Category: Words Out

Value of Workshopping

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Many writers swear by the value of workshopping. Some enjoy the social aspect, some need others to help them assess their own stories, and some find that casting an editorial eye upon the works of others helps them understand flaws of style or narrative, and spot them.

Others say writing is a solitary pursuit and that if you can’t figure out what’s wrong with your own work, nobody else is going to fix it for you. They point out you could run a re-named Hemingway story through most workshops and get all manner of fatuous complaints and suggestions about what the story clearly lacked.

I see something in both sides of the argument. Generally I’ve worked alone, and asked only my wife’s opinion between my stories’ many revisions. At times, though, I’ve sought the opinions of others. I attended a Writers Weekend up in Moclips, Washington last summer. In February I took part in an online “intensive workshop” through The Cult forums (offshoot of Chuck Palahniuk’s web site), and since the end of that intensive I’ve posted a few stories on the Cult forum member area for online critique, and critiqued many stories by other writers.

Maybe the biggest benefit has come from reading the works of others and helping to pinpoint flaws. I feel this has really sharpened my editorial eye, which helps me better assess my own work. If I read a story with a clear-cut need for better-defined motivation for the protagonist and express this to the writer, I find that afterward I’m better able to spot similar flaws in my own stories.

The most useful thing, though, is using other writers as a barometer to judge my own writing. It’s pretty hard to gauge one’s own progress by a string of form rejections. The rejections of a clueless unskilled beginning look much the same as the rejections of someone who’s almost there, just one lucky “right place, right time” submission away from getting into print.

The encouragement and validation of my fellow writers, particularly those whose work I respect, has been a big boost to my confidence. I suppose once I’m past the publication barrier, this aspect will be less valuable. I’ll have the ultimate validation of editors, in that they’ve selected my story to publish. For now, though, this is the aspect of workshopping I’ve found most useful.

The Good and Bad Sides of Improvement

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In the past six months, and especially in the past two or three, my writing has jumped ahead several notches. I think this is less a matter of becoming better or more fluent at putting words on the page, and more a matter of improving my critical eye’s ability to perceive my own work. That is, I’m able to see more clearly what’s working and what’s not, and what needs to be changed in order to execute on the page the idea that exists in my head.

This is a good thing in most ways. The new stories I begin are much better than what I’ve written before, and I’ve been able to make significant changes and improvements to “stuck” stories that I’ve had in progress for a while.

If there’s a downside, it’s that every time I take another look at an earlier story I’d considered “finished,” I find so many things I want to change that I’m afraid to reopen old stories for fear of never getting anything done on new ones.

I do realize this is a good problem to have. I’m getting better. I’m sharpening the skills that will make more stories more effective and help get them out into the world. But I’m really not sure what to do about this. Do I pull all my earlier stories out of circulation and trunk them until I have time to go over them again? Do I keep sending them out, even knowing that I could probably improve them now, and certainly could do a better job writing the story from scratch if I just started over?

I’ve probably (OK, definitely) already wasted too much time in the past six months re-working old, flawed stories. The effort hasn’t been entirely wasted, because I’ve learned a lot about the mechanics of a broken story. I’m better at spotting a story with a protagonist who coasts through without risk or real motivation, or a front-loaded plot that just trails off. Part of this recently learning experience is because of all that “wasted” time. Sometimes I think, though, that once I’ve diagnosed the problem, I might be better off just starting a new story than trying to figure out a way to retrofit the current set of characters, settings and actions into something more suitable.

One thing that really does bother me is that I’ve been very good about immediately re-submitting rejected stories without second-guessing them, delaying, or looking for reasons not to send them out again. I think that’s a good trait to have, and I kind of wish I could shut off this sense I have that it might be better to reel these ten or so finished pieces back in and rework all of them.

Not exactly looking for answers here, just venting a little.

