Since today's post is about the past, our Mood Kyrie is a photo of Kyrie at eight weeks. Heck of cute, no?
Today I was reminded why, in this age of technology and instantly-searchable documents, it is both exceedingly annoying and contemplatively useful to keep a journal that I actually WRITE in rather than type in.
I finished editing a short story last night (it's called Grim Thunder, for future reference), and it's about to start making the submission rounds. I needed a new project. One of my previous story ideas sat up in my head and said, "ME!"
Okay, sure, I can do that. Wait. Hmmm.
Almost all of my useful notes and scenes on that story are written in my journal.
Ummm. WHICH journal, ridiculous writerly self? You have filled FOUR of them in the last three years!
So today I went journal-delving, and managed to find a couple of key scenes that I needed to refresh me on where I was going with the story, though not the one I really wanted--yet! However, in the doing of it I found some interesting thoughts of mine from a couple years back and I thought that I would share them.
First was that even two years ago I knew that beginnings were my worst part of a story. I have a horrendous urge to start contemplative instead of with action, and if you don't know the character it seems to me that there's little to recommend a story that starts with their inner thoughts unless those thoughts are so traumatic or fascinating that you keep reading with a "WTF?" kind of attitude until the writer lets you figure it out. Or maybe you're C.J. Cherryh, in which case you can write a whole series full of convoluted yet somehow fascinating thoughts and yet I still keep reading (Foreigner, anyone?). But even then the first book started with action, so I guess that rule stands.
But, in the immortal words of Byron, I digress. I had in my journal a thought about why beginnings are so hard for me, and perhaps there's some truth in it. In my favorite genre, setting the scene is also necessarily setting the setting, and I grew up in the 80's when it seemed like all those lovely high fantasies started with meandering, thoughtful prologues that were really mental background paintings full of backstory. I guess in a movie it would be like that long panning shot at the beginning, or what Save the Cat calls the Opening Image.
But a long panning shot doesn't belong in a short story. It takes up too much room. So when I get my contemplative groove on I tend to founder in the surf instead of striking boldly off into the waves.
The good thing is, I've recognized this since, and I think I've managed to overcome this tendency. So writing such things in my journal does seem to work, eventually.
The second thing I read I found very interesting because it was directly related to Anne's First Rule, Don't Judge the Work. I jotted a thought that a writer reading their own reviews was poison. The reason was that in reading those critiques, it necessarily opened the door in the back of the writer's head and invited self-criticism. We spend so much time trying to lock up our Inner Editors, to just write and not to bog down in self-doubt. Even though the story being reviewed would have been published, I think that unless all the reviews were glowing (which would never happen to people in Real Life except to those people that we really do not like--channeling Anne LaMott, there...), it would still cause more harm than good.
So those are your thoughts for the day. Now it's back to delving through the other three journals, trying to find that pesky scene...
p.s. yes I know I could just rewrite it from memory. IF I remembered it. Unfortunately, I only remember it exists. Aye, there's the rub.
