Beginnings...

I find beginnings difficult.  This is a truth about my writing and really, about life, for me.  Maybe it's that way for most people.

On one hand, you have the blank canvas - it's exhilarating and full of potential.  On the other hand, you know that all it takes is the wrong start to ruin it.  That's true for a story, a relationship-to-be, or even a day.  We all know the phrase "got up on the wrong side of the bed," after all.

My wife-to-be went over the beginnings of my current work.  She spent more time on this time, giving it a thorough examination as opposed to a read through.  She marked it up digitally, using the comments feature of Word and some spiffy highlighting.  She provided some good feedback - a good deal of things I knew already, but hadn't sought out to look at.  Certain redundancies or discrepancies that exist in a first draft, early, as you push on.  But having her point them out helped, as well as mentioning when a scene flowed really well or when a scene seemed disjointed.  And after all, as a reader, I need to know if she's drawn in, or if she's distracted by an overabundance of information or a lack thereof.

I knew the first chapter needed work.  We'd discussed before and really, I remain unhappy with the first chapter.  It's the beginning.  It has to be just right.  But it's also the most difficult to write, as a result.  You want to foreshadow appropriately, set up certain events, and so on.  You want to grab the reader.  Sometimes that's hard to do right off the bat - for me, it's nearly impossible.  So I trudge through the first chapter, setting some scenes I know will be reworked, some that may never see the light of day again, some that are just fine, and some that have yet to be added.  But what made me smile and, after having the first chapter appropriately eviscerated, was that as she broke into Chapters 3 and 4, the comments slowed, the highlights went away.  As the plot caught on and the narrative flow took over, the story began to write itself better.

That's what makes the first chapter so hard, often.  There's no narrative yet.  You're establishing the narrative, but as you do so, you're also generally using character exposition and development to draw the reader in.  Right away, that's difficult.  It's like going up to a woman at a bar or after class or after work and introducing yourself.  What will interest her?  What will draw her attention, what will repulse her, etc?  You want to make that lasting impression that makes her want more.  I never thought I was good at that, but being that I have a wife-to-be, I must have gotten it right at least once.

Stories are easier, in that regard.  Not because the beginning part is easier - it's not - but because you can shelve it.  I write out the beginning, enough to establish what I want to, and then push onward.  I let the narrative kick in and ride the flow of it, working on the rest as I go, knowing full well that when I'm done, I can come back to the beginning, knowing what I know from start-to-finish, and be better able to fine-tune the start.  A lot of that, to me, has to do with information - you want the reader to understand your world, but the question is how and when to do that.  You don't want to go all Tolkien on them and give them pages upon pages of laborious description.  Sure, it's good, but let's be honest - we all skimmed a LOT of that.  Do you care what color the leaves are in Rivendell?  Me neither.  That's stuff the imagination fills in by itself and I, personally, like to let the reader's imagination work itself.  Anyway.  I find that the tendency is to throw a ton of information out at first.  I refrain as best I can; knowing that a lot of information comes out during the narrative, or can be added later.  But you still want to impart a degree of understanding to the reader... without it being a written infomercial for a few pages.  That can be tricky sometimes.

Makes me want to write a modern/contemporary set story sometime.  I'm sure I shall, but I would like to get this one done first.

On actual writer's block.

Sometimes it's just not there.  Last week was a good one.  Made some good progress on the novel I'm working on and rather liked it.

I made the mistake of pausing and letting my fiancee read what I'd done.  Not that she's unsupportive; she's quite wonderful, actually.  But I was definitely trying to satisfy some odd desire within myself about my work by showing it to her.  I think I was a feeling good about it and she got home while I was working, looking for after-work attentions (understandable, typically fine).  Once I had said my afternoon hello to her, I really should have returned to my work.  I was in the middle of a chapter - end of a scene, but middle of the chapter.  I was in a good place and should have finished the chapter.  Instead, I showed her what I'd done thusfar.  Her enthusiasm was there, but not quite like mine.  It was tempered and she made some good points about some other areas of the book and it sort of derailed me a little.

I see why Stephen King waits to show his wife his drafts until he's done with them.

This week, it just hasn't been there.  It's an uncomfortable feeling, because in actuality, that chapter is planned out, but the ability to just sit down and hammer it out isn't there.  It's like mental constipation.  You might laugh, but it really is.  You're sitting there at the computer wondering if you should sit there and strain yourself and make the veins on your neck stick out and force out what you can, even though you know it won't be as satisfying as you're hoping.  Or maybe you should just relax and let it come in its own time.  I've been working the latter strategy.  This has resulted in a wholly unproductive week in which I explored the job market for someone with my skills where I live (not good).  That reality sinking in might actually be motivating me, because I'm starting to realize I don't have any promising job options here so I better make something happen.

I'm writing a novel that I first formed about ten years ago, in high school.  I know the plot, although I'm reworking it as I go.  The skeleton will stay largely the same; I'm just tinkering with the muscles and nerves, I suppose.  In some ways, that's not the most compelling thing to do as a writer.  As writers, we get told the stories too.  If you think we know it all from the start... we don't.  Our characters surprise us and take us places we don't always foresee.  It's a neat, fantastic experience.  Part of me misses that.  Part of me feels like I'm treading old grounds and maybe my writer's block this week is a sign to work on something else, at least sometimes.  I'm rewriting this novel right now because I know if I sit down and put myself to the grindstone, I can hammer out the rewrite in two months.  But I'm not finding that discipline and part of it is simply because it's boring work - it's menial work, insofar as writing goes.  When I get to the second book, it'll be better, because the second book is the one I have least planned out (the third I have a vague skeleton for).  But for now, it is what it is.

I feel the need to write something relevant.  Ambivalence, which I'm working on now, is a fun story.  It's about growing up, learning oneself, with a touch of wanderlust and father issues mixed in.  It's also a swords-and-sorcery sort of read.  It doesn't feel relevant, though.  It deals with issues and themes that were more important to me ten years ago than they are today.  The theme of wanderlust/homesickness sticks with me - I miss my home, Detroit, and its people, more than I can write here.  I look around at a changing world and my changing life and it seems like there're more relevant things to write about.  Young people - my generation - need a voice, and I'm writing about swords and sorcery.  I feel like I can do better.

Part of me is scared.  That happens.  I haven't written anything new in years.  That's part of why I wanted to focus on Ambivalence for now.  To sharpen my tools, so to speak, and learn to walk again before I started running.  But maybe I'm really holding myself back, maybe I need to set that aside sometimes and work on something else - something new - while I work on that draft.  It's easy to feel like a failure when you're afraid of what's in front of you and the only result is that you're finding yourself being completely unproductive.  It can be a hard mentality to break, no matter how fleeting it may be when it comes and goes.

I've been wandering, myself, for a long time now.  "Home" has been a transient concept for... going on five years.  It's probably part of why I feel so intensely homesick as I do so often - I haven't had a home since I left.  Everywhere I've been has been temporary and I've known it, so I've kept myself from getting too attached.  The only piece of my adult life that's fallen into place was actually, growing up, the one I expected to happen last, or would be the most challenging to obtain - the woman to spend that life with.  But I've got her.  Somehow, I need to make the rest of it happen.  I never thought, growing up, that'd be the hard part.