200 Proof Storytelling, Weeks 3-4

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I’m always busy and over-scheduled, so time always flies by, but since the beginning of February I’ve been extra busy due to the online writing workshop I mentioned in my last post here. I won’t recap what it was all about, so just read the prior post if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

High Desert, Starless Sky

In weeks 1-2 I derived quite a bit from the lectures and used the assignments to write the first two scenes of a quiet but horrific post-apocalypze story which I’m just now finishing up. The first two scenes were the first half of the story, roughly, and I received some good feedback and felt very motivated to work on finishing the story even while I was busy with the next two weeks of lessons, assignments and critiques.

Invisible Mystic and the Alien-in-a-Jar

Speaking of those, for week 3 I started an entirely new story. Due to the nature of the assignment it didn’t seem like a great “fit” for writing the next part of the earlier story, so I started a new story about a traveling freakshow that is unusual even by the standards of traveling freakshows. Again I received very nice feedback and I’m using that momentum to finish up that story this week.

Devotion

The week 4 assignment involved revising, and while most of the other participants in the workshop just revised what they had written earlier in the workshop, I went back to the last story I’d drafted just prior to the workshop. This piece involved a strange religious community and the feedback I received, including that from workshop leader Craig Clevenger, was extremely positive and encouraging. I’ve since polished the story to completion (not too hard since it’s only 1,300 words) and started submitting it to magazines.

By the end of the workshop I could see some other participants were discouraged and ready to give up. Four of the sixteen participants never submitted their fourth assignment, and many of us who did submit didn’t receive critiques from all members of our groups. I actually felt more motivated and energized by the process, despite the fatigue and hard work. Writing is usually such solitary work. It can be easy to find yourself in an endless, lonely feedback loop of “write story, submit story, get story repeatedly rejected.” This was a nice change and a boost to my confidence and skill level. I enjoyed both the challenges that took me out of my comfort zone (and I believe that’s the only way one can grow), and also the positive feedback about my writing.

200 Proof Storytelling, Weeks 1-2

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I recently mentioned that I’d signed up for an online writing workshop led by Craig Clevenger, author of Dermaphoria and The Contortionist’s Handbook, and run through Chuck Palahniuk’s web forum, The Cult. It’s a 4-week intensive, and the info page is here, though it’s obviously too late to sign up.

I was a bit worried about this demanding too much of my time and attention, not because I’m not willing to work hard, but because I already have so many demands on my time and I was worried I might not be able to displace enough of those other things to make room for this workshop. As things turned out, I needn’t have worried. I’ve been able to keep up easily, have met all the deadlines, and I’ve put plenty of time into all the critiques I’ve written.

The way it works, in case anybody reading this might be interested in doing one of these in the future, is fairly straightforward. Each week Craig posts a “lesson” or lecture on a part of the Cult forums visible only to participants. In that lesson he talks at length, and with plenty of examples from outside text, about whatever concept is the focus of each week. In week one, the lesson used a bunch of dialog from the film Sexy Beast to make a point, and I found it instructive to watch the DVD as a supplement to the lesson. Craig answers any questions people may have about the lesson, then the next day he posts a writing assignment having to do with the subject of that week’s lesson. Participants have until the end of the week to finish the assignment and post it, and they can ask more questions along the way if they like. In addition to the lessons and assignments Craig gives the participants, and the questions we feed back to him, there’s also a fair bit of discussion and chit-chat among the students which is kind of fun. As I said, by the end of the week we post our assignments (in both cases it’s been about 1,500 words of fiction, a scene or a story fragment or whatever, utilizing the technique or approach from that week’s lesson.

We’re divided into four peer groups of four individuals each, and we have to read and critique the work of other members of our peer group. We’re also welcome to read and critique work outside our peer group, but most people seem to have kept within their group. In addition to these peer groups, for each assignment Craig chooses a selection (it appears to be two of the four peer groups, or half the participants, chosen at random) for inclusion in the “Hot Seat” where he critiques those assignments for everyone to see.

