Joseph Grammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "writer-s-block"
Two-Face
My book is getting out of hand. I love the thing, but I wanted to end it months ago. I already wrote one version of the novel over the summer of 2013, finishing on my birthday (Sept 24). I racked up 75,000 words, then scrapped the entire project and redid it from scratch, with new characters and a new plot. Sounds like some fear of completion stuff if you ask me (Moby Dick: "God keep me from ever completing anything.").
Both versions are about Okinawa, but the first one was a lot more personal. It was also more magical realist in nature, since it involved things like ghosts and mythical demons (specifically, the tengu). The core of the novel dealt with suicide.
Then, after my latest birthday, I decided this story was crap and rehashed everything after watching Fargo for the first time. It's a cool movie.
I changed from first person to third-person omniscient, expanded my cast of characters, and took out anything supernatural. I also wrote an outline, which for me is like running eight consecutive marathons in uphill terrain, without any GU energy gel (they don't pay me to say this, I swear, it's just a funny name to me).
I love my new characters. They're broken, and weird, and groping for dumb slivers of knowledge. I love my old characters too, but they seem to belong to a different Joe. I'm worried about fucking up both books, although I only want to publish one.
In my new novel I'm up to 78,000 words. I'm afraid of finishing the story, but I'm more afraid of procrastinating forever. Writing a book for me has been like hugging a dog really, really tightly for a year straight--sometimes it's the absolute definition of joy, and sometimes you just want to take a shower and wash off all the drool and, well, talk to humans.
At some point I was terrified that I had wasted months of my life by investing in this new story, and that the old one was far superior. Reading over the early pages, I found passages I actually liked. At the time, I was sick of working on the new plot, and sure that I had bitten off more than I could chew. Should I go back to the first draft? I wondered.
In some ways the old novel is better than my current one. That was hard to understand and harder to accept. But too bad. I'm working on 2.0, and that's the way it's going to stay.
Of course, I could freak out at the very end and flip a coin to determine which version I should present to the world: magical realist roman a clef, or planned, post-modern adventure. But at this point I just have to keep going. Write, edit, drink coffee. Coins aren't going to do shit for me.
Both versions are about Okinawa, but the first one was a lot more personal. It was also more magical realist in nature, since it involved things like ghosts and mythical demons (specifically, the tengu). The core of the novel dealt with suicide.
Then, after my latest birthday, I decided this story was crap and rehashed everything after watching Fargo for the first time. It's a cool movie.
I changed from first person to third-person omniscient, expanded my cast of characters, and took out anything supernatural. I also wrote an outline, which for me is like running eight consecutive marathons in uphill terrain, without any GU energy gel (they don't pay me to say this, I swear, it's just a funny name to me).
I love my new characters. They're broken, and weird, and groping for dumb slivers of knowledge. I love my old characters too, but they seem to belong to a different Joe. I'm worried about fucking up both books, although I only want to publish one.
In my new novel I'm up to 78,000 words. I'm afraid of finishing the story, but I'm more afraid of procrastinating forever. Writing a book for me has been like hugging a dog really, really tightly for a year straight--sometimes it's the absolute definition of joy, and sometimes you just want to take a shower and wash off all the drool and, well, talk to humans.
At some point I was terrified that I had wasted months of my life by investing in this new story, and that the old one was far superior. Reading over the early pages, I found passages I actually liked. At the time, I was sick of working on the new plot, and sure that I had bitten off more than I could chew. Should I go back to the first draft? I wondered.
In some ways the old novel is better than my current one. That was hard to understand and harder to accept. But too bad. I'm working on 2.0, and that's the way it's going to stay.
Of course, I could freak out at the very end and flip a coin to determine which version I should present to the world: magical realist roman a clef, or planned, post-modern adventure. But at this point I just have to keep going. Write, edit, drink coffee. Coins aren't going to do shit for me.
Mush: A Memoir
My brain feels like an orca whale is belly-flopping on top of it. Inertia is the word, and it's difficult to break through its dumb, invisible bricks.
The air pressure has a lot to do with the stuffiness inside my skull, but I can't control the air pressure (Oh, hi, Storm.)
I'm sending out letters to agents, but I don't care enough to make them good. Why not? It's my life's passion to sell a book and write professionally.
Maybe I can blame the mush, but I really shouldn't. There will always be something stopping me from reaching out to humans, whether in the professional sphere or in my personal life. I just have to drink water, or push my head into a wall real hard, or leave the apartment. Stupid logic. Why can't I disintegrate in bed instead? It'd be easier, if a great deal less rewarding.
Whine, whine, whine. Go write you idiot. Be outside.
Sing it, Ziggy.
