Why I Don't Write Fiction for Pay

I have several perfectly decent rationalizations for why I don't write fiction for pay:

• No time.
• No ideas.
• Too tired from the day-job writing.

In the end, though, a lot of why I stopped writing fiction for fun and/or profit is simply a lack of confidence. I have no problem writing articles of fact that are based on some living reality generated or observed by others--or articles of opinion, which are simply my critical or snarky thoughts as I examine a given topic. Writing fiction, though, is hard work. It's very much an art, not a science. Even if you follow Aristotle's Poetics, you can still end up with a story that's better off lining a birdcage than on the printed page.

Fiction writing is more of a risk than nonfiction writing because it's intensely personal and subjective. You're creating a world, more or less (if you're writing science fiction or fantasy, this really is the case), and it's a world drawn from your experiences and outlook. You're putting yourself out there and saying, "This is how I see things; like it or lump it!" Problem is, if enough people lump it, it's really d@mned difficult to collect any money. Plus, it can make you a bit skittish about offering up more.

Case in point: I horsewhipped myself through the National Novel Writing Month process back in November, kicking out 59,770 words in 29 days; however, I now have little interest in following through with editing it. Heck, I haven't even READ the whole thing since its completion. It was an experiment to see if I could write a novel. I have. And, in the opinion of its author, it needs to be thrown away with great force. I can write other stories, but this one is just not wowing me. Problem is, I still get people asking me, "So how's the novel going?" My standard answer is that I've finished the first draft and am having trouble editing, which is the truth.

The usual thing I hear from friends is, "You're being too hard on yourself." Yeah, okay, but I read enough bad writing elsewhere to know when I'm guilty of it. So then the question becomes: do I care enough to fix it, or do I just let it rot on my hard drive? Right now I'm partial to rot, but if anyone who's a writer has suggestions on how to get me to like a story that I don't think is particularly good, I'm willing to read them.

First Novel First Draft

59,770 words later, I can lay claim to having written a first draft of a complete novel. It's 115 pages, and it tells the story I wanted to tell. Mind you, now I've got the grandfather of all editing jobs ahead of me, and I'm going to need to be brave enough to let trusted friends read/edit it. I'm not quite ready for all that yet. Tomorrow I'll write a back-of-the-book blurb so you folks out there in Cyberland have at least a summary of what I've been doing.

I kicked out something like 7,000 words this evening, which was more than triple my usual average. Right now I suppose the feeling I have is drained. But it's something I can cross off the to-do list, at least from one point of view.

Peace and happy thoughts, y'all.

NaNoWriMo, Continued

So here I am on day 24 of National Novel Writing Month, and I'm still cranking out the prose. Last night I hit 44,860 words, which means at my current rate I'll hit NaNoWriMo's 50,000-word minimum well before I finish the story. And I do still have work to do. I figure I'll finish up somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 words.

What's interesting to me is that my characters have done things that have surprised me. I know, you're probably thinking, "But you're the author! They're just make-believe people. How can they possibly surprise you?" Well, on one level, you're right. But on the other, if you take the approach of seeing these characters as real people, you realize that they have desires of their own, and a decision that you would have them make doesn't fit with those desires. A lot of little things are decided instinctively for me. I'll be writing dialogue, hearing these people interact, and I can tell where they're coming from and what they want to do. Their conversations and actions have a natural rhythm that fits with their personalities, and I'll write what I see in my head. And, like I said, sometimes they'll surprise me.

Examples? Well, my leading-lady character became an orphan in her late teens. Her mother died when she was maybe 10, her father when she was 18. She was very close to her father, and he taught her how to fix cars. My male lead character works on cars to relax, so that became another level on which they could bond. Or there was a character I wanted to introduce later in the story, a surfer dude my female lead (Carol) meets when she comes to Woodstock, but on a whim I decided to make this guy someone she already knows, somebody local to Florida. That makes her connection to him easier to believe. The surfer dude surprised me, too, because suddenly he wanted to make a movie about the trip to Woodstock, and interview Carol. That gave Carol a chance to reveal things in a film "interview" that might not have come up otherwise.

And so forth. I'm having fun with this process, obviously. And I still have several thousands of words to go. Onward!

NaNoWriMo Status

I hit 25,174 words on the novel this evening, a bit more than halfway through the goal of 50,00 words. Of course once I finish this one-month draft I'm going to have to go back and do a spitload of editing, but having a complete product will be something to work with.

So what does one work on after "finishing" 50,000 words? Oh, the usual: stuff I wanted to add but didn't have time to do. Correct factual or historical errors (the story is set between May and August 1969). Add more details of scenery or background or character behavior. What I'm kicking out this month is the plot and some semblance of dialogue. In the meantime, I'm also trying to accomplish a few things:

• Tell a romantic tragedy (what, you think I like romantic comedies?).
• Write a historical fiction story as if it were a science fiction or contemporary story. 
• Tell a story about cultural change.
• Tell a story about how civilizations rise and fall.
• Tell a story that reflects my enthusiasm for human space exploration.

...and yes, I'm trying to do all this in 50,000 words. It'll probably come out to about 100 pages, single-spaced, 200 double-spaced (which is how these things are normally turned in to a publisher).

The good news is, I have a story outline, and I'm sticking to it, for the most part. I've thrown in a couple of surprises for myself to see how I react to them. Characters are doing or experiencing things I hadn't anticipated. That said, an outline is helping me avoid writer's block. After all, if you know where you're going and have a structure for getting you there, the fun comes in the details--figuring out the how and why of things, even if you already understand the what and when.

I am also liking the notion of having designated writing hours, 8-10 p.m. That keeps me on task. I'm averaging a bit over 1,900 words a day, which means I'm likely to finish my novel by November 25 or 26. All fun, all good. We'll just see what happens next!

Onward!

Off the Grid

If I don't post here much in the next month, that's because I'm attempting to write a novel as part of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Fifty thousand words in 30 days. No sweat, right? Riiiiight.