It truly is a work in progress. I am happy to say that I have been working on chapter 1 this week. This is tough. Much tougher than the outlining and planning I must say. I have the events laid out, the characters involved, interactions and outcomes; all the creative ideas that give the story meat.Now I have to write. Not only write but write in such away that will portray everything I want to convey to the reader. You know actually tell a story.
I have no idea what I am doing.
I am not a trained writer. I was a Kinesiology Major in college and all my writing during that time consisted mostly of lab reports and technical essays. I don't even remember the last writing course I ever took. Everything, if anything, I know about writing is from reading novels, listening to writing pod casts, reading other blogs, tip sections, tool sections, wikipedia and cracker jack boxes.
I am tangled in a web of literary conundrums, weaved from lack of training - I stutter and choke on the technicalities of my writing: Do I want to describe the character right out or through an action they are performing. Is it important to tell the reader what the character is feeling right now. Am I over describing this part or that part. Did I mention this or that at the right place. Can I say it like this or should I say it like that. Is this word better than that word. Am I really doing a good job on this scene or is it just so well viewed in my minds eye because I know it?
Are these questions and concerns born of self-doubts personal in nature or do all authors teeter on the edge of insanity? I think perhaps the latter; only the insane would venture on such an endeavor.
As to my actual current progress, I am on chapter 1. It is actually more of a prologue. I was stuck on a small section for awhile when a fisherman comes across or rather is trapped by the antagonist. I was not stuck for lack of ideas, rather ideas on how to describe it. Now that I am past the sticking point I hope to have chapter 1 / prologue finished this weekend and have it posted for viewing next week.
Another positive note; I feel that my actual writing style a word usage and sentence structure has really begun to improve and I am excited to see what I can do.
5 comments:
I understand exactly what you mean... still, untrained writing is in a class of it's own.. i wish you the best of luck..
Thanks Brat.
Your right, being untrained may actually be the best thing for my writing style wise.
Very relatable - I'm in a similar situation myself, though much closer to finishing my first novel and hoping like hell to get it published and on shelves within this year. I was an International Studies major, Japanese minor in college, with only a few writing classes under my belt, largely due to wanting to finally graduate and trying to keep my schedule varied. Workshops can be incredibly brutal and stressful, too. I'm just continually working on polishing my writing to make sure that what I write is professional and publishable, and hoping to get into a grad school this fall to earn an MFA in Creative Writing. I figure that experience'd help.
Benjamin, how many workshops have you been too? I've never attended any and most likely won't for quite some time. Did you find them useful?
I just took the basic level writing courses offered at my college, then the first available workshop level for a whole semester, which amounted to 3 hours, one night a week. Two or three people would bring copies of their work for the whole class each week, then we'd spend that next week addressing their work in class. I felt that the experience was worthwhile in learning to think particularly critically about the more technical aspects of literary art itself, since you have to learn to criticize your own work and others', as well as take criticism yourself. But there were some negatives as well, as in some cases, people would make criticism more based on what they'd rather see done, versus where there was more room for valid, constructive criticism. At times, the classroom would feel like a pack of hungry wolves just waiting to devour and destroy whoever's work they were looking over that week, and that sort of behavior was practically encouraged at times, I felt like. Likewise, it's difficult not to take criticism personally at times, as people often did. So it can be somewhat devastating to sit down and watch something you worked hard on get verbally torn to shreds by your peers. But then, in the least, I gained from that experience in learning to look at my own work more critically before that'd happen, to really further perfect it, and I feel that's a strength as a writer. Though at the same time, that makes it much more difficult for me to write something and just be satisfied with it, having become more of a perfectionist - as a writer, I've come to live in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction with my own work. And one has to learn to reckon with that as well, as it's important to know when to edit and when to let your work be what it is instead of obsessively revising it to death. All literature is flawed in its own way, after all, no matter how hard you work at it. Learning to be completely okay with my work being flawed as it naturally is as well is something of a challenge - especially as one who isn't published yet. Without a foot in the door or an established name for myself at this point, professional quality writing and the matter of whether or not my work would be seen as publishable and profitable drive my perfectionistic tendencies when writing.
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