The Writing Game
Category Archives: Writing
Pain, Patience and OWWW CRAP OWWW
Today was the (quasi)final tattoo session for my Phreak Show character sleeve.
Here’s how things looked going into the session:
11 characters in place
Still a lot of empty space
Here we go…
This project has taken precisely one year, 12 sessions, 36-ish hours in the chair, $#### (plus a trade of a mounted human skull fragment).
Out of the dozen sessions, this one, the background, was by far the worst. The needles pierced & chewed the entire length of my arm. The sheer amount of skin area made it rough. Pain. From wrist to shoulder. Front, back, sides. If my poor, fragile skin didn’t have ink yet, it got some.
Some owww-shit-owww sections got hit today. Hard.
You know that sliver of skin between your elbow bones? The one that twangs and hurts like mad when you bang it against a sadist object? The “funny bone” it’s called… Yeah. Not even close to funny. Like ridiculously not funny. When the artist was inking it, a nerve zinged all the way to my hand and made my pinkie & ring finger involuntarily twitch & jerk. This was weird. Painful & weird.
Another spot of excruciating pain: the underside of my arm, near my armpit. WOWZER. That amount of pain should be illegal. Prophetically, that’s where Niko the Prince of Torture is located. Haha, Nico. Ha. Ha.
Joe laying in the background rhythm with a Sharpie.
More Sharpie
And some purple going in.
Also, green.
Partway through. The background will mimic the “aether” that powers the Phreak Show.
“Just rest your arm up and over like this.”
NON-FUNNY BONE PAIN OF DEATH OWWW OWWW CRAP OWWW
At one point, after 2 hours of suckfest pain, my whole body was shaking. I tried to stop it, but it was doing that thing like when you’re shivering from the cold and can’t stop. I’m pretty sure my body was protesting, as loudly as it knew how, for me to stop traumatizing it in such an evil manner.
Joe, my tat artist, ripped the needles through my skin. “You sick of me yet?”
“Can’t.talk,” I squeezed through my chattering teeth. “Too.busy.screaming.inside.”
He laughed. I cried. (Almost). I tried to ascend to my happy place & soldiered on. Like a trooper and whatnot. I’d come too far to quit partway through the final tattoo. Even though it hurt like infiinte hell. <—possible exaggeration. Eventually, Joe stopped hammering my tender, Irish flesh. I shook off the grog & stood on quaking legs to check out his handiwork.
One final-final session is scheduled for May just to make sure everything looks crisp & ~finished~ after a few months. Perfection, ya know? That last-pass edit of compulsive tweaking. But it’s close enough to call this the final draft.
Phreak Show is officially a “manuscript” and not a “book” at this point. Still, being the hopeful chap that I am, I may have already imagined myself at a signing, modeling the sleeve, readers hunting down their favorites on my arm, agreeing with the image or explaining how they pictured the characters differently.
Silly, right? Maybe narcissistic like, “Oh, hey, yeah, check out my rad tats!” Idk. Yeah. Whatevs. I’m cool with that.
The concept, the characters, the finished story, a phenomenal agent for said story—even the sleeve itself—all started off as dreams. And those dreams, after much patience and owww-shit-owww pain, all came to pass.
And, optimistic, tatted writer-boy that I am, I know the day will come when I roll up my shirt sleeve with a smile to reveal the sleeve underneath.
“Oh yeah! I’d love to a pose for a pic with you, dear reader. But first, let’s put this temporary tat of Twiggy on you. Where do you want her?”
Whittling Down To The Beautiful
My partner and I run a business together: buying & selling antiques, doing shows, Ebay, repairing old pieces, creating new designs from vintage/antique components. Part of this process is the old “Buy Low, Sell High” tactic. So we hit auctions, thrift stores, Craigslist, junk shops, and antique stores. We scoop up anything with potential, flip the ready-to-go pieces as quickly as possible, and slowly work on the pieces that need TLC or creative reworking.
The needy pieces are less expensive, of course, and we always have more plans than time. (Sound familiar?) So, the easy pieces sell quickly, and the time-suck ones tend to pile up.
