In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Thought of the Day
* Writing Into the Dark, Part 2
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“It’s that old thing again. The ‘kill you darlings’ crowd constantly spout, ‘Remember, a writer is the worst judge of his own work.’ But only if you think it’s good. If you think it sucks, suddenly they forget that wisdom.” Me, in a response to a comment on the stupid advice to “kill your darlings”
Thought of the Day
Bob B. mentioned a word that Mark Twain used to describe himself from a quote a few days ago. Here’s the definition from Oxford Languages:
a·man·u·en·sis, n. a literary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation.
Here’s what WikiPedia has to say about it:
“An amanuensis is a person employed to write or type what another [a character?] dictates.”
Mark Twain called himself an “amaneunsis,” a “literary assistant” to his characters. Stephen King calls himself his characters’ “stenographer.” I call myself my characters’ “recorder.” All three are the same thing.
These are titles of honor among writers who believe in themselves, trust their characters, and write into the dark.
Writing Into the Dark, Part 2
Slightly revised and updated. Note that this is nonfiction, not fiction.
Okay. So if you follow Heinlein’s Rules and write into the dark, there’s no revision, no rewriting, no running the manuscript past critique groups, no editorial process, and so on. Right?
Well, not quite.
The main key to all this is not to involve your conscious, critical mind in what should be the sole domain of your creative subconscious.
Yep, the Conscious, Critical Mind Has a Purpose (but it isn’t fiction)
When it’s time to make serious, conscious, critical decisions—truly “important” decisions—yes, of course you make those with your serious, conscious, critical mind. But those decisions have nothing to do with writing, where the greatest possible danger is a paper cut (and not even that with ebooks).
I’m talking about REALLY serious, conscious, critical decisions, like whether to cross a road in the path of oncoming traffic. Or whether to hold an apple in your teeth while your buddy tries to dislodge it with a bullet fired from a .41 caliber revolver. (Show of hands: Anyone? No? Just me?) Or whether to remain at your desk or dive out the window of your home office when the door explodes into the room on fire.
THAT’S when you invoke the serious, conscious, critical mind, for decisions like those.
Fiction doesn’t matter. It’s not important. As my Brit friends say, it’s “only a bit of fun.”
You CREATE from the CREATE-ive subconscous. See the parallel? And that should be fun. You’re allowing your inner child to run and play. That’s all you’re doing.
Fiction isn’t even real. It’s a story. It’s nothing more important than a few minutes’ or hours’ entertainment for the reader. Nothing more. It isn’t important enough to give it over to your serious, stodgy, arms-crossed, grouchy, conscious, critical mind. So lock the old geezer away.
Writing fiction is playtime. It’s a time to invoke your creative subconscious, to let your inner child out to run through a story with your characters. And the ONLY goal of that kid is to have fun.
So how do you know when your critical mind is slipping in?
Any time you want to “look for” anything, that’s your conscious, critical mind. Any time you want to “decide” anything, the same. And any time you encounter a negative thought about your writing (“this story isn’t good enough to submit to a magazine” or “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
In those cases, your conscious, critical mind is trying to stop you from writing or submitting. It’s trying to protect you from criticism and rejection. But the fear of criticism and rejection are UNREASONING fears.
Repeat after me:
There are no actual consequences to failing as a writer, so you might as well not worry about criticism and rejection and have fun writing the next story.
If you “fail,” nothing bad will happen. The earth will keep turning, and you’ll simply go on with your life. Besides, if you “fail” according to one reader (even yourself), you will have achieved something great in the eyes of some other reader.
Note: If you ARE still mired in the myths and stuck in the critical mind, I recommend reading Quiet the Critical Voice (and Write Fiction), available at Amazon and at any other ebook retailer.
In WITD there is no revision, no rewriting, no critique workshopping, and very limited editing.
Revision and rewriting are both functions of the conscious mind. In both cases you’re consciously “looking for” things you want to change and then changing them.
But why would you do that? Why would you allow your stodgy old critical mind to second-guess your fun-loving, story-telling creative subconscious?
Doing that sends a message to your creative subconscious that you don’t trust it. There’s no better way to make that inner child cross its little arms and refuse to come out and play.
And as for running your manuscript past a critique group, if you’re striving to keep your own conscious, critical mind out of your creative work, why would you allow someone else to poke their serious, harrumphing, critical nose in?
