Editing Shmediting

As of late last week, I've finished the first draft of my first real novel. You've heard me talk about it before: The Mortician's Apprentice.

As I wrote, I knew that I'd have a lot of things to go back and fix afterward. Draft one clocks in at about 68k, which is about 20k less than what I was hoping for (90k would be ideal). Also, there are entire sublots i forgot to add, and several elements to the town in which the story is set that I'd like to take more time to define. Same goes for the characters, who I feel need more room to stretch out and become real people.

If you're like me, you've probably read a lot of books, blogs, and articles about writing. One of the main pieces of advice you find in writing research is that the first draft is meant to suck. Just get it all out, they say; after all, it's only a first try. When that first, ugly draft is all done, you go back and you make it all beautiful. Unless you're Joe Lansdale who, according to one of the prefaces in The Complete Drive-In, writes only one draft of a story. And while that is one more reason that we should heap our amazement and adoration on the works of Joe Lansdale, the cold, hard fact for us amatures is that we really need to brace ourselves for the ugliness of that first draft.

But that's the thing, no one tells you how ugly that bastard is going to be - and let me tell you, mine's a real hatchetface.

Don't get me wrong: I still love the story, but it's a half formed mutant baby right now. It cries and mewls at all hours of the night, keeping me awake. I want to sneak it out of the house, put it in a bag filled with rocks, and chuck it into the river. I want to forget that I ever mindbirthed it on to paper, but there's some damnable spark of writerdom in my brain that has a mother's love for The Mortician's Apprentice and just won't let it go.

I think that's good, though. I love the ugly bastard and once I polish it into the beautiful little creature I know it can be, I'll feel a lot better about everything.

There's a moral here, I'm sure. Hell if I know what it is, though. Maybe it's that you shouldn't ever be satisfied with your own work. Always know that you can improve it a bit - even when it's really, truly done. On the other side of that coin, don't throw your mutant babies in the river, either. And I mean that literally and figuratively. We drink out of that river. And who knows, maybe that mutant will grow up to be a strapping young man or woman.

Breaking New Ground

My current writing project, as of tonight, is at 52,500 words. That officially makes it the longest thing I've ever written.

A couple of years back I did Nanowrimo and won - that's 50k. The story from that endeavor was pretty horrible, though it offers a couple of kicks here and there. Despite the lack of quality, it was a learning experience; the lesson being, writing something this long is really, really hard.

Like seriously hard, y'alls.

At least, for people like me, with sub-primate attention spans, it is.

Most of the time, I make it to 20 or 30k and then take a "short" break to recuperate. Maybe write a short story or two, recharge the batteries, get back into the swing of things. But let me tell you the dirty little secret of these constitutionals: I never come back.

I'm like a deadbeat dad, telling his story-children he's heading to the store for a pack of smokes. Next thing you know, I'm in Kansas city, drunk at a dog track, smelling like the love child of a cigar and a bottle of Brut. I'm not looking back, only forward - to sweet, sweet freedom.

Then, eventually, my conscience wakes up and forces me back home. I peer into the windows, looking at the story children I abandoned, lo these many years ago, and I realize that I just don't know them anymore.

Sullen, I walk away, destined for a life of living out of my car, surviving on half-eaten tacos donated to me by strangers.

My metaphor is too complex, you say? Well, okay, I'll sum it up: I step away from a story and when I come back I just don't know it anymore. Rather than absence making my heart grow fonder, it's made my heart forget.

Then the story dies, cold and alone.

I've done this lots of times, to perfectly good stories. The road behind me is littered with the half-formed corpses of my story-children.

This time, though, I'll be different. I'll be better.

Here are some strategies I've developed to help me. I make no claim that these are new or revolutionary, or even original, for that matter -- only that they're helping me along in this current project.

1. Go apeshit from time to time. Callaway sums this up on his blog nicely.
2. Outline ahead of time. Not necessarily the entire novel, but enough to keep you moving if you hit a rough patch.
3. Don't be afraid to diverge from the outline. in fact, do it. Diverge from the outline.
4. Don't be afraid to make the heads roll. No one likes cutting away rancid wordflesh, but sometimes it's just what the doctor ordered. If what you're writing isn't turning your crank, then cut it off. (The writing that is, not your crank.)
5. Move ever forward. I have entire subplots that I have to go back and fill in because I didn't think of them until I was well past their logical insertion point. If a great idea strikes you, start writing it in media res; go back and fill in the beginning parts later, if necessary.
6. Don't be afraid to be absurd. This is dangerously close to point 1, I know, but I think it's worth its own category. Often, when we write we have the urge to create this perfect, literary version of events and emotions. Perfect literary versions are usually horseshit in my experience as a reader. Write things that are flawed, outlandish, or crazy. It's your story, so it's okay. 

