Challenges

It’s interesting to me how much more challenging it is to work within limits.

Back when I was in high school, I never minded getting essay assignments that had to be at least a certain length. It was never any problem for me to fill out the minimum word count. It’s not that I deliberately padded my papers. My first writing teacher told me I sounded like a nineteenth-century essayist. That’s still true sometimes. I tend to the florid and verbose, and unless I am ruthlessly self-editing I am relentlessly parenthetical.

But when I got to college I started getting assignments with a maximum word count. And my professor was very strict about that – if she said 1,000 words, she meant not one syllable more than 1,000 words. You could lose a letter grade by going over. That nearly drove me crazy.

It forced me to do a lot of editing. I learned to make one word do the work I’d split over several before. I learned to be concise and exact. It was like pulling my own teeth with rusty pliers, but it was worth it. I’m a better writer for learning how to keep it short.

Writing commissioned stories is another challenge. Not only is there the same “keep it under a certain length” challenge and the same “keep it on a set topic” challenge, there’s also the “add these elements” challenge. One of the toughest recently involved writing a 1500-word science fiction story about someone saving the world without knowing it: something Heinlein-ish with robots and the client’s father in it, and it needs to say something about politics or society.

Also I had to juggle three oranges, a chainsaw, and Scarlett Johansson while writing it. And chew gum! Can you imagine? (Okay, I made that up. I didn’t have to chew gum. And there was no mention of juggling fruit, power tools, or actresses. Which is just as well, since I’d have dropped the oranges and the chainsaw for sure.)

I think I managed all but the Heinlein-ish part. And the client was very happy. But it was very tough to come up with a workable idea that could incorporate all that in such a small space. I wasn’t at all sure I could do it, but my Muse came through for me in her usual oblique way – it’s quite a distance from where this story started to where it wound up, both in style and in content. If I didn’t know where it started out, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to guess.

Anyway, it’s good to stretch myself. It’s good to see how I can fill a particular space with my own stuff, even a space I’d never have thought to occupy.

A Nice Problem to Have

I’m discovering today that there’s a drawback to writing commissioned fiction: you can wind up writing something you’d really like to keep for yourself and publish elsewhere. I’m working on a story right now that I think will very much please the person paying for it, and that I think is one of the better stories I’ve ever written. And I would love to submit it somewhere for publication, but since it’s already promised to someone who’s paid good money for a story of their very own, I can’t.

On the plus side, it’s practice for doing more of “my own” work. And it’s not as if I have any shortage of ideas to work with. So there’s that.

Anyway, back to the ink mines!

My Muse Needs A Watch

It’s 3 AM. My neighbors are arguing loudly somewhere nearby. While I’m trying to get back to sleep, I start thinking about the story I was working on last night.

And at that point it’s all over. Ninety minutes later I’m still up. I’ve added branch after branch to my idea map.

I’m excited about the story. That’s always fun for me. I’ve been toying with this story for a couple of years: mostly it was a tone, a character, some vivid images, and a few vague but cool ideas. I didn’t have the right angle to make it all coalesce. I think I do now, which is why the ideas are coming fast and furious.

This is worse than Civilization.

What Hannibal Said

I love it when an idea comes to mind and just falls out onto the page as fast as my little fingers can fly. I love the flow, the sense that I’m not so much creating as transcribing something already fully-formed. I love the exuberance, the sure-footed nimble certainty as I jump from one part to the next.

Yes, I have to go back and edit it later. I like to make sense sometimes. And my Muse may not always give me her best stuff the first time around. But the first kiss isn’t about technique – it’s about touching, about connecting, about making that first tenuous moment into something bigger and beautiful. It’s vulnerability and tenderness.

And that’s what this is like: every story is a new relationship, someone special to meet and know. I’ve met someone this afternoon, and I’m having fun getting to know her on her terms.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Enjoy your Sunday, friends.

On the Road Again

My Muse takes me to some very odd places.

Today I started working on a story that started with a single line that came to me out of the blue:

The wind stole through the trees like a thief, snatching heat to dash down the mountain.

I wasn’t sure where that would go – I just had an image of a man trudging tiredly through the woods on a snowy mountainside. At first I thought it would just be a short little story about a tired, lonely man. But there was something more to him. There’s a reason why he lives alone in that remote place. He has a rather strange and disturbing story to tell, and while I enjoy it I’m a little surprised at the strange turn it took.

There’s been a little mental typo that’s been bugging me like a broken tooth, and tonight it turned into a ridiculous little joke. It’s the lost Beckett sci-fi work called Waiting for Gobot – two bums named Vladimir and Estrogen wait for the city’s transportation droid, only it never comes because there’s no God. I know, it’s ridiculous.

See? Odd. She’s an odd duck. I love the silly and the surreal and the sublime. I don’t see any kind of contradiction there – no low-culture/high culture tension here. If I’m not mistaken, Shakespeare’s plays were much like the comic books of their day. Nothing succeeds like success, right? Time heals all wounds, “gnaws iron, bites steel;/Grinds hard stones to meal”, and raises mountains from molehills.

Lately I picture my Muse like Neil Gaiman’s Death, who kind of reminds me of a Goth version of my last girlfriend. (This is probably not a coincidence.) My Muse is smart, funny, twisted, generous, and someone you do NOT want to piss off.  So I let her drive. I suggest alternate routes and destinations. She smiles and laughs. Silly mortal!

She takes the back roads and barely-paved paths at autobahn speeds, as swift and sure as the wind in the arrow’s feathers. Sometimes I’m holding on for dear life, sure we’ll wind up wrapped around a tree or at the bottom of a dark ravine. Mostly I’m giggling with mad glee. When it clicks, when I let her drive and take me where she wants to go, there’s nothing more magical. I live for those moments.

She doesn’t do all the work, obviously. It’s up to me to “break open a bone “and find something meaningful to put into what she gives me. She’s a little old-school with her demand for sacrifice. I’m okay with that. And she’s okay with me having a little fun. That’s why we’ve been friends so long.