About 2 months ago, we decided it was time for a purge. We wanted to move to another location, get a fresh start. Opportunities arose, and as daunting as the overwhelming task seemed, we lunged at them.
Now, this meant a few things:
– Downsizing from an 8,000 sq ft building with our loft, storefront, storage & workshop to an adorable 1000 sq ft house
– Decision-making on what to let go vs. what to keep
– Re-imagining our lives with these changes in mind
Our action plan, at its root, challenged us to decide what things were most valuable and to let the rest go. Sounds simple, right? But this wasn’t just about ~things~. It also included our hopes, dreams, emotions, attachments. The decision rippled through every aspect of our lives: relationships, family, friends, finances, location, business, etc, etc…
Some choices hurt. We mourned the potential of soon-to-be-lost things. But we knew to get to our end goal, we had to be merciless.
[Roll over each pic for a caption.]
Pre-auction – Front Storage
Pre-auction – Back Storage & Workshop
Pre-auction – Back Storage & Workshop
Pre-Auction – Starting to organize the goods
Pre-Auction – Starting to organize the goods
Pre-Auction – Starting to organize the goods
Pre-Auction – Starting to organize the goods
Auction Day – Almost starting time
Auction Day
Auction Day – Folks looking for goodies (like we’ve done 100x before)
Auction Day (And our friend, Moose, stealing a donut)
Auction Day – Let the games begin
Auction Day – Auctioneer 1 of 3 gets things started outside
Auction Day – Auctioneer 2 of 3 running his ring
Auction Day – Bidders crammed around the “bag lots” in the 3-ring circus
Post-Auction – Purge complete & the space cleared out
Post-Auction – So empty…
Post-Auction – Shit. We had floors all along?
New Space! My “Writing Alchemy Lab” ready for designing.
Writing Alchemy Lab – Need a background for the beautiful things
Writing Alchemy Lab – All the painting
Writing Alchemy Lab – Backdrop complete
Writing Alchemy Lab – Time to organize the lovely things
Writing Alchemy Lab – Surrounded by inspiring things that I love
Writing Alchemy Lab – Victorian taxidermied owl, an old radio i gutted & turned into hidden storage
Writing Alchemy Lab – More cool, inspiring things, which survived THE GREAT PURGE
Writing Alchemy Lab – This place…I can create in here…
Writing Alchemy Lab – One of my favorite things in all the world: Horse-hair Raku
Focal wall in our living room. Gorgeous things that make us happy.
So here we are, on the other side. Feels.so.damn.good.
Yes, this is a story specific to me, but not solely. ALL you readers are insanely intelligent. You’re boss at drawing analogies, reading words someone else wrote & drawing personal significance from them. I encourage you to do that.
Maybe for you, this post is about a change or move or purge you need to make in your own life. Maybe it applies to the fear of the draft looming in front of you or the scary-ass revisions staring you in the face. Maybe it’s a bit of inspiration for redesigning your life (or just your creative space) by sifting ALL THE THINGS down to the beautiful.
It’s tough. It hurts. It’s hard work.
It’s worth it.
Inside the Fish Bowl Castle
glug glug
Change.
That’s the reason I’ve been silent on this blog for a bit.
Plenty has been going on in my life. Major things, positive things. But a lot of it is of a personal nature—things best shared over warm cups of coffee, or around a crackling fire pit, but not so much in a public forum. You know, the richness of life which requires conversation, eye contact, Q&A, backstory, body language, and laughter-spiked discussion.
I’m in a period of a hella lot of transition.
And while I know I should (right?) be blogging & keeping my presence here active, that simply can’t happen. Because life. Because sometimes we have to pull back, keep parts of ourselves for ourselves, and curate what we let others see.
I felt a little guilty about it at first—not sharing. I felt like I wasn’t following the rules of posting regularly & keeping my blog active—all those sorts of things we hear over and over. I even worried that this absence would hinder my goals as a writer by not having a structured, frequently updated place for folks to come check me out & whatnot.
I could have forced myself to post things. But, with the real stuff being my true focus behind-the-scenes, I also knew any posts would only be placeholders lacking genuine passion or insight. That, I realized, would just be a waste.