As with my last workshop experience, I’ve found at least as much value in critiquing the work of others as in receiving their suggestions. I can really see how reading slush would teach a writer to catch mistakes or shortcomings in written fiction, and it makes a lot of sense to me why fiction writers offer to read slush for various periodicals, often without compensation.

I won’t give any more “behind the curtain” details because obviously there is a charge for the workshop and it wouldn’t be fair to give away any of the content. I will say that so far I’ve received some real value from the critiques, learned a lot more from the critiques I’ve given, and above all have gained a lot of value from Craig’s suggestions just in the first two lessons. I’ll report more later, probably after the end, but so far I’d consider this to be very worthwhile. My first two assignments ended up being scene 1 and scene 2 of the same story, so if nothing else I’ve got the bulk of a story that I feel has some real strengths. As well, I’ve made some good new contacts, all kinds of people from beginners to more experienced, publication-worthy writers.

Coming Up: 200 Proof Storytelling

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Writing-wise, I’ve been churning along lately. Keeping busy, starting some new stories and revisiting some old ones. Trying to take a slightly different approach to voice and POV. Lena, my wife, has been a big help as a first reader. She’s helped me figure out where I’m accomplishing what I intended, and where I’m not. Fiction writing is always a pretty solitary pursuit and I don’t mind that, but I’ve been giving some thought to trying to engage some kind of outside connection. Maybe join an online critique group, or some kind of local workshop. As I was mulling this over, I saw an announcement for this online “intensive” workshop through Chuck Palahniuk’s web site. They’ve had a series of these 4-week or 6-week intensives, and this one is led by Craig Clevenger, author of Dermaphoria and The Contortionist’s Handbook. Craig’s wikipedia page is here for more info.

Announcement for 200 Proof Storytelling Feb 2011.

We’ll see how this goes. I’m looking forward to a bit of challenge, as I seem to do my best work under deadline, or for a contest, or within imposed restrictions. I’ll post about it here, at least a little bit, as time allows.

Keeping Busy

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I’ve been keeping busy here with lots of writing-related projects.

I entered a short fiction contest last week and used the deadline to push myself to work a bit faster than usual. One of my long-in-progress stories went through significant transformation and ended up much weirder and creepier than before. We’ll see how it does in this contest. I don’t know much about the people doing the voting, but I know the other entrants are extremely varied.

Just before the contest, I received a note from one editor that my submission had been “short listed” and would be passed along to the next threshold of editorial consideration. These here fingers are crossed.

A different editor at a different periodical liked my first submission enough to offer me a chance to rewrite it, which I did over the weekend. That editor’s suggested changes shifted the story’s focus away from a repeated series of flashbacks that were, I agree, somewhat extraneous. Whether or not that editor ends up taking the resubmission, I feel the story was made better by his suggestions so I’ll be happy either way. Of course, I’ll be happier if he takes the story!

Finally received a rejection for Q3 of Writers of the Future (June ending quarter). I was kind of worried about that submission for WOTF. That story has a significant sexual element, probably too much for that market. It’s not too intimately detailed (no genital talk, basically) so I thought it might get through. And of course, it could have been rejected for other reasons than the sex stuff. Who knows with this stuff. You don’t often get an editor saying “we’d take this story if you toned down the naked fun.” That manuscript has been stuck at WOTF for five months now… long enough that my writing has progressed since that was submitted, so I’ll probably take another look at it before sending it back out.

Otherwise my policy continues to be: resubmit all rejections by the next weekday at the latest.

Oh, another exception: I received a personal rejection note from the main fiction editor at one of the major markets, with specific comments about what he thought was wrong with another one of my stories. This kind of thing happens so rarely, as any fiction writer knows. Those of you reading this who are not writers… suffice to say 99% of rejections are form letters with no hint of an explanation). For this reason, and because the suggestions feel perceptive and accurate to me, I really do feel inclined to utilize the suggestions and do a minor re-write. Not to resubmit to the same market (the comments were not offered in that way), but just so it’ll be better for the next market. Anyway, it was only the second rejection that story had received, so there’s still hope to sharpen it up a bit and hook it up with one of the top markets.

