How's that for a post title for the first time I'm blogging in oh nigh unto forever.
Yes, I've been busy. Super busy. But then again who isn't?
Yes, I'm juggling multiple chainsaws. But then again who isn't?*
The truth is, I've let my voice get stolen by all the "things" going on. The old paying the bills, trying to get the training to move to a career I will love, spending time with the important people in my life, make sure I stay current on all my favorite tv shows thing. And all of those things are important. And all of them need to get done (okay, so the tv thing doesn't need to get done.... but that's another post altogether).
And little by little in the last two years or so I've just let all these things eat away at this part of me that I didn't even think I would really miss. This little thing called writing. I've been writing papers and essay prompts and exams and e-mails and even managed to post over at our Booksellers Without Borders NY blog.
But it really isn't enough and I had NO idea it wouldn't be enough until this past week.
Last year I wrote a NaNoWriMo rough draft. And I was obsessed with the story. I fell in love with the story and the premise and the characters and I had absolutely no idea where on earth it was going. So I shelved it.
And then I decided that I couldn't write it until I had worked out the plot so I read Save the Cat which blew my mind and I sketched out a beat sheet and I did all this great worldbuilding in my head and I didn't write a single word.
I kept making excuses and it kept haunting me.
And this year I had this "great idea" for NaNoWriMo and I couldn't write anything. I think I bashed out about 2,000 words which was actually just rewriting the first scene about six times.
So I threw in the towel and said I'm just too busy with grad school. I'll get around to writing more one of these days.
Then last week I happened to be online when Miss Snark's First Victim put up the submission details for the Talkin' Heads critique. I was in the middle of a homework assignment and I felt absolutely compelled to drop everything and enter something.
I opened my WIP document and almost almost closed it up and went back to doing what I was "supposed" to be doing. But I couldn't. I couldn't do it. So I dug around and I found a passage and I tweaked and trimmed and revised to get it to fit the word limit and I entered it and I got in.
And then I went back to my homework.
And then Monday I almost forgot about it, until I got the e-mail and I started doing some critiquing - the whole give-and-take if you entered you needed to comment and it was fun and I skipped around and read a lot and commented some and I was absolutely terrified to see what people had said about mine.
But you know what? People liked it. The phrases and dialogue that I loved they loved too. And the turn of phrase that gave me chills gave someone else chills too.
And they offered constructive criticism that made me roll my eyes at my own ridiculousness because of course they were right about this thing I always forget to do.
And I opened up the document and I wrote the first scene and for the first time in over a year I felt completely alive.
And the next night I wrote the next scene.
And the next night I wrote the first scene from the other character's perspective.
Yes because I felt validated that this is something I can do, that this is something I am good at.
But mostly because I HAD to write. I HAVE to get Evva's and Devvon's story on paper (metaphorically speaking of course).
I have always been one of those people that liked to write, but wasn't really driven. If I didn't write for a month or so it didn't bother me. But I don't think I can ignore it anymore. Maybe I'll only write 100 words a day. Maybe it will take me 5 years to finish this flooding** book. But it doesn't matter. What matters is I have to write it.
And somehow, I managed to get all those other things in too. And turn my homework in on time. So there.
*Actually, if you are really juggling actual chainsaws I think I'd like to see that. Or not.
**btw this is Devvon invading my brain
Showing posts with label why write?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label why write?. Show all posts
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Why Write? E. L. Doctorow has the answer!
Sometimes I am so amazed at the opportunities that fall into my lap. Our school has authors in to do readings and last night we were blessed to have E. L. Doctorow come. I have class on Wednesday nights, but our professor arranged things so that our class could go. It was so great!
Here's a really horrid cell phone picture of him on stage:
He read a new short story called "Assimilation" that hasn't even been published yet. It's going to be in the New Yorker in a couple of weeks. It was really enjoyable to actually hear the author present his own work and the story was quite interesting (that sounds less enthusiastic than I intended...) The story was great!
The reading was fantastic, but the highlight of the evening for me was the Question and Answer time at the end. He was so funny and gave some fantastic advice that I just knew I had to share with all of you. I was just listening and enjoying until someone asked the question:
Why do you write?
Everyone kind of chuckled and Doctorow waited until the laughter had subsided. Then he leaned in to the microphone and said,
Applause and laughter. What a great answer!
At that point I thought, this could make a great blog post! So I whipped out my notebook and started furiously taking notes. I think my friend thought I was crazy. It looked like I was preparing for a test. But I got some great quotes for you guys! So here's some of the Q&A:
Q: What authors influenced you?
A: Doctorow's father was a big Poe fan, so he grew up with him. "Poe is our greatest bad writer." When Doctorow started writing in middle school he wrote a lot of things that were heavily influenced by Poe. "'The cellar was dark and dank.' That was one of my great first lines." He read books because the titles interested him. He saw a book called The Idiot and thought, that's a great title. So he picked it up and read it - so he'd be reading Dostoevsky one day and a comic book the next. Some of the other authors that influenced him were London, Twain, Melville, Whitman, Dickens, Hardy, Chekhov.