So I did what I needed to do. For me. As an actual person who (surprise!) also lives an existence filled with non-writerly, person-like things.
And I guess that’s the point of this post. Writers, like everyone else, are actual people with families, and friends, and lives, and problems, and celebrations, and times of transitions and change. Yes, we need that sacred “online presence” so agents and editors can see who we are outside of our polished words. But we also need to breathe & focus on the other important things in our lives.
Living in a fish bowl is an interesting thing. Strangers watch us swim. They make judgments based on only what they see. Of course, we do it to strangers, too.
Every now and then, we need to tuck in our fins and shimmy into the privacy of our little underwater castles.
I expect to be in mine for the next month as the culmination of all this personal change is happening. I’ll keep poking my fishy head out on Twitter, etc. I don’t feel guilty or worried about it anymore. This is what I need for me at this time. It’s the right thing to do.
So I should end with a moral-of-the-story or an actionable item, right? Isn’t that a rule? Okay. I’ll totally try.
Slip into your castle when you need to. The outside world will be there when you get back. A bit of respite won’t ruin everything you’ve worked for. It won’t hurt your momentum towards your professional goals. In fact, taking time to take care of yourself is probably the absolute best thing you can do.
*does cool stuff inside castle, where you can’t see. neener neener*
If you find this invisible ink, you deserve a peek into my castle window. My beau and I are liquidating our antiques business, leaving our loft/workshop/storefront behind, and moving into a cute, little house a few towns over. A separate, 20-year relationship is making its final transition—which feels like a mix of freedom and loss, but is positive overall. And I’m doing an experimental writing thing, using a Twitter account run by the M.C. of a fun, ridiculously long titled idea for my next book. Plus other things. neener neener again.
Fool-Proof Anti-Distraction Plan
Not that anyone ever gets distracted by electronics, social media, obsessive phone checking, tumbling down research rabbit holes, etc…
But—just in case—Miranda July has a creative suggestion for how to overcome these distractions & be productive.
http://www.nowness.com/day/2011/7/26/1533/miranda-july-the-future
My Deepest Motivation for Writing: A Confession
I, like all authors, write for many reasons.
A short list:
– I can’t not write
– Words and ideas are fun to play with
– Share a story that must be told
– Give life to characters who deserve to live
– An outward expression of inner struggles
– Provoke thought
– Create beauty & wonder
– Elicit emotions key to what makes humans human
– Make a space for dialogue on certain themes and topics
– Forge a connection—and maybe hit a soft spot—with readers
– [This list could go on forever]
All these reasons are a mix of selfish desire/need on the part of the writer, and a more benevolent desire/need to create a gift for others. At least, that’s my belief. With the amount of heart, time, energy, and life given to the art of writing, I can’t see how there can truly be any other marriage of motivations.
Beyond all this, in a personal confession, there is a more vulnerable and quiet reason why I write. This reason burns beneath all the other motivations. It’s the white-hot core that fuels and feeds the others.
I guess I’m confessing this because it is truth, because I recognize it, and because it offers a glimpse of the one behind he words.
The deepest motivation behind my desire to write:
To re-imagine my own narrative of identity and belonging.
I could deny it. I could (try to) hide it. But I really don’t know what that would accomplish? And, in the end, it feels like a good thing to know our truest motivation, embrace the hell out of it, and let it thrive.
Beneath all the others, I’m guessing we each have a core motivation.
Do you know yours?
Feedback Leads To Lovers
IF FOUND, RETURN TO ASTROPOP – Fan art by Crystal Smalls Ord
Feedback comes in many forms.
From a “ZOMG! Take my money! I want to buy that right NOW!” spurred by a one-sentence pitch, to a meh or shrug or turned-up nose of disinterest, to a gushing Tweet, to comments from a CP saying, “Yeah, something’s totally broken in this section… What if you…” or “WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME CRY RIGHT NOW, LUCAS?!”. And a million shades in between.
Even silence is feedback.
