Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“Morals have given rise to charity and pity, two dumplings that have grown like elephants, planets, which people call good. There is nothing good about them. Goodness is lucid, clear and resolute, and ruthless towards compromise and politics. Morality infuses chocolate into every man’s veins.”

—Tristan Tzara, dada manifesto

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

First, I had to write a self-evaluation today, an exercise in hyperbolic conflation if ever there was one. And I had to carve time out of a over-busy morning schedule to do it. That'll lead to chocolate bingeing every time. Then, I've been denied writing time two days in a row. Four if you count the weekend. I usually get some writing in on the weekend, but that didn't happen this weekend. More chocolate! Next, some people who had to do the same self-evaluation as I were having whiny snivelly fits about having to do it and I was not in the mood. Be a man! buck up! CHOC-O-LATE!!

Adding to all this, I've reached a point that I reach in every novel, what I call the panic point. That's when I've got a sufficient bulk of novel behind me to know I'll probably finish, but still have a ways to go before I type The End. This is also the time when the passages through the story start narrowing as I draw closer to the denouement. Alternate possibilities disappear on the horizon, never to be seen again, and I begin to wonder if I'm going to be able to pull off the vision thing as, well, envisioned. Do I really know what I'm doing? Is the ending as viable as it seemed when I thought of it, or is it just an absurdity echo in the gag factory of my mind? Am I about to make a really big fool of myself? Did I write the correct novel after all? Or should I have turned the story in a different direction and written that other novel?

Oh, slather me in chocolate!

Knowing this panic happens with every novel, I should draw comfort from it, but I never do. This time around I've got a fresh failure to remind me that I don't always pull it off at the end: the overly ambitious Night Warrior/The Making Blood—three, three, three novels in one! I expect that one's going to continue haunting me until I either do a successful rewrite or successfully finish another novel. I'm hoping Charged with Folly will be that successful finish, but one never knows.

I do like the ending of CWF. I took a mechanism I used at the end of my first completed novel, a sort of generic quest fantasy with a science fiction twist which will never see the light of day again, and will apply part of it to this ending. Then I took another piece of science and added it to the mix with a bunch of metaphysical/philosophical crud to finish off the concept. It seemed like a viable resolution. But some days there isn't enough chocolate in the world to reassure me—until the damned thing is actually done.

Random quote of the day:

"I'm here because I was born here and thus ruined for anywhere else."

—Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York


Something for the boys (of both sexes):

With all the brouhahaing on LJ over whether or not to quit writing, I thought this quote popped out of the random quote file at a rather ironic time:

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use in being a damned fool about it."

—W. C. Fields

Although I love Fields, irony and synchronicity, I much prefer the quote from Octavia Butler posted by norilana a few days back:

"One of the things I just told the class was not to worry about things like talent and inspiration and luck because the real ability that you need in writing is the ability to persist, to learn from your mistakes and keep working, even though you're being rejected all over the place."

—Octavia Butler

Vera also referred her readers to the interview which contained that quote (and many others equally inspiring).

I guess, by Fields's standard (and others), I'm a damned fool because although I have nothing to show for years of writing except hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, a few honorable mentions, and several attaboy letters, I have no intention of giving up. I have to write. I will always write as long as I have brain cells left to write with.

I do seriously consider giving up the quest to get published. I've been doing quite a lot of that lately. But giving that up presents problems, too. There's that whole "writing in a vacuum" issue. I'm not really looking for money and glory and fame—I'm looking for readers. I suppose fame is a corollary of gaining readers, but it's not my motivator. I just want people to read my stuff; I just want to tell cranking good yarns that make people keep turning the pages.

There is the whole self-publishing route, but that's not really viable, it seems to me, without a reputation ahead of time. It means, for the most part, trading laboring in obscurity and having your friends read your manuscripts to having a garage full of unsaleable books and forcing your friends to buy those. Kind of like Girl Scout cookies or those awful chocolate bars your friends are always asking you to buy so their kids' school can buy new trombones for the marching band or the troop can head off to Camp Weegeesqueegee in the summertime.

So, I keep trying the traditional publishing route. I keep my expectations low, and I think—if it ever comes to that and I do give up on the traditional publication game—that I'm going to slap my stuff up on a website somewhere. That way nobody's forced to buy inedible chocolate or cardboard cookies.

True, no youngsters will benefit from the free inedible writing...except maybe my inner child. And she's always been a damned fool. That's not likely to change.

P.S. I loved this quote, too, from Ms. Butler:

"When young writers want to know the "secret," I'll generally say there isn't any. You have to find your own secrets."