Alpha and Omega Sentences

John Irving said he needs to know the last sentence of his stories before he can start them.  They give him a target to aim for.  That makes sense, but as I began a new short story earlier this week, I started to think that Irving's logic is in reverse.

I need the first sentence, something to build off of.  The last sentence is always a problem because it's the culmination of everything that came before it.  And even if you're a plotter and got your story roughed out on note cards, the finer details of the story - tone, specific events, little hints planted earlier, etc. - might not match up to that perfect finale.

Put another way, Irving's method is like building a house before laying the foundations.  I'm not saying he's wrong.  What works for him works for him.  I'm just saying that I don't understand how you can expect to reverse engineer from a single sentence.

I guess John Irving and I could settle the matter with a wrestling match.  On second though, scratch that.  Irving may be in his seventies, but I'm pretty sure he could still kick my ass. 

It IS a Long Hard Road Out of Hell

A friend of mine told me about how she was having a rough day and missing deadlines like Greedo misses Han.  I felt bad for her, especially since I've been having a pretty slow day myself with just a little fiction work and some editing on an article.

The slow days suck.  Always have.  Always will.  It's like any other job.  There's not a one that's all sunshine and puppies everyday.  If there is, tell me.  I'd love to apply.

The best thing I can recommend - and I know it's gonna really suck ass - is to simply push on as best as you can.  Getting even a tiny bit of work might seem like nothing, but it's that much more than you had yesterday.  More power to you.  Make sure you're keeping the momentum in a forward direction.  If you're regressing, then perhaps you really do need to take a day or two off to chillax.

Silence is Golden?

I went to my third meeting of this writing group last night, and I have to admit that I'm feeling a little apprehensive by the silence of it all.

There weren't many people last night.  Thank you very much, How I Met Your Mother's underwhelming finale.  But last week was all quiet too, and it's kind of got the hairs on my neck standing on end.  It feels weird being the guy who likes listening to loud music, like we're all supposed to be part of some silent group mind jacked into a juggernaut.  We talk about our work at the end of the session, but even then it's uncomfortable communicating with strangers about what I'm working on.

Here's my real problem: if silence is the only thing needed, then hell I can do that on my own.  Does that make the group useless, or should I give it a little more time?

*Throws hands up in the air*  I dunno.  It just feels a little weird.  Grumble, grumble, grumble!

Words of Wisdom

Lately, I've thought a lot about writerly advice.  Not many people ask me for advice.  I sometimes get questions about the writing life like how I stay motivated or where I come up with my ideas.  Those are pretty basic.

But I've been writing for several years now, and if I could go back in time, there are some things I'd say to my younger self.

Start now.

When I was an undergrad, I knew a guy named Sam who was easily the most talent student in the English department.  Man, that guy could write!  We had a class on Shakespeare and I learned that he was already published.  I thought that was ballsy at the time.  To me, writing was like any other profession with a formal learning.  My plan was to get my English degree, then go on to a creative writing program, and then start my career.  Turns out that I was the dumbass.  The truth is that creative writing programs simply give you options for craft and introduce you to a lot of peers and colleagues.  That's fine, but I didn't get my first publication until I was in grad school.  Had I followed Sam's example, I'd be a solid four or five years ahead of myself right now.

Forget about that Great American Novel!

The novel I was working on since New Years crashed...again.  It lost that special spark, my interest in it waned, and I dropped it entirely.  I've decided to give up on the novel.  That is to say I've given up the ambition of the novel.  I think a lot of young writers put the novel on a pedestal like it's some sort of holy relic, and I was one of them.  Honestly, I think the reason I was so stubborn about it was because I didn't want to look like a failure, or like someone who'd abandoned his dreams.  Stephen King once said that a lot of young writers try tackling novels before they're ready.  I think I'm one of them.  He also said that there have been times when a good short story idea expands itself into a novel.  I'm finishing up one short story, but I'm also plotting out another.  I started a first draft and wanted to make sure all my beats were lined up, but more importantly, I noticed that draft was quickly growing out of the short story range and into a novella.  And I actually like that because there's no burden of the novel as a monolithic entity.  It's just a short story, but if it takes off, so be it.  So to my younger self (and you youngsters reading this): focus just on the story, and don't obsess over the size of the thing.

Be flexible.

I've taken to heart Stephen King's advice in On Writing, as well as Chuck Wendig's wisdom on his Terrible Minds blog.  I've praised John Truby's The Anatomy of Story where he talks about how artificial the three-act structure is, but having gone through my story analysis course at UCLA last year, I can also say that there are certain benefits to the three-act structure.  And I've got a few other how-to books on writing from which I can point out pearls of wisdom.  All of these people are right.  There's no specific way to write a story.  John Irving says he has to know the last sentence of a story before he can tell it.  Stephen King thinks that spoils the fun and mystery.  Keep your mind open to any and all tactics, build up a toolbox, and then decide which works best for you.  If you end up having one specific way suited for how your mind works, that's fine.  If you decide to revamp your approach with each story, that works just as well.  Know thyself.