Obviously, praise feels good. (Thanks, Cpt Obvious.) ((You’re welcome!)) Some readers heap it on. It’s who they are, in their nature. And thank the gods these readers swoop in to rub a little balm on the inevitable burns. Other readers are boss at finding tiny inconsistencies between something mentioned briefly on page 7 and then again in chapter 28. Some focus on big picture stuff, or characterization, or plot threads, or every.single.missing.comma, or dialogue, or a name that changes spelling partway through, or the lovey-dovey parts.
All of these amazingly varied types of feedback are helpful, needed, and appreciated.
Individually, they’re golden. Together, they help transform a manuscript into a book.
This feedback leads to lovers.
And, yes, sometimes, a feedback-giver doesn’t “get it”. Your voice, style, rhythm, a character. Your words are simply not their thang. Or they have a tough time divorcing their own style from yours and try to insert their personal quirks, voice, and preferences. And (Okay! Fine, I’ll take one for the team and say it out loud! Because a lot of times it’s something we feel like we shouldn’t say. Out of fear of sounding wounded, or thinking too highly of our own words, or because we’re big, fat, fearful chickens.) every now and then, there is the unmistakable taint of jealousy and/or bitterness.
That’s okay, too.
Because, in the end, the writer must weigh every bit of feedback. We make decisions. We place value on each suggestion. We pop them on the scale of our vision for our story and see which way it tips. “Shit, that hurts, like mad, but I need it” or “Okay, yeah, that’s not useful” or “Hmmm…interesting…good point” and the coveted “YES OMG PERFECT SUGGESTION THIS PERSON IS BASICALLY A GENIUS”.
As long as we’re not stubborn jerks, as long as we’re open to learn and bend and stretch, each suggestion (and our resulting decision) helps our story grow stronger.
That’s the ultimate point of feedback, right? Not to have people gush for gushing’s sake, but because the story resonates. Not to stroke our egos, but to kick us in the nearsighted ass and make us see things we’re myopic about.
If our end goal is for our words to make it into the great big world, that goal begins with an idea. That idea becomes a manuscript, which becomes a book. That can be an amazing book or a sorry-excuse for one. The difference, I believe, happens through the process of seeking, receiving, weighing, and incorporating feedback.
Think about how magical this is: We can actually transform the raw material of feedback into gold.
We’re like a team of alchemists and shit.
Feedback into gold.
Books into feelings.
Strangers into lovers.
Improvement. Solidity. Marketability. Beauty. Resonance.
Those are the things which will help our stories make it beyond behind-the-scenes-readers to the great big world. And that great big world contains the same mix of disinterest, haters, and passionate lovers.
Feedback is, I truly believe, the path that leads us to those future, passionate lovers.
—
Sometimes, in addition to feedback-in-words, there’s even feedback-in-images. (Ahhhh!)
The AMAZING illustration opening this post is fan art that If Found, Return To Astropop inspired in a reader. That reader, who is also a writer and illustrator, is the phenomenal Crystal Smalls Ord. I can’t really share much of Astro with you lovelies quite yet, but I’m thrilled to be able to share Smalls’s interpretation.
(She made sure I pointed out that the image only exists because Astro & Pip’s story inspired her that much. :: blushes profusely ::)
If you dig it, let Smalls know, check out her other work, and show her some love.
Twitter: @SmallsOrd
Tumblr: http://smallsord.tumblr.com/
Deviant Art: http://csmalls.daportfolio.com/
Poetry: Unending
INFINITY
Circles, they say, exist with no beginning or end.
They swing around and again, tracing their own pasts.
As does every shape, I think,
Only some hang hard-lefts, or hard-rights, at sharp angles.
Triangles endure whiplash pain.
Squares rush to full-stops, to change direction.
Growing more sides, more corners, with each pass.
With a less-jarring now.
History overwritten by every orbit.
New points, fresh curves, smoothing old hairpins.
Triangles become squares, which swell into circles
Past, present, future, looping in rhythm of elegant curves.
Some say.
ETERNITY
(Wrap your arms, parenthetically, around me,
our breathing, for a moment, an aside,
enclosed, a separate thought,
within the pause of us thrumming against the silence,
and your lashes,
oh, the life and death of me, perfect commas of lashes,
splicing,
closing, opening,
extending, delaying,
the end of our sentence, so it runs on, and on, and on.)
