Saying stuff out loud so maybe I can actually do it

So in the interest of observing (ha!), I have been observing myself having a pity party the past four days or so.

I do have a tendency to feel sorry for myself, because let's face it, that's an easy thing to do. It's quick, it's doesn't cost any money, I can do it anytime anywhere. It's portable, tasteless, and doesn't induce allergies in myself or anyone else, and I can do it in public without anyone being the wiser. In fact, I've become very adept at making myself look like I'm not doing it even when I am. The problem is the cost in my confidence and my forward motion.

I'm figuring out it costs me everything.

Now, mind you, feeling sorry for myself is a normal response to disappointment, setbacks, fear and anxiety, bizarre encounters with people that I haven't made sense of yet (I'm having quite a few of those lately). I used to think all self-pity sessions were wrong, but I don't necessarily think they are anymore. I think it's something I need to keep in perspective and manage in moderation. Basically, this:

If my life is not stable and enjoyable the way it is right now, then I am allowed and really should have the good, solid cry I need to, lean on the safe shoulders I need to lean on, let people support and love me – but I don’t don’t don’t get to wallow in it. When the tears slow down, I need to get up and do something about it. I need to make a plan, even if that plan is halting and ill-informed at first. I can always modify it. But FFS stop feeling sorry for myself already, and then punishing everyone else when they don’t act like me and thus threaten my lazy system.

In practical terms, I need to own my terror of other writers, and then go out and encounter them anyway. I need to own my fear of failure, and then edit the manuscript anyway. I need to own that I loathe doing the laundry and then STFU and GBTW.

All of this is patently obvious, isn't it? Why do I keep going on about it? I keep going on about it, and I know it. I sincerely want this to be the last time I do it. I'm done. I may talk in the future about how dealing with other, more established writers puts the fear of God in me -- and it does! -- but enough already with the "Poor, poor me, I just can't do (fill in the blank)!" I'm getting on my own damned nerves.

So...writing plans. I have not one, but two Christmas stories rolling around in my head, and I think I really will start plotting those out while I work over the novel's manuscript. Nothing big, of course, just noddling with the ideas. The manuscript has rather large plotting issues itself, and that will take a lot of my time. I'm trying to decide whether it makes more sense to actually send the thing over to Kinko's to print, or just do it onscreen. I'll probably opt for onscreen just because printing a whole ream of paper's worth of manuscript is going to cost a small fortune. My plan is to just read the story, and make some notes to myself about problems I encounter, so I get a good feel for what needs work.

You know the thing is, I was going to say I didn't know if this was the right way to do it, and then I realized that, like most creative things, there isn't necessarily a right way. This isn't engineering, after all. That's a field with definite right and wrong procedures. This is art, and I can do it the best way I know how, and the universe will not grind to a halt. So there.

Time Out

Goodness, such lofty intentions, taking up a story again right away. Who the hell do I think I am? LOL

I'm coming down from having finished the previous story. The manuscript is 462 pages and 124,309 words and so I am going to call it The Novel now, because I kind of feel within my rights. "Novel," mind you, isn't some sort of indication it's any good, though I've been told it is. This is more my effort to dignify all the time put into this thing, and more importantly, the tears.

I did a very stupid thing, publishing this thing in real time, as I wrote it, but before I felt at ease with it as a whole. Not only does it need a lot of tidying, but I barely knew the story before anyone else did. When someone had questions or comments or critiques, I wasn't ready and neither was the story. That's not fair to anyone.

And it kills the joy of writing, burying it under the debris of analysis and judgment.

So I've spent some time today reading earlier stories I've worked on in private, things that I have no intention of showing anyone ever -- things that are safe. Safe is very good this afternoon. Safe allows me to see how much fun it is to play in these worlds with these people, to tell their stories as well as I can, and bear witness to all their hopes and dreams and fears and triumphs over failure. I'm nothing more than a grateful reporter here; this is the role I like to take when I write, even if I am human enough to want to know I did it well, so that the reader feels what I feel when I see these people struggle and win.

