The World is NoisyPosted by dhoffman on January 4th, 2010
First off, before we get into the post proper, here’s this: Happy 2010! A new year, a brighter future. Here’s hoping you and yours are healthy, happy and doing something, sometimes, that you love.
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Now then . . .
One of the things I really enjoy reading — don’t ask me why — is an author’s introduction to their own book. Afterwords are great, too.
It doesn’t even matter if the introduction / afterword has anything to do with the book itself. I remember reading one introduction where 95% was the author talking about how silly writing an introduction to your own book was. Then a quick sentence along the lines of, “here’s the book, hope all the words are spelled right, thanks to my wife and kids.”
One thing I always think, reading these things (I’m just going to say, “introductions” from here on in) is this; wow, these guys don’t seem to remember what it was like squeezing that lone hour out of the day for writing.
Here, I will explain.
Most writers, well, most of the writers I seem to read, have been writing professionally for a long time. Inevitably, whenever one of them decides to talk about the process, I wind up feeling like I’m — pardon the language — a goddamned slacker.
I think I remember Stephen King writing recently — this would be in an article discussing his latest book, the 1,000+ word opus, Under The Dome — that he writes for six to eight hours a day, gets 2,000 words a day, and sees no reason an author shouldn’t put out like that.
Um . . . hey there, Steve-o. I sometimes manage 2,000 words in a day — sometimes more, sometimes a lot more — but I can’t remember the last time I was able to steal 8 hours to sit down and write. Hell, I don’t think I could — right now — actually write for 8 hours at a stretch.
I can remember nights in college where I sat crouched in front of the CRT and wrote entire stories, multiple stories, even, in a single sitting. My life was simpler then. First off, I was either single, or dating someone who didn’t, you know, live with me. I had schoolwork — easily manageable, easily postponeable. I volunteered at a radio station and a newspaper (the radio station loved me because I typed faster than anyone they’d ever seen and was great at punching up stuff off the AP wire). I went out with my friends.
But when I sat down to write my time was my own. If it was ten o’clock at night, I could literally write all night and all morning until I had to move out for class. Sleep? Crap, when I was in college, I lived on 2-3 hours of sleep a night. I thrived on no sleep (I could also drink like a fish and wake up without a hangover — ah, youth).
Now? I’ve got a wife. A dog. A cat. A job. More email coming in than I know what to do with. Projects that might be going on at ten o’clock at night, midnight, even later. A cell phone that doesn’t care if I’m sleeping. An iPhone that seems genuinely interested in disturbing my state of mind.
Now, I can shut the door, lock the door. Turn all that crap off. I can. I really shouldn’t (a work email just came in as I typed that sentence. It’s like the universe watches me and laughs) but I can. Most of the time, if I turn all the crap off, nothing bad happens. Every now and again, though, something does. A job screwed up. An “important” call missed (important to them, but not to me, not like it matters).
The point is, the notion of vanishing for six hours is, right now, today, almost completely fantasy. Some days, trying to write, the cat walking back and forth across my keyboard, iPhone buzzing, Jessy coming in to tell me to open the dishwasher before I go to sleep (she’s not wrong, it’s just bad timing) I imagine what it would be like to do this full-time. To have a place to vanish off to and write.
And, yes, I’m a moron. I’d likely being Jack the Dog. I’d probably have internet there, or a phone “in case of emergency”. But I’d be able to vanish and crank for six to eight hours at a stretch.
Here’s another thing: Neil Gaiman. That guy blogs and tweets and seems busy as all get-out. Only rarely, however, do you see him writing about, well, writing. And it makes me think, when does Neil write? And I realize, he probably does just sneak off for hours on end. Also, before he was a novelist (or, before he was doing that as a job) he was a reporter. Imagine that: once upon a time, maybe his editor loved to give Neil Gaiman the AP wire to “punch up” because he typed really fast.
So, what, then?
Well, I get an hour here, an hour there. And sometimes it takes me an hour — or more — to get into my own head. I’ve spent entire evenings writing and rewriting the same scene, only to toss it the next evening. Now, that “wasted” writing is not a waste at all. It’s vitally important and it helps me break away from the direction I’m wrongly going in to do something right.
Hurts, though. Just as it hurts to lose a night to sleep or plans or whatever. To be interrupted just at the crucial moment when I’m finally getting somewhere.
I still like reading those introductions, though. Like to see the author’s “real” voice (even if it’s only a manufactured “real” voice). Like to peek at the gent behind the curtain for a moment, see who’s pulling the levers and throwing the switches.
As an example: I haven’t blogged much the last month or so. Hasn’t been much to talk about. Well, there has — holidays, new years, lots of games and lots of writing — but it hasn’t felt, well, bloggy enough. But as I’ve been plugging along (if I do my job well tonight, I’ll finish the bits of Animals that needed the most rewriting and will — possibly — be moving along rather more quickly) on one story, I’ve been dying inside wanting to work on the other story. Painted Ocean. I need to do more before I can start on that and one of the things I need to do is finish Beautiful Handcrafted Animals. The Second Draft, that is. It’s the task before me and I will not shirk, no matter how I may want to.
Ocean is an almost completely different story from Animals and it may seem odd to think of this as a sort of precursor to that story. It is, though. Not in a story like way, but for me, personally. I need to finish this, need to have this book sitting in a neat pile, before I can really commit to that one.
It may be that only a handful of people ever actually read Animals. Strictly speaking, I don’t think the book has much market potential. The story is small in scale and may not be really relateable to people who aren’t, you know, me. I’m worried about spelling out too much and so I’m worried I may not be spelling out enough. Past all that, it may be that this little story of Galen Winters and his friends and family may not be all that much for folks to read.
A while back I considered the idea of graduate school. “For what?” was the issue and I decided that, rather than dump a bunch of money in a degree I didn’t want (a MFA felt like a waste and a MBA felt like paying someone to slam my hand in a car door — or maybe my head) I’d concentrate on writing this book. “It’ll be my grad school,” I thought, with no real idea how solid that idea was.
Writing Beautiful Handcrafted Animals has been my graduate school. I’ve learned more from writing this story (and rewriting it) than I think I would have from any class. I’ve attended creative writing seminars and I’ve attended workshops. Imagine a room with twelve “writers” where eleven have handed in nearly-identical stories about their first love, falling in love, etc., and you’ve handed in an eight-page vampire scene. Or a story about a family that practices ritual cannibalism living in suburban Chicago. Yeah, they loved me to bits there.
So, here I go. Stealing an hour (or so) to see what I get. The steady goal of the evening is usually, “whatever I can get”. Sometimes its a sentence. Sometimes its a changed word in just the right spot. And sometimes its words, hundreds or even thousands of words, pouring out of my head like there’s a tap knocked into the side of my temple.
Six to eight hours a day? I wish. I’ll take my hour (for now) and whatever I can get.