IMMORTALITY
I’ve spent a lifetime loving poets
who
pine and rejoice
love and wonder
savor and yearn.
One in particular knows
me
through and through.
The poet’s name is Long Forgotten
unlike the words.
Goldilocks On Editing: Eat From All 3 Bowls
Not-Goldilocks says: AFTER DRAFTING, WAIT BEFORE YOU EDIT OR THE UNIVERSE WILL RIP APART AND YOU’LL RUIN EVERYTHING IN ALL OF EXISTENCE EVER AND YOUR EDITS WILL SUCK AND THAT WILL BE TRAGIC [ALSO UNIVERSALLY DESTRUCTIVE WHICH ISN’T EVEN FAIR TO ALL OF EVERYTHING] AND JUST WAIT DAMN IT WAIT.
^You’ve heard that, yes? [Maybe in a less hyperbolic manner…] We writers should not edit our first drafts right away. We’re too close to them. The words and ideas are too fresh. We need to let them rest / chill / simmer / mellow / fester / [insert similar passive verb here].
This, like all advice, is subjective. And, well, it is advice, but it is not law.
In a similarly subjective manner, I’d like to toss my Goldilocks-esque thoughts in the opinion pool. [Because, honestly, all “advice” is opinion. My opinion can sink or swim. I don’t mind either way. Because the Universe will continue to do its thang, regardless.]
Check this: You can edit as soon as you type/write the very last period of your first draft.
I call this “Hot” editing. I’m a believer in hot edits: hitting the words right away, while the draft is still searing hot. [My reasoning is down in the convo which follows.] I’m also a believer in “Cold” edits: at some point, once my brain and heart and soul feel it’s time to back away, I back.the.hell.away, and let my manuscript do one of those resting-verb thingies.
Some folks might need a few weeks or 6 months or eons before touching that first draft ever again. Cool. Awesome. Do only that cold thing, then.
Some folks are itching under their skin and will basically die and/or implode if they don’t dive into edits right away. Cool. Awesome. Do that hot thing, then.
This post was triggered by a convo in an online writer’s group, the #4evnos. In this little corner of the
e x p a n s i v e Writing Universe, this is what we discovered:
Crystal Ord: Curious…how long do you guys wait before jumping into edits/revisions of a first draft? I have vowed to give it a couple weeks but I already have the itchy keyboard fingers.
AJ Pine: Welp, because I’m on deadline, I finished drafting Sunday and started editing Tuesday. 😉
Lex Martin: Yeah, it depends on other deadlines for sure. But if you have the motivation to do it now, that’s a definite bonus.
Katie Bailey: For me, it depends on the project. Often enough, I’ll do it right away, but I do have one that I’ve pushed off editing simply because I’m working my way through other manuscripts and I don’t know what it means to take a break. I mean, what?
Brighton Walsh: I’ve always done them immediately, with just a day or two off in between.
Lucas Hargis: I know some folks give the advice of: “Let it sit.” I jump in right away. Here’s my reasoning: The voice and events at the end are still fresh in my mind. Wrapping around back to the beginning with those still burning bright-white helps create a beautiful continuity. So the voice and echo of the ending can be successfully edited in the beginning. In my opinion. Sure, I step away & let it sit/breathe/mellow later. But not until a full pass or two. Or three…
Crystal Ord: Well, this all makes me feel better then. I might just jump right back into it. I’ve always heard about writers letting a manuscript rest so they can come back to it with fresh eyes…I never normally do this but thought I’d give it a try…it’s torture, haha!
Lucas Hargis: I believe some precious value is lost with a waiting period.
Allison Varnes: Last summer, I made a full pass edit after finishing the draft, sat on it for two weeks, and then made myself do it again. And again. 🙂
Crystal Ord: I just hear SO much about coming back to it later that I was starting to think I’ve been doing things all wrong!
Lucas Hargis: Maybe those folks mean “at some point” step away and let it air out?