Even if you luck out and get a critiquer who isn’t trying to make your work look as if he wrote it, what he offers up is still the opinion of only one reader. And what makes you think his opinion is any more valid or important than the opinion of any other reader?
It isn’t. So just say no to inviting others to critique your work. Write your story, publish it, and then forget it. Move on and write the next story. Let each reader judge for him or herself whether s/he likes the story you’ve published.
Only very limited editing? Seriously?
A good first reader is worth his or her weight in gold. Your first reader should simply read the story for pleasure. (The best first readers are folks who are avid readers but who are not also fiction writers.) If something pops out at him or her as s/he’s reading, s/he should point it out. That’s it.
A good copyeditor also is worth his or her weight in gold. Whether you need a copyeditor is a decision you’ll have to make on your own. I don’t use a copyeditor myself, but I have a very good first reader, and otherwise I just don’t worry about it.
I copyedit for a few other folks, but I teach as I go so I’m more expensive than most. If you’re on a budget, you might consider hiring a local student who is gifted in the English language to copyedit for you. (Copyedit = spelling, wrong words, inconsistencies, pacing, punctuation. NO content editing.)
But otherwise, no, no editing. And absolutely no “developmental” editors. How can someone else “develop” a story that came directly from your mind? Just no.
Cycling vs. Revision
Back to that “revision” thing for a moment. You’ll remember that in yesterday’s installment I said with WITD your goal is to write one clean draft and be done. Well, that’s true.
So how do you write a clean draft if you don’t revise?
The answer is simple. You DO revise, but you revise while in the CREATIVE voice, not from the conscious, critical mind. And since the revision is done in the creative voice, we don’t call it revision. The technique seems to evoke an cyclical mental motion, so we call it “cycling” instead.
I write about 1000 words per session, and (conveniently) about that much per scene. When I finish a session, I take a break. I might only get up and walk a few feet away and back, or I might walk up to the house to refill my drink or whatever.
Regardless of the length of the break, when I come back to the desk, I “cycle back” to the beginning of the prior session and begin reading.
Now, I’m not “looking for” anything. I’m just reading like any reader would, for the story.
As I read, I allow my fingers to rest on the keyboard, and I allow my characters to “touch” the story as I read through it.
Again, I’m not actively “looking for” anything. I’m not making any decisions. I’m just reading and letting my characters move my fingers if they find it necessary to do so.
This takes only a few minutes. When I reach the white space again, I type the next sentence and the next and I’m off on the next 1000 words or so.
Important: If the conscious, critical mind starts to horn in while you’re cycling, immediately stop, save the document, and get up and walk away for awhile. When you come back, start reading where youi left off and continue right up to the white space.
Then, again, simply write the next sentence and you’ll be off and running for another 1000 words or so. In my own writing, I repeat that cycle (hence, cycling) until the characters lead me through to the end of the story.
One other note on (and use for) cycling: The reader reads the story from Word One to the Last Word, A to Z, straight through.
But the writer doesn’t have to do that.
If you’re writing along into the dark and suddenly Aunt June pulls a revolver from the pocket of her housecoat, you might panic just a bit. Why? Because you don’t remember her putting the revolver INTO her pocket, so how could she pull it out?
So right then you “cycle back” to when Aunt June heard a strange noise in the house. And you let the reader “see” Aunt June taking her deceased husband’s revolver from the nightstand drawer and slipping it into the pocket of her housecoat before exploring the source of the noise.
Then you go back to where you left off and continue writing. It’s just that easy. And for some, I guess, just that difficult. You have to let go and trust YOURSELF.
Okay, the floor is open for questions on either yesterday’s topic or today’s.
I’ll talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
5 Reasons Marketing Is Hard for Writers
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 1720
Writing of Blackwell Ops 19: Soleada Garcia: Trying Times
Day 1…… 4398 words. To date…… 4398
Day 2…… 4889 words. To date…… 9287
Day 3…… 3412 words. To date…… 12699
Day 4…… 3384 words. To date…… 16083
Day 5…… 4105 words. To date…… 20188
Day 6…… 5684 words. To date…… 25872
Day 7…… 4413 words. To date…… 30285
Fiction for January……………………. 110496
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 110496
Fiction since October 1…………… 413551
Nonfiction for January……………… 31010
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 31010
2024 consumable words…………… 141506
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 2
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 84
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 239
Short story collections…………………… 31
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
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