That’s all for now. I’m getting ready for a long weekend, and enjoying summer-like weather completely uncharacteristic of November in Portland.

The New Scrivener(s)

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I’ve raved about Scrivener many times in this blog. It’s my most important writing (and outlining and organizing and revising and editing) tool. It’s always been a Mac-only piece of software, but the developer has partnered with a Windows software developer to create a Windows version. So far, the Scrivener Windows Beta is similar but not exactly the same. Close enough that the differences aren’t a problem, let’s say.

At the same time, Scrivener has released a NaNoWriMo preview edition of Scrivener 2.0 for Mac, so I’ve downloaded that too and given it a spin.

Anybody (any writer-type, I mean) who hasn’t given this application a spin now has no excuse. Check it out: Literature and Latte (Scrivener developer).

I’m mostly a Mac user but there are many times I find myself in Windows land, so I fully intend to buy a Windows license as soon as they’re offered. This is great stuff and I really believe it’s better than the similar alternatives (StoryMill and Ulysses). I bought a StoryMill license but I never use it any more.

Back To It

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I’ve been busy with music/Hypnos, my dad’s visit to Portland, writing, and all the rest of life. Funny, when I blog regularly I find it easy to keep on blogging regularly, and once I stop it’s very easy to STAY stopped. So many things are like this, especially exercise and creative activities. Running every single day is easy. Taking a week off running, and then starting to run again that first time is much harder.

I still write six days a week, exercise six days a week, work my day job five days a week, listen to tons of music, watch lots of movies with my wife, and don’t get enough sleep.

Lately I’m working on a lot of stories simultaneously, even more than usual for me, and the stories are all over the map. I’m writing an SF story about a group of robotic domestic helpers left behind by their humans on an Earth-like colony, a horror-tinged SF story about some weird stuff lurking in the bottom of a deep mine (not started in response to the major news story about miners in Chile), finishing up a dark fantasy or horror bit about a family vacationing at a lake house and coming under the influence of some local entities. I have another odd, dark bit about a married couple who retreat to a cabin out in the wilderness near Mt. Hood and begin to lose all connection to the world they left behind.

I’m also continuing heavy cuts on my two “salvage project” stories I mentioned before… mega-long stories that needed to lose 2/3 of their length before I could even assess how to turn them into something interesting. They’re down from 14,000 words to 5,500 and from 11,000 words to 5,300 so they’re getting close to where I can see what they need to be. This has been a really useful and interesting test or experiment, but I don’t know that I’d do it again. I could have easily rewritten these stories from scratch in less time, and with better result, but then again that wasn’t really the point.

I’ve got the same nine final drafts still circulating among various markets. My two longest-pending submissions are both Writers of the Future, for 2010-q3 (June-ending quarter) and q4 (Sept-ending). Jeez, sending those guys a story means keeping it from other markets for about six months, it appears. I realize they get a lot of submissions but it seems they could finish one quarter’s reading before opening it up to the next quarter… and then the one after that. They just announced q2 results, and they’re reading stories for q3, q4, and 2011 q1 (quarter ending December) all at once. Sheesh, talk about slush pile.

Reading notes…

I’m still reading Laird Barron’s Occultation, an absolutely top-notch collection. Seriously, some of the best strange/dark short fiction I can remember reading, not just recently, but ever. When I get through that last story and a half (I’m reading other stuff in parallel so it’s taking a while) I’ll write a real review.

Just finished The City & The City by China Mieville, and I’m very impressed. I knew it would be good, based on all the reviews and awards, and interviews I’ve read with the author. I can tell he’s just a super-sharp guy and I’ve owned copies of several of his books for a while and intended to get to them… but finally dived into one of his newest. Before I move on to Kraken I’ll probably jump back to Perdido Street Station since that’s been on the “must read soon” list since, you know, a really long time ago.

