These last couple of days, I’ve been writing in the morning/midday, and it’s been a lot more productive than waiting to do it as the last thing. I think that if I could get into a routine of doing it early in the morning, maybe before classes, it could be really good. The way I have my schedule next semester, that’s probably what I’ll end up doing. And, if I end up writing on the side of a regular job, that’s probably what I’ll end up doing after college as well–getting my fiction writing in each day before I go to work. I’ve heard that it works very well for some people.
The story is definitely progressing nicely. However, I think I may start turning to some short stories in the near future. There are a couple of reasons.
First of all (and some of you, I know, will laugh at this), I’m a little bit worried about getting too far into this novel before the beginning of winter semester. You see, for English 318 in the winter, we’re going to all start writing novels, but I’m hoping to get away with working on the one I’ve already got going. That becomes kind of hard, though, when I’m already 45,000+ words into mine, and everyone else is at the beginning. And I want to at least finish the rough draft of this one before I start another. So, either I go too far and have to start something new for the class, or…well, I just put it on the back burner for a while. Maybe I’m just stressing about it too much–after all, Sanderson seems like a pretty cool guy–but I dunno. Laugh if you want–it’s what I’m good for. 🙂
Second, I want to get a couple of short stories published in the not too distant future, and if I want to do that, I’d better write a few more. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, I want to prove that I can do it, both to myself and to my parents. It would be really awesome to sell something and see it in print / hear it in a podcast. It would help me feel a little bit more self-validated and encouraged to write more seriously–to feel like I can actually get the ball rolling on this writing dream that I have. And second, it would help validate what I’m doing to my parents. Rightly or not, they feel that I’m stretching myself thin, and want me to focus on the things that I’m passionate about and see if I can make a practical living off of it. I’m passionate about writing, but I don’t plan on doing that as a primary vocation, and I haven’t gotten published yet (although I have made some money off of it–$200 last year with the Mayhew contest!). If I can sell a few short stories, hopefully it will prove that I can actually do something legitimate with this writing thing that I have going.
Now, talking about this reminds me of what I’m reading in this book of L’Engle quotations, about how one of the ways the world marginalizes the truths found in fiction is by saying that writing isn’t a “real job.” And I don’t feel like my parents are doing that. It’s just…financial independence and providing for a family is also very important. I don’t think that they’re telling me not to be a writer–just to evaluate how important are the things I’m doing, and cut out the things that aren’t important.
But the thing is, writing is very important to me. It always has been. I was wondering the other day if I could ever get to a point in my life where I stop writing fiction altogether. And I have to say that I don’t think that that’s possible. When I came back from my mission, I found myself with a completely empty schedule–a life without anything to really keep me busy. And it took me only a week or two to jump into creative writing again–and in 8 months I had a 69,000 word novel. And after the winter semester, when I again found myself with a mostly open schedule, a number of ideas came together to compel me to write the short story The Clearest Vision. Then, while I was in school again, I wasn’t doing too much writing at all, but this idea came to me so strongly that I felt overwhelmingly compelled to write it down. And so I gave birth to another story (ok, the giving birth analogy is kind of weird, but it’s kind of…true…).
What I’m finding nowadays is that ideas are constantly developing in my head, sometimes quickly, most of the time very slowly, always on a subconscious level if not on a conscious level, and that when a number of them get to a critical point, I feel overwhelmingly compelled to write. Before that happens, I can go about my life doing whatever, not even thinking about writing the story, but when it gets to that point, it just has to come out. It’s just the way my mind works. And for that reason alone, I don’t think that I could ever become an un-writer.
The key is to embrace this condition that sets me apart and use it–not only to serve myself, but, according to L’Engle, to “serve the work” as well. Because some of these ideas could probably help to bring people to truths that they didn’t have before, and to see and experience life-changing things. So I want to embrace this, and get good at it. I don’t want to write just to sell something, or to entertain, but to tell stories as good as the ones that have profoundly impacted me and my life. I hope I can do it.
So, that’s what the vision is. And the way to do it is to stop waiting until the idea absolutely must come out, and to try and work with it while it’s developing. Writing is hard work, not just flashes of inspiration and word sprints that turn into golden stories. If I’m going to make this writing thing work, I’ve got to learn how to write regularly, submit my work and get it published, and work with my ideas before they get to that really pregnant stage. And so I’m probably going to work on a couple of short stories in the near future.
This post is getting pretty long, so I’d better wrap it up, but the next post will have some of the short story ideas I’d like to work with. And also, when I get a chance, I’d like to write some reviews of some of the books I read recently, like Mistborn, Princess of Mars, and 2001: A Space Odyssey (a piece of really hard sci fi, but a d*** good book!)