That's all I can think of at the moment. I hope you find them helpful in your own stories.

Writing About Bars

I have no idea why, but there's something I find incredibly satisfying about writing bars. Not so much the sterile, popular bars that good looking people hang out in, though I'm sure there's fun to be had there as well. No, I'm talking about dives. I'm talking about the places where there's one customer and they're drinking warm beer out of a glass with a tooth in the bottom.

Here's a brief excerpt from my current writing project. Now, before you go gettin' all guns-a-blazin' on me for whatever writing sin I've committed, please keep in mind that I don't edit as I write. There will be imperfections in this.

Despite that, it's still my ugly little bastard child, so play nice and pretend you think its cute:

The Owl & Fist was one of the multitudinous bars that grew and withered in the Barlow city limits. In the case of “the Owl” as patrons were wont to call it, the cycle was far closer to wither than grow. The sign on the front of the establishment had been created by the owners, Leon assumed. Carved from particle board and painted with quick, broad strokes that went outside the lines at every opportunity, the cartoonish picture showed an angry-faced owl brandishing a featherless fist at the beholder. The windows of the bar had all been broken and boarded, though a sign had thoughtfully been hammered up on one of the boards: it flashed and buzzed in its neon glory, displaying the phrase “eer Here!” the blackened and burned-out capital B looking on sadly from the far left. 

The door was thick and weighty, creaking with every inch of movement as Leon entered the dismal murk of the bar. The earthy decay wrought through decades of consumed cigarettes and thousands of spilled drinks conspired against him, crawling into his nostrils and punching the base of his brain with tiny, ethereal fists. Somewhere in the background, a hint of strong piss danced hither and thither, cheering on its olfactory counterparts in their assault. The bartender, a shirtless man of morbid obesity, wiped away rolling sheets of glistening sweat from the curdled pyramids of man-tit that adorned his chest. As he did so, he engaged Leon in an awkwardly intense communion of unwavering eye contact. 

Say what you will, damn you, but it's a lot of fun.

Writing, Reading, and Lengths of Things...

I'm trying to get over my weird emotional bullshit about writing. I've never been the victim of abuse, or even moderate misfortune, in the grand scheme of things. Sure, I've got those pathetic white guy problems: which grad school do I attend, how will I fit in all these vacation days, etc. - but nothing that should ever cause me to waver and whine about what I do on a daily basis. This is especially true when it comes to writing. All things considered, I should be okay with admitting that I'm not a total dildo when it comes to putting words on a page.

Not a total dildo, I said. Still a good 80% dildo, probably. I'm working on it.

Anyway: sometimes I get all sad-clown about getting things written and I have those frustrating "I should just quit!" moments. To clarify, that doesn't mean that I would quit writing all together, but quit writing whatever story I'm working on at a given time.

I'm starting to realize that these moments are symptomatic of something that I'm doing wrong at the time. It might surprise you to hear this, but I think it's my work ethic that gets me in trouble.

I'll explain.

In my writing group, we have all come to the conclusion that to be a writer, writing is absolutely necessary.

"Oh, ho!" you say. "Well aren't you a brilliant bunch of assholes!"

Well, yes. You'd be surprised. Everyone wants to be Mr. Kingshit McWriter, but almost no one wants to write. Ask around - you'll see that I'm right.

I don't think this makes us special in any way; plenty of people write. But it does make us serious about what we're doing, which is important.

As a part of that seriousness, we've all developed a pretty solid work ethic when it comes to writing. I try for 2k a day and usually wind up hitting that 5 days out of 7. Adam does even more than that.

When you really want to write professionally you get superstitious about these things. Missing words feels wrong, unnatural. You force yourself to sit in the chair and hammer out crap, simply for the sake of meeting the daily word quota.

Some might say that's good. Hell, I'd probably agree, in some cases. The problem that I've discovered is that it leads me to write things that I don't necessarily like. Sure, the words are there, but my mindset is that of a shitty king Midas, whose pungent touch turns everything to steaming piles of deuce.

To put it in another context, let's say that I built train-tracks for a living. My quota is to lay 2000 yards of track, every day, day in, day out.

Now let's say that at around my 700th yard of the day, I start taking the tracks in the wrong direction - towards a cliff, for example. Work ethic dictates that I keep laying that fucker until I hit 2k, but is that the best decision, really? Will I, in my old age, look back with pride while thinking of that train full of high-society men and women that died tragically falling off that cliff and think to myself "Ah, well. At least I made my quota."

I doubt it.

The moral of this piss-poor, self-indulgent story is this: don't beat yourself up. It's okay to go back and fix things at the expense of your daily quota from time to time. Just don't get stuck doing it every day, to the point where you aren't actually writing anything, but rather re-sculpting the same old pile of your own shit all the live long day.

