Mixed Messages

There’s a lot of writing advice out there. If you’re the type of reader I am, you would have said, “no shit” after you read that sentence. However, it embarrassingly bears repeating as I still find many new writers (sometimes myself) unsure on how to move themselves with their words.  I’ve observed quite a few people, and it seems now I understand what happens.

People are a variation on a theme. We have similar experiences, traits, emotions, languages, and so on. On the other hand we have different interpretations based on those experiences, traits, emotions, languages, etc. Two people could experience the same event and come away with two different thoughts. These thoughts and reactions are not to be considered infinite, as there’s a reason emotions can be displayed on a wheel, there are only so many words in the English language and languages on the planet. There will be some common ground for everyone.

However, what I find when listening to authors is advice can contradict one another. For example, let’s take quote from Anaïs Nin:

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.

Now let’s sidle that up against a commencement speech with Neil Gaiman:

These paths are very different. One is that of a quasi-Quaker speaking when the spirit moves her, and the other is the that of the child constantly writing but only when it isn’t work. How does that work? Simple, it doesn’t.

What needs to happen is that the writer needs to take charge of his or her life and respond to what resonates. That requires more thought on the part of the writer, as they are the ones who know themselves better than anyone else (or so I’d hope). It’s like going to the doctor and being diagnosed with an illness you know isn’t right. Why? Because you are feeling the symptoms first hand and are asking a secondary source to tell you what is wrong. Granted, there are some very good diagnostic doctors out there, but I only have access to the budget variety. No offense, doc, but your services aren’t sterling.

This whole notion of tailoring advice reminds me of a brilliant young writer I caught on here trying to decode Ernest Hemingway. In his own right, he has made valuable contributions to literature. That’s something I acknowledge, even if I think he’s a pompous windbag. He also spoke in what I call “red herring,” a dialect Hell bent on confusing you. This is one of the reasons I severely dislike Joyce, by the way. When speaking in riddles, please don’t feed the egos. I’m convinced if this young author took a step back and listened for advice not coming from big-name writers, her personal picture would have been much more clear.

I will shoot you right between the eyes and say I am neither a Nin, Gaiman, or Hemingway. I am the machine. I am the gun steel mecha-man that needs to crank and crank and crank and crank and work and work and work and work but evaluates what he’s cranking out and is only satisfied when it dazzles him. That’s my path to achievement, but it very well may never be yours. That’s for you to decide. It’s your rodeo, after all.

Splitting Attention and Image Reflections

I’m finally at the point in My City by the Bay where I’m going to be posting stuff that no one else has yet seen. I can see plenty of you rolling your eyes right now. You keep making faces like that young ladies and young gentlemen, and it’ll stay that way. You mark my words!

Regardless, for myself and the handful of others following along, I think that will be good news. I certainly haven’t finished, nor do I know how I’ll finish the story, but I’m sure it’ll tell me when I get there. I read an article about why writers love to write, and one reason was “…because we’re the puppet master.”

Now, I don’t know about the other writers but I do know about myself. What I’ve certainly noticed is that I often question the control I have over my own stories. Sometimes they form on the paper, and I feel like I have little say in it. I could never see myself as the “puppet master.”

I loosely consider myself a writer, and not by occupation. I don’t get paid to write; I get paid to do accounting. For established veterans in the literary world, this may seem laughable or galling. Quite frankly, there isn’t any comment they can make that an entire class of grade school kids haven’t mastered. Kids are much more cruel. Trust me.

With all this free wheelin’, gun shootin’ display of foolishness (as the logical, shrewd writer would want as much money out of their work as possible), I’m starting another long story. It may be long enough to make into a novella, as it’s a blank slate. It has political viewpoints, philosophical viewpoints, and I have to build characters from the ground up. I actually like creating characters.  As a child, I didn’t have a whole lot of friends. I ended up creating entire casts of characters in my head anyway.

Enough of Memory Lane. I’ve been ticketed flying down that road before.

This brings me to the point of the post. I’m fussing over splitting my attention between two stories or finishing one and starting another. Has anyone wrote multiple stories at once? Did they find it manageable? Were they disappointed in the outcome? I’d normally do this myself, but don’t want to waste the 3-6 months in trial and error, when I could simply get feedback from other writers right now.