In time, we can even forget we ever had one.
It’s been almost one year since I broke through my amnesia and boarded the good ship Fiction Writing and let me tell you, it has not been smooth sailing.
I’ve spent the past year trying to rewrite the “novel” I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year. I’m finally at the point where I’m ready to say it just ain’t workin’.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t regret this year. I’ve learned a LOT, about both writing and myself. I appreciate certain writers like never before. (Of course, I envy them now more, too, but I don’t hold it against them.)
And I still think my story idea is good. Original, even (I think – not having read every fantasy novel in the world, I can’t be sure). Problem is, I’m still too much sailor, not enough Pirate.
My story – and my characters, whom I love so much – deserve a Pirate: a swashbuckling, take-no-prisoners, leonine plunderer of the ocean of imagination I know is inside me.
I’ll keep writing one way or another, on ye olde Rib for certain, and hopefully other creative projects. Then after a while, I will go back to my story and write like the careless and reckless Pirate I was born to be.
- A book that Carl Sandburg called “The best book on writing ever written,” don’tcha know. [↩]
Novels are like waffles. You throw out the first one. But you can start on the “sequel.” If you like the premise, and think it works, go on from where you left off. Create a new book. You now have the backstory, the history of the characters, which you don’t need to spell out in this next book, but which add depth.
Writing may be an art, but it is primarily a craft, so it improves with practice. Skill is acquired. Nobody hits the ground running.
You’ve done really well for your first voyage.
Yeah, what Jo says. Maybe, too, you are not as bad off as you think. I sorta liked Stephen King when he said..”I write salami. I try to write the very best salami I can, but at the end of the day, it’s JUST a salami, for pete’s sake.” Apologies to Mr. King if I got my paraphrase off, but that’s how I recall it. Anyway, that idea kinda lets you off the hook so you can just have some fun and see what happens. I know I’m a non-writer and have no clue, but just thought I’d share anyway.
I third Jo’s assessment. Hell, how many people never even GET to the place you are? They give up. At least you have the self-awareness to take a step back and realize you can return to this story whenever you feel ready.
Kudos to you, my dear.
How do you KNOW it isn’t working?
You know about Stephanie Meyer, right? The Mormon who wrote TWILIGHT, the writer who’s catching all kinds of flack from those who suspect she deliberately leaked a bad copy of the companion book to TWILIGHT because the 4th (and last) book is (and rightly so) controversial?
She wrote the first book (the smash-hit book) when she was a teenager–and claimed she didn’t know diddly about Buffy, Angel or Anita Blake.
A new idea, a fresh take on a similar spin, is what agents/houses are looking for.
So I ask you: How do you KNOW it’s not working?
But – but – I – well – [Uppity sputtering]
OK. First: Let me say thank you, you righteous Ribs, for your encouraging words. And second: They’ve made me think a lot about this (dammit. I thought I was done). And third: I don’t yet have a cogent response to them. But when I do I will make a post out of it.
For now, initial thoughts:
Jo: “Skill.” Ah, there’s the rub. Much more on this in my post (she said, quaking in her boots).
Yo: “Salami.” I remember reading that quote from King once and cheering. We can’t all be Tolstoy and that’s actually really and truly OK. It’s about writing the best salami we can write. (“Writing salami” just sounds so…Stephen King…)
Lach: “Self-awareness.” The double-edged sword! But I’d rather have it than not.
U: “Know.” Your word is the most emotional. How do I know… maybe by the agonizing pain in my heart when I read my manuscript?
But seriously, I shall ponder this and respond this weekend.
Sometimes knowing defies words. It’s a feeling, not a cogent string of words one can write or say or otherwise express. It just is.
Perhaps it’s time for an uninvolved, unbiased third reader. It’s extremely difficult to judge one’s own work. It comes from the head, heart, and gut, and is a part of us. We are too entangled with it to see it clearly. Like editing one’s own work – can’t be done. You see what you meant and not what you said.
Before getting out the lighter fluid and matches, find someone to give it a fresh reading – someone who is not invested in you or your success (or failure.)