Focus on what's in front of you.

If you think you've got a story idea on the horizon, ignore it.  Seriously.  I don't care if you think it is going to blow Hemingway and Fitzgerald out of the water.  Don't write it down either.  If it's worth writing, your mind will subconsciously hold on to it.  You've got a story in front of you right now.  It needs your attention.  You owe it (and you owe it to yourself) to see it through to the end.  My recommendation is to work on no more than two stories at any given time.  If you have one story, then you can focus all your energy on it.  But in my experience, I've found that working on three or more pieces stretches my mind too thing and I have trouble keeping track of all my projects.  This is just for fiction, by the way.  I also do nonfiction on the side, but even then, I don't do more than one article at a time.  It just get to be too overwhelming for me.

Remind people who the real bastard is.

You're going to fuck up.  A lot.  That's part of how you learn, but when you're writing hoping to get even a small paycheck, those mistakes can also crush your self-esteem.  So when someone tells you you'll never make money writing, or asks you what you really do, tell them, "Listen, asshole.  I know how tough this shit is.  I don't need you to rub it in."  Say it kindly, or say it bluntly.  I leave the choice to you.

Submission Trackers

I sent out my new short story to Penumbra just now.  I got the story logged in my submission tracker at Duotrope, but I want to talk to you guys about setting up your own submission tracker at home.  I think it's important to keep your own paperwork on the side of the "official" stuff.  It's like keeping track of finances.  Sure, you could check your register online with your bank nowadays, but I always think it's helpful to have a little bit of redundancy.

My tracker is taken right out of Writer's Market, but it's basically an Excel file with the following columns:

• Manuscript Title: The title of the submission.
• Market: The name of the magazine, agency, or publisher you're sending your story to.
• Contact Name: The name of the person at the market getting your work.
• Date Sent: The date you send in the work.
• Date Rejected: The date your work was rejected.
• Date Accepted: The date your work was accepted.
• Date Published: The date your work was printed.
• Payment Received: How much you were paid (if applicable).
• Comments: Any additional notes about your experience with that specific market.

I keep a separate spreadsheet for each year, and because I'm a visual guy, I like to highlight and color-code things.  Submissions that are out are highlighted in blue.  Submissions that have been accepted and published are highlighted in orange.  Submissions that are unmarked are likely rejected.  Not that there's anything wrong with those markets that have rejected you (and you may be accepted by them at a later date), but it's important to skim your tracker and see what's out pounding the pavement, and it's a nice confidence booster to see where you've had victories.

The Gang

I joined a local writer's group through Meetup that started just recently.  We had our first session last night.  The group is pretty straightforward: sit down and write for two hours.  Quietly.  There was no workshopping and very little in the way of intros.

I was surprised by how much I did.  There was an hour of short story work followed by an hour of revisions.  After that, we spent about fifteen or twenty minutes going around the table speaking briefly about what we worked on.  The responses were pretty close to the chest, including mine.  A novel here.  A screenplay there.  Nothing about premises.  I guess we were all a little shy.  I passed along to one guy a suggestion on character descriptions that I heard from Justin Cronin when we met at Vroman's in Pasadena.  The guy, I think, took the advice with a hint of skepticism.  Perhaps I should have flipped him off with my MFA diploma, but I left that at home.

It was a pleasant evening aside from that minor discomfort.  We're having another writing session next Monday, but I'm a little wary because my tutoring schedule would conflict with it in a major way.  It's been a while since I've written alongside other people, so I'm willing to give this group a chance and see whether or not it'll make me more productive.

Digging In

The great thing about dealing with a potential burnout is knowing that the malaise will eventually subside and you'll feel all rejuvenated and hyper like an Asian Giant Hornet on speed.  Ironically, I think a helpful way of doing it is to look at your work.

Because I'm so job-hungry, I updated my curriculum vitae today (I have five).  I saw on my writing CV that I had six credits, most of them from within the last couple of years.  The weird thing was that feeling of it dawning on me that, yes, I have been writing.  It doesn't seem that way when you're editing at 11 PM or clawing your way towards your laptop at 6 AM when the sun's just coming out.

Then I looked at my binders of writing and saw that I had quite a bit stored up just from the last few months.  Short stories.  Articles.  Novel work.  Notes for upcoming projects.  A lot of it's still raw, but some are nearly ready for submission.

My point is that rather than feeling overwhelmed, I was pleasantly surprised to see evidence of hours, days, and weeks at the keyboard.  Unfinished?  Yes.  But a vague fog?  Hardly.

This doesn't sound like something I'd normally say, but if you're feeling like the work is getting to you, turn into a "glass is half-full" kind of person and take stock not of what lies ahead, but rather how much you've got behind you.  Many times, you'll see that the end of a project is closer than you think, and that'll get you charged for pushing the rest of the way.