Write Like the Plague

Write like the plague is gnawing at your heels. Find the words that nurse each sentence, be careful not to breath too heavily upon your paragraphs, and dispose of your dead as soon as the body carts arrive at the door.

Does this sound extreme? Perhaps, but when one puts away the ‘art and science‘ of writing, and just writes, the results might very well be a healthy survival rate.

Which brings me to a point that is only slightly related. What to publish, where and how. I have been giving much though to the current transition, growing pains if you will, of the state of the publishing industry.

There is much talk about self-publishing. Write up your story, sign up for a blog and post it. Or sign on to one of the sites that will publish your story in e-book format for others to download. Or explore the possibility of print-on-demand for hard copy… the real deal of a book with covers and perhaps even a number someone might put in a library somewhere — good traditional bones.

Oh boy, what about quality? What about the editing process, the melding of minds to polish the thing to its most appealing form. Well, what about it?

The best, the healthiest may very well survive to attract the attention of serious readers, those types who eat words for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They know a good story when they see one. They see the worth of good editing, polished plot, character development, an underlying message of universal appeal. Something with staying power. A classic. A story to embrace like an old friend arriving for a good long visit.

Then again, there is always the self-satisfaction of simply writing. Perhaps you’ve written something no one should ever see. Perhaps it just needs to be said, without care that it will ever be read. Perhaps that’s the state at which inhibitions slough off like an old skin, words dance and sing themselves into existence, immune to the plague of doubt, of judgement — both internal and external — to survive and thrive, to live healthy, wondrous lives, whether in print or in the clouds.

cross published at Red Room

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Revising the Mess

I have spent the last week or so, after a breather from NaNoWriMo, reviewing my writing so far. It is so easy to step off the well-groomed path into a forest of dark forbidding, words, characters, plot lines adrift like maple keys swirling about on breezy currents.

Now, I’ve found it very useful to restate my plot lines, which go as follows:

Challenge of Editing

PLOT A — Lord Ishrian, Shell onSeton and Marlen Greenleas must install the rightful heir to the Anda duchy, then prevent or defend against, invasion by long-time enemy, Kingdom of Demler
PLOT B — Prince Brynt wants to install a Demler sympathizer to Anda duchy, then annex the duchy to the Kingdom of Demler, through his principal minions, Lord Akin, Olan Okrano, and Anders Gaelss
PLOT C — for the twin wizard brothers, Collin and Thoman, who are trapped in the ak’asha, but don’t fully realize it, they are driven to find and restore the missing kenea warrior wizard to the cadre, always in threes, as in ancient times
PLOT D — Luna, the kenea obelisk, and forgotten Ca’ancartti goddess, driven insane over millennia in the ak’asha, aims to bring her ‘kenea’ children home to the ak’asha forever

I realize now, one of the wrongful paths was to spend so much time on following the trials of the missing heir, dragging focus away from my main character and protagonist, Shell.

I’m working through some hard questions, trying to view the story so far from a reader’s eyes. Boy-oh-boy-oh-boy, now there’s a hat I’ve had to dig out of the back of a closet I found on one of those side paths. I found it in a lump of disgarded clothing. Once I’ve donned that dusty old reader’s hat, however, the questions come clearer, the answers appear sometimes as stinky as laundry, other times the thinnest of silks still waiting to be woven into the story.

All this reviewing, plus a needed break which allows me to view my work at arm’s length, has renewed my enthusiasm at just the right moment, during the long and dark days where the path never seems to end.