Friday Rants and Raves - October 24

[sarillia]

Hey all! It's been a while. I hope everyone has gotten a lot of fun writing done. Let's hear about it. Had problems? Let's commiserate.

Before I go, here's an illustration by Max Ernst that I find intriguing:

Comments

[inevitableentresol]

Great picture. Is that a Lilith/Biblical reference? I like that its meaning has become hazier through time, if it ever was clear.

I took a break from writing for two months recently to get some things done around the house. We moved 3 years ago and due to a combination of long term illness and flooding we still haven't unpacked all the boxes or have enough furniture to live on. We nearly had, then the flood came and we had to pack up again. :(

We're finally getting furniture now (we'll have a sofa soon!) and are putting up curtains, paintings etc. It takes a lot of time and mostly I'd rather be writing. I don't really care if I live in a hovel as long as the major utilities work, that's my problem. But I'm not the only one to consider who lives in the house. It was nice to concentrate on it for a few months, but now I'm definitely bored. There are only so many curtain patterns you can look at.

Now that I'm so sick of it that I just have to get back into writing, I'm feeling guilty about all the things that are still left undone. But then when I'm sorting out the house, I feel guilty that I'm not writing. I can't win. I believe this is what they call Catholic guilt, which was drummed into me as a kid.

Just before my writing break, I was on the very last chapter of the first draft of my very first novel-length thingumy. It's a huge life goal for me, to write something that length, never mind the quality, never mind the subject, but the timing was just bad to finish it at that point.

My plan now is to warm back up with some smaller bits of writing and then go back and second draft the story before hitting the end again, to gather momentum to get to that final point. Arrgh, I don't even want to think about it too much. It's scary. There are a few plot things I have to fix along the way, but I think they're not too difficult. I kept a checklist. More difficult is getting myself in the mood again. I have to trick my mind, sort of sidle along into accidentally picking up old stories when I have to take a break. If I big it up too much, "Woah yeah I'm writing!" kind of thing, I just freeze and lose the stomach to write anything at all.

So that's where I am now. I wish everyone the best, wherever they are, whatever the weather, and whatever they're writing.

[sarillia]

I'm not sure what the illustration is for, but it's not the only one to feature this woman. If anyone else knows then I'd love to find out, but until then I like wondering and coming up with my own ideas.

I know exactly what you mean about the guilt. I do that all the time even though I'm definitely not Catholic ;). I wish you luck in getting past it.

Ooh, first novel-thingy! That's so exciting! A little while ago I found the first one I wrote back when I was 16 and it was so terrible and wonderful. Keep going! It's a great feeling to reach the end and realize what you've achieved and after putting so much work into this you deserve to experience that feeling.

[inevitableentresol]

First novel at 16! I'm really impressed. When I was a teenager I really wanted to write but I had this idea that writers were far above me, almost semi-mythical beings, and I didn't have the nerve. Little did I know.

I also had the idea that it would be better to get some life experience before I started writing, so that my first stuff wasn't embarrassingly terrible. Now I realise that that happens whatever age you start writing at, unless you're some sort of fluke.

Thanks so much for your encouragement. I've been working at some shorter stories in the last few days, working up my courage again.

I hope I do feel like it's an achievement when I've finished. I worry that I might find it the opposite.

The first time I ever had an original short story published, the publishers edited it to hell. Really, I have no idea what they were trying to do. It no longer was coherent. My friends and family asked me what had happened, and they hadn't even read the original. When I explained the changes, they all went "oh, yes that would have made a lot more sense as it was."

That experience put me off a lot of aspects of writing, vor quite a while. I turned to fanfiction, which gives the writer much more control. If I ever do publish an original novel, it will be self-published for definite.

I have a journalist friend and she has horror stories of how her pieces have been edited over the years. Editors change quotes for instance, seemingly at random, so that she has to go back and apologise to those she interviewed. It's the publishing equivalent of spellcheck disasters, except that these people are supposed to know their jobs.

Anyway, thanks!

[inevitableentresol]

The woman in the illustration really reminds me of the character design for Carabosse, the evil fairy, in Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty. The above illustration was the inspiration, perhaps?

[splinteredstar]

All of those are really cool shots!