Lessee, I think I mentioned finishing Old Man’s War, which was really good, and not as lightweight or pastiche-y as I expected. I’m on to Charles Stross’s Singularity Sky, which is fully of SF-nal goodness, and pretty well written, though at times a little too heavy on the political & military detail. I’m not far into it so I’ll reserve judgement.

I did mean to blog a bit more about the HP Lovecraft Film Festival, which was a lot of fun and quite memorable. But this is a “rust buster” blog so I’ll wrap it up, and leave stuff to blog about later this week.

How I Work, 2010 Edition

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In my last post I mentioned I’ve been working harder than ever on writing fiction.

When I first picked up writing again last year, I really only dabbled a few hours occasionally on the weekend. Then late in 2009 I got more serious, and added one or two more weeknight sessions, maybe an hour or two after work.

This summer I stepped it up. I now get up at 5:30 every morning, which gives me almost 90 minutes to write, five days a week, before I have to get ready for work. Three or four times a week, after work and exercise, I might squeeze in another hour. On the weekend I write all day Sunday (8-12 hours), and often an hour or two on Saturday.

This may not be “full time” but it’s a huge improvement over what I was doing just six months ago, and it means much of my time not spent at work, or commuting, exercising or eating, is spent writing.

I’ve often seen established writers offer the straightforward advice, “write more,” and I really believe that’s the best prescription. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not only spending more hours per week, but also making the sessions more frequent and consistent, that makes the difference. When I was writing a couple times per week, every time I sat down I had to re-acquaint myself with where I left off. Now, the moment I sit down at the computer I know exactly what I want to work on, and where I stand with regard to that piece. For this reason, if I had the choice between two hour writing sessions six times a week, or a single twelve-hour marathon, I’d choose the near-daily consistency.

Because of this effect, I’m now writing many more hours per week, and each hour is more productive now than before. Effectively I feel I’m accomplishing ten times as much per week as I did a year ago. It’s exciting to finish new stories at an increased rate, and feel I’ve been able to give them all the care and attention they needed.

Another Running-Related Quote

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At least once before I’ve posted interesting or inspirational quotes related to long distance running, partly because I’ve been a runner for about thirty years (with a few short breaks in there), and partly because I receive a “quote of the day” email from Runner’s World (annoying mass-market running magazine I used to subscribe to). One of the most recent comes from perhaps my all-time favorite runner, Steve Prefontaine, who was not only one of America’s all-time great runners, but also an inspiring personality. Not only that, but he went to University of Oregon, and you’ve got to love the Ducks!

“A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.”
–Steve Prefontaine, American middle and long-distance runner

I’ve been fighting through a period of self-questioning with regard to my writing lately. I’m still working as hard as ever, and producing what I consider to be increasingly strong work, but just lately I’ve been feeling the sting of rejection a bit more than usual. Really just feeling a bit fatigued, though no less determined.

Prefontaine’s quote reminds me that at times when you feel bogged down in the accumulated mire of rejection or failure, it can be tempting to blame your circumstances on others. I could convince myself I’m not finding receptive editors because they’re only looking for big names anyway, or that magazines aren’t looking for the kind of thing I’m doing because the SF community only wants to see the same Heinlein and Gibson tributes over and over. I don’t really believe those things are true, but I could blame others as a way of deflecting the pain of the struggle.

Like Prefontaine, though, I believe pointing the finger at others is the beginning of failure. A writer who blames everyone outside himself won’t look hard enough at what he needs to improve, or consider what new approach to his craft might get him where he wants to be. I think looking at your own work with honest appraisal, and consistently putting in the labor, are requirements of improvement and eventual success. It’s also perfectly healthy to admit your own disappointment, so you can deal with it and move on.