Now, admittedly in practical terms, this is bullshit. But putting myself in the role of observer and actress (writing fiction is, I think, acting on paper) helps get the Judgmental Asshole in my head out of the way enough for me to actually write. So I do this, and work under this assumption, and manage to produce stories. I won't tell the Asshole if you won't.

Instead I'll just keeping reading all my fun drabbles and stories and cheesy crossovers -- those are the best -- and try and restore the joy of what I'm doing in the first place. No more publishing before I'm ready, and no more sharing work because I want the deadline off my back. Isn't that why I left the office world in the first place?

It is. Time out. :)

So, the previous story is complete -- today was the first day I didn't have to get up and think about how to manage Robin and Chloe -- and didn't that feel weird after a year -- and now it's time to start thinking about which idea to tackle next.

Christmas!

Truthfully, I would love to do a Halloween story, since we're sort of but not really talking about holidays. But I just plain stink at scary stuff. My 'scary' always ends up being 'dreamy,' and that's just useless.

So I have had this Christmas idea kicking around in my head for about a year now, while I worked the other story, and I'm thinking I'd like to play with it a little and see if it's viable. A year ago I wrote a little stub for it -- the fun stuff, of course -- and when I re-read it, I was genuinely pulled in. Not bad for reading my own work! But it leads me to think maybe I can do something with the idea.

Dovetailing into that is the idea of writing a story through a series of letters. It just seems very intriguing to me, to follow someone's history through their own writing -- and then to use that as a means for fiction. Yes, I know I'm not the only person to think this up. Of course not! But it still sounds like fun and I still want to do it.

The harder part is taking what I learned on the last story and applying it here...mostly because I have no idea what I learned on the last story. I don't work that way. I just emerge places. I have all the same practical processes of a cone of cotton candy. Read: No Damn Idea. All I know how to do is sit and plot and write, and if that doesn't work, then sit and plot and write again. I sincerely don't believe anyone else does it very differently. Maybe just faster based on experience.

So anyway, it's going to be Christmas at least for a little while down here in the basement, while I figure out if I can make a really sweet story without making it really sappy or really maudlin or -- worst of all -- really cliched.

And what is with the dashes tonight? *sigh*

Done

It's done, and so am I.

I finished the practice story this afternoon, and considering I've been writing the ending scene for about a year now, I was pretty proud of it. I still am, actually. It was a hard set of things to work with, and no matter how I wrote it, it would never ever make anyone happy -- much less everyone -- and so I just did what I thought was best. I think, in the end, that's all I can do.

But I'm done.

I'm done with this story.
I'm done with these characters.
So I can finally be done with this anxiety.

I've been anxious for an entire year over this thing, because I see these characters in a way no one else seems to. Every single post was anxiety-inducing, knowing that these characters mean something different to everyone who reads them. No matter what, someone felt betrayed, because these characters come with too much baggage. No matter what I did, I was fighting to swim upstream.

I'm done.

For all of you who read the story, thank you for at least sticking it out until the end. I appreciate it more than you can know, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. You gave me the space and support to practice when I badly needed it, and I will always be deeply grateful. Maybe someday, I will write something original you find entertaining enough to stick with again.

Those of you who think my ending is a betrayal, or that it sucked...maybe you're right. I can only tell the truth I see, and if it's not your truth, then I'm sorry. I truly am.

And just to reassure you: don't worry, I am never picking up these characters again.

In the meantime, I am off on a self-imposed vacation, after which I am returning to my original work. At least with that, if I suck, I can do it without all the inherent accusations of betrayal. The only person I'll be betraying is me.

I can live with that. I just can't live bearing everyone else's baggage anymore.

Update? Update? Bueller? ....?

Somewhere around here, in all this daily mess, is something worth updating about it. But I'll be damned if I know what it is.

I'll let you know if I find it.

Today's Haiku

Downward spiral starts.
Is it that time already?
I really hate this.


PMDD: It sucks, and I advise you have nothing whatsoever to do with it, if you can manage.