BA Wilson Writes: I jump back in almost immediately for a full pass, because by the end, I haven’t seen the beginning in awhile. Then, like Lucas said, everything is still fresh. . . . However, I’m that compulsive type of editor/rewriter, so it will go through a few rounds before I even let anyone else look at it. When I start feeling too on top of it and second-guessing everything I’m doing, then I step away from editing for awhile and take a break.
Lucas Hargis: We share the same process, BA.
Crystal Ord: Yep, that sounds about right, BA. 🙂 That is exactly what I like to do!
AJ Pine: That’s the thing. There is no right or wrong when it comes to the process. Correct answer is always what works best for you. #peptalksbyamy
KK Hendin: I go right from drafting to editing. I don’t reread while I’m drafting so edits are kind of a blank slate, in that I don’t remember everything. Then I edit until I hate it and then send it to CPs and repeat until it’s done.
Katie Bailey: Normally, I edit as I go. It makes for a longer writing process, but the technical editing stage isn’t as intense. On the whole, I’ll often edit a manuscript right away once I’ve finished. I can distance myself enough to see if everything makes sense, but I’m still in the zone. There’s only once I really waited on going back to edit, but that was because I had another manuscript that I needed to work on and I was pressed for time.
Olivia Hinebaugh: Umm. A few days? As long as it takes to binge watch something on Netflix and read a good book.
Lucas Hargis: So you DO put a little space/time between yourself & the new words, Olivia Hinebaugh?
Olivia Hinebaugh: I mean, a bit. I like to go in and slash pretty early. 😉 Because slashing is always the first since I don’t know where the plot is going to go when I start writing. haha. #pantser
Olivia Hinebaugh: One more thing to add: normally when I’m finishing a draft and I’m in beast mode, I am denying myself reading and watching anything, so when I finish drafting, all I want to do is pick back up with the old TBR pile.
BA Wilson Writes: The only reason I pause at all at the end of a novel is to drown in all the epic feels for a moment (usually the rest of the night). Then I buckle down and start the first edit the next day.
Brighton Walsh: Okay, so I write and edit almost immediately. Those are grammar and content edits, polish it as good as I can, send off to CPs/betas and do it all over again before I finally let it sit for maybe a week or two and then read it from start to finish one last time.
Natasha Neagle: Haha. I waited 6 LONG, painful days.
So those are thoughts from 11 #4evno writers [in the almost infinite population of the Writing Universe]. None of it is law.
We hear and read stuff like “advice”, and, wanting to do the very best we possibly can, we sometimes trick ourselves into believing somebody else’s process is Universal Law. [See opening statement.] Eff that. Do you.
Edit hot. Or edit cold. Or do both. Or make up your own temperature that’s basically anti-matter that would negate everybody else’s. You can do that.
The key, I believe, is to test out a few methods. Read about others’ processes, but don’t let those opinions stifle your very own unique way of doing things.
Find your Goldilocks method—the one that’s jussssst riiiiight for you.
I promise, the Universe won’t explode. Probably.
—
Much love to the #4evnos for ongoing encouragement, discussion, laughter, STICKERS, and agreeing to let me share their words here. You can find every last one of them on ol’ Twitter. Say hi.
And a simple Google search turned up a dozen other convos very similar to this one. Some folks preach cold-edits-only as LAW. Meh. What about you? What’s YOUR specific & unique editing preference? Which bowl(s) do you go for?
My 10 Year Old Downloaded Grindr
I love everything about this.
“This app is taking forever to load,” my 10-year-old son Chase said as I was driving. It was just the two of us in the car and he was fiddling with his iPhone*.
“What app is it?” I asked. He isn’t supposed to download anything unless he has our permission.
“It’s called Grindr,” he said. I nearly crashed the car.
“You can’t download that,” I said quickly, full of panic and resisting the urge to reach over and snatch the phone out of his hands. I was certain the app would load faster than any app has loaded in the history of all apps and his profile would be automatically complete and naked selfies of men would flood his phone and his brain.
“I can download it; it’s just taking forever,” he said.
“No. I mean you aren’t allowed to download it. I’m saying no. You’re not old enough…
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LUCAS HARGIS 