Obvious advice, probably, but it's a revelation to me.

Second Item of Business: 

Take a look at the sexy sonofabitch that was waiting for me when I got home tonight:

Oh, isn't it lovely? We'll see how much sleep I get tonight. 

For those of you that don't know, this is Nick Harkaway's new book, Angelmaker. More importantly, Nick Harkaway is the man that proved how laughably wrong I was when I made the solemn proclamation several years ago that no writer would ever -- EVER, I SAY! -- kick me in the crotch like grand master Gene Wolfe did. 

Cut to 2011, at which point my writing group is formed and one Adam Callaway recommends The Gone Away World to me. I buy said book and marvel at it for the next several weeks as it mercilessly speedbags my testicles like a vindictive sensei. 

And I mean this in the best possible way, of course. 

Since then, Harkaway has earned a spot in the glass cabinet of my brain, below which is a tiny brass plaque that reads: "Righteous Dudes Whose Books I Will Read and Recommend." It's just Harkaway, Gene Wolfe, and Patrick Rothfuss in there right now. Oh sure, I read and recommend others, but not many can match the righteous-duditude of these gentleman. 

You should read The Gone Away World, by the way. More on this later. 

Final Order of Business:  

Why don't I have any instincts about how long stories will be? At what point in a writer's evolution do those parts of my brain kick in? 

Okay, I'm done. 

Fate, working against me.

I sometimes wonder why fate always conspires to put me behind the slowest people in the universe.

Today at work I wanted to wash my fork. Just a simple rinse, really - not even any soap. We're talking 20 seconds, maybe.

Alas, it wasn't to be. Upon arrival at the sink, I discovered that the person who had arrived before me was in the middle of lovingly filling their soiled Tupperware with soapy water, which they then proceeded to stir with a spoon.

What's the intention of such a move, you ask? I don't know. At one point they bent very close and seemed to be examining the chunk content of the soapy water, but I couldn't say why.

You know what I shoulda said? I shoulda said: "Christamighty, friend - it's tupperware. Let it grow mold and then throw it away so you can experience the stupid consumerist guilt that the rest of us have to live with, day in and day out."

I opted instead to silently seethe with rage. It's the same thing I do in Walgreens, when the lady in front of me, who is undoubtedly just a few days shy of her millionth birthday, is attempting to pay for 35 tins of Fancy Feast with a forklift full of coupons and a water cooler jug full of pennies.

But, of course, the coupons are expired, which is unfortunate, but not as unfortunate as the fact that the coupons were never for Fancy Feast, but rather for Friskies, you goddam monster!

Oh, and I notice that you've got 13 packs of christmas lights in your cart, too. That's just grand. It's July, but who gives a shit, right? There are no rules here in the Walgreen's line, no decorum. We just do whatever we please, like those kids from Lord of the Flies.

Anyway, self indulgence aside, I wrote 2k today. So that's something.

Fiction Writing Interlude: What Bill O'reilly and I have in common.

The Mortician's Apprentice just lost about 4000 word-pounds of necrotic flesh. In the words of Bill O'reilly:

FUCK IT! I'll CUT FOUR THOUSAND WORDS! FUCKIN' THING SUCKS! 

Back to shit shoveling. Good night.

On Finding Inspiration in Odd Places...

A brief recreation of a conversation that I had with my daughters a few nights ago:

Daughter 1: We had a substitute teacher in gym today. He had a mustache.
Me: Oh, yeah? What was his name?
Daughter 1: I don't remember.
Daughter 2 (From the Tub): Maybe his name was "The Mustache."
Daughter 1: He had a handlebar mustache.
Me: Really?
Daughter 1: No, but it would have been funny if he did. 

First and foremost, kudos to me for having daughters that appreciate the humor of a good mustache.

But, more importantly, as a writer it's important to wring every possible bit of inspiration out of life. In that spirit, here are a few character notes I've compiled for The Mustache.

• The Mustache owns only windpants and tracksuits.  
• The Mustache's mustache is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing by virtue of the fact that it's pretty much the best mustache ever; it is a curse because it outshines his personality. 
• Like a person that has recently come in to a large sum of money, the Mustache lives a life of paranoia, never sure whether people like him, or just want to bask in the glory of his mustache. 
• The Mustache's father was a hobo. As such, he taught the Mustache the finer points of hobo life: bindlecraft, baked bean preparation, train hopping, hobo songs, and playing the brown jug. 
• As a result of having to constantly defend himself from those jealous of his mustache, the Mustache is an accomplished hand to hand fighter. 

Maybe my next novel will be about the mustache...