Then he started writing. He said when a child stops asking "what happens next" when they're reading and starts asking "how is the author doing it," that's usually when you can see they're getting interested in writing. His writing is "just a response to good writing."
Q: How much research do you do before you let your imagination take over?
A: "Just enough" He went on to say that sometimes you can kill a story by doing too much research, but at the same time you have to do enough to be accurate. When he was writing Ragtime he needed to know if two of the characters could take a trolley from where they were to Connecticut. He didn't know where to find the information and he was wandering around the mid-Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library, not really sure where to go or what to do and he picked up a book that had been left on a table and it was a history of trolley cars.
Q: Do you use an outline when you write?
A: No. Many people do, but he never has. "You want to be in a position where you can find out what you're writing... It begins to tell you what will happen or what needs to be done."
Q: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
A: There is a "continuum between reading and writing. Just read continually."
"Try to write every day." He talked about just sitting there and letting the cursor blink at you on the screen. "Just say anything that comes to mind." Eventually you'll come across "something that interests you. Something that lights up the page for you. That could be the beginning of a story."
Q: What was the inspiration for Ragtime?
A: "That book came out of sheer desperation."
He had finished a book and was completely exhausted and unable to write anything for months. He sat down in his office. He likes his desk to face the wall, not the window. And as he sat there staring at the wall he started to write about it. He talked about the wall and described it and then moved from there to the house that the wall was a part of and just kept moving out from there.
After the Q&A time, they had books for sale in the back and he stayed around to sign books. Here's a slightly better picture of him as I waited in line:
So guess what I got:
Yeah! Another autographed book to add to my collection!
So, Why Write?
Here's a really horrid cell phone picture of him on stage:
He read a new short story called "Assimilation" that hasn't even been published yet. It's going to be in the New Yorker in a couple of weeks. It was really enjoyable to actually hear the author present his own work and the story was quite interesting (that sounds less enthusiastic than I intended...) The story was great!
The reading was fantastic, but the highlight of the evening for me was the Question and Answer time at the end. He was so funny and gave some fantastic advice that I just knew I had to share with all of you. I was just listening and enjoying until someone asked the question:
Why do you write?
Everyone kind of chuckled and Doctorow waited until the laughter had subsided. Then he leaned in to the microphone and said,
"Why not?"
Applause and laughter. What a great answer!
At that point I thought, this could make a great blog post! So I whipped out my notebook and started furiously taking notes. I think my friend thought I was crazy. It looked like I was preparing for a test. But I got some great quotes for you guys! So here's some of the Q&A:
Q: What authors influenced you?
A: Doctorow's father was a big Poe fan, so he grew up with him. "Poe is our greatest bad writer." When Doctorow started writing in middle school he wrote a lot of things that were heavily influenced by Poe. "'The cellar was dark and dank.' That was one of my great first lines." He read books because the titles interested him. He saw a book called The Idiot and thought, that's a great title. So he picked it up and read it - so he'd be reading Dostoevsky one day and a comic book the next. Some of the other authors that influenced him were London, Twain, Melville, Whitman, Dickens, Hardy, Chekhov.
Then he started writing. He said when a child stops asking "what happens next" when they're reading and starts asking "how is the author doing it," that's usually when you can see they're getting interested in writing. His writing is "just a response to good writing."
"If you want to write novels
you have to read them."
Q: How much research do you do before you let your imagination take over?
A: "Just enough" He went on to say that sometimes you can kill a story by doing too much research, but at the same time you have to do enough to be accurate. When he was writing Ragtime he needed to know if two of the characters could take a trolley from where they were to Connecticut. He didn't know where to find the information and he was wandering around the mid-Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library, not really sure where to go or what to do and he picked up a book that had been left on a table and it was a history of trolley cars.
Q: Do you use an outline when you write?
A: No. Many people do, but he never has. "You want to be in a position where you can find out what you're writing... It begins to tell you what will happen or what needs to be done."
"It's not an entirely rational process
and I don't know if I would recommend it to anyone."
Q: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
A: There is a "continuum between reading and writing. Just read continually."
"Try to write every day." He talked about just sitting there and letting the cursor blink at you on the screen. "Just say anything that comes to mind." Eventually you'll come across "something that interests you. Something that lights up the page for you. That could be the beginning of a story."
"Constancy is the key."
Q: What was the inspiration for Ragtime?
A: "That book came out of sheer desperation."
He had finished a book and was completely exhausted and unable to write anything for months. He sat down in his office. He likes his desk to face the wall, not the window. And as he sat there staring at the wall he started to write about it. He talked about the wall and described it and then moved from there to the house that the wall was a part of and just kept moving out from there.
After the Q&A time, they had books for sale in the back and he stayed around to sign books. Here's a slightly better picture of him as I waited in line:
Yeah! Another autographed book to add to my collection!
So, Why Write?
WHY NOT?!
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