Expectations and why I write

by Phil

I was doing a little retrospective, looking through my notes of stories I want to write, and stories that I’ve already written. And I started to notice a prevailing theme. I write a lot about the struggle to live up to expectations – the expectations of others and the self. This has always been a tough struggle for me, so it shouldn’t surprise me.

This is my third attempt at “being a writer”. My first two attempts died on the vine, largely because I thought that I should be doing something else.  I thought that I was meant for something different or greater. I think now that these expectations were a smoke screen for fear: fear of mediocrity.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m just as afraid of failure as the next guy.  But being mediocre? That’s so much worse. It’s one thing to try something and fail. It’s another to try something, fall in love with it, and never ever be any good at it.

Struggling with expectations is a big theme for a lot of my characters. The young man from the prestigious family (complete with requisite library wing named after them) who sabotages his efforts to get into their alma mater. Or the discontented graduate student who finds that he’s named in a prophecy.

Even when my story doesn’t include this theme, my protagonists have almost certainly struggled with it. In my detective novel, my protagonist was faced with this decision (follow your heart or everyone’s expectations) earlier in life, and it defines a lot of who he is. Thinking back on it, he is living my greatest fear. He’s following his heart, such as it is, and everything isn’t turning out roses for him. His life is hard and uncomfortable, but it’s his.

And maybe, in my own way, that’s what I’m doing. I love telling stories. So, I tell stories. And maybe none of them will ever amount to anything. That’s the risk I take in asking “Who am I?” instead of “Who should I be?”.

Deadlines and sheer panic

by Phil

My novel revision is going slowly. I’ve been working on it for weeks and nothing of significance has been resolved. The reasons for this are many, but they boil down to this: as long as I don’t finish this revision, I’m not going to let anyone read it. Then I don’t have to take the risk that people aren’t going to like it, that it’s horrible, and that I’m a horrible person for writing it.

This revision is also getting in the way of some other projects I’d like to tackle. I have at least three really interesting writing prospects rolling around in my brain right now, and I really want to start one soon. But the unfinished novel leaves me feeling guilty. How can I move on to something new, when this one isn’t even done? Not that it will ever be perfect done, but done enough for a second opinion at least.

I have decided to deal with this by putting a cliff to my back, and committing to no-compromise deadlines. At the end of this, I’m done with my novel revisions, and will be letting my wonderful wife read it. Here’s what I’m committing to:

Phase 2, major plot holes resolved, scenes deleted and added as needed – March 18 (that’s just over two weeks, ack!)
Phase 3, grammar, spelling, spit and polish revision completed phase 3 – April 1
Phase 4, novel revision complete – April 15

Right now, this seems like a lot of time, almost too much time. But I suspect that I will be in giant-anxiety-panic mode very shortly. I suspect this is the mode that will get my novel revision done in a timely manner.

Writing/revision resources

by Phil

I’m in the process of revising the novel that I wrote over a year ago. This is my first novel, so I’m not quite prepared for anyone else to read it yet. I’m doing a thorough revision before that happens.

I’m working on a four step revision:

1. Read through the novel carefully and note any significant plot issues. Is there a plot hole? Did something happen that didn’t make a lot of sense? Are one of the characters acting inconsistently? Also note pacing for all of the different sub-stories. Is there a character that needs significant change? Is the environment and tone consistent?
2. For every major issue brought up in step 1, resolve it. Rearrange scenes. Delete unnecessary scenes. Add needed scenes. Then rewrite scenes to fix issues and to transition well after all the rearranging, deleting, and adding.
3. Print out the novel and re-read it take care of the smaller changes. No major changes unless something was missed in #1 and #2. This is just a time to tidy things up and add some polish.
4. Reread a final time to make sure that no giant issues were added in steps #1-3.

I’ve completed step 1. I’m working on step 2. Following are a list of resources that I’ve found handy in these first couple of steps…

First off, a nice how-to blog post from writer Anne Lyle:

http://www.annelyle.com/blog/writing/revising-your-novel-in-10-easy-steps/

I’m not following all of these steps, but I’m following the spirit of the list. We’ll see how it works out.

Next, I’m horrible at names. When writing, I will actually freeze up and use Scrivener annotations to add a temporary but *absolutely must change* name for a person, place, or thing. With that in mind, name generators and lists of names are great.

I found this post by Hugo award winning author, Mary Robinette Kowal, with her list of sources: http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/place-name-generators/

And one I found on my own that has become essential in picking authentic names:

http://www.20000-names.com/