itesser ink: progress, uncensored

Earlier today I went through a phase of cognitive dissonance. I wanted to write, wanted to enjoy it, but the thought of sitting down and typing repulsed me. It was a nearly psychosomatic pain. Some message from my subconscious was trying to break through, and I couldn't quite hear it.

The Absolute Write forum has been a decent place for me to go for writing advice. Like Mur Lafferty said in a recent podcast, there's no new advice, generally speaking. Practice-wide breakthroughs don't happen. There aren't new developments about the science of writing, and there's a lot of overlap in the habits of successful writers.

Especially at the rough draft stage (where I am), advice is rudimentary: butt in chair, fingers on keys. This is basic story time, worry about the style and prose later. "Give yourself permission to suck" is a common chunk of wisdom I'm working at accepting. Permission to suck kept me going when the prose was painfully flat and--what's the opposite of clever?

Today I enhanced my license to suck by adding on a clause that gives me permission to be boring.

While telling Reagan about my writing sorrows, I realized I enjoy treating this current story like a documentary. In this rough draft stage, I've outlined the "what" of the plot, and now I'm detailing the "how". When something related to unicorns happens in Bethany's life, I want the footage. When something goes down with her friends at school, i want the footage. I want to know every turn in the story, every inch of character development, inside and out. That won't happen if those twists and turns aren't on the page.

In the larger scheme of things, I want to have good pacing. Amy recently advised "make every paragraph interesting", and someone on the AWForum dropped the gem "Start a scene late and leave it early" (actually, I think that's from a famous writer). Also, the woman who wrote a blog ripping apart the first two and a half Twilight books hammered home to me the point that describing daily routines and movements are boring. (And that adverbs are bad, but I'm not worrying about that yet.)

All those things, I take them to heart. I understand the value, but when I try to apply those lessons to this manuscript, they drag me down. Giving myself permission to be the patient documentary director, to shoot the full length of every relevant scene of my main character's life, takes a load off my shoulders. I like spending time in these scenes and watching the characters closely in my mind.

So that's today's development.

I figure the first draft is for plotting anyways. Second draft will be for editing and story revision. Third draft for polishing the language. That's the ideal, anyway.

Permission to write boring. And to relax.