I don’t think I know a writer that doesn’t have an ego. Not that writers are necessarily egotistical, but it takes a certain mindset to feel that the world should read the words that you write. And with most writers I know, that ego is easily wounded. Stories often contain pieces of ourselves and that colors the way we see them. So sometimes criticism hurts. A while back I realized that I needed criticism and feedback. I felt like I’d reached a plateau with my writing and needed the perspective of others to help get me past my patterns. So I joined Altered Fluid and later attended Clarion West and had many of my storied critiqued. And while it still sometimes hits a little too deeply, especially for stories that I’m particularly fond of, I’ve developed the writerly equivalent of callouses and I’m usually (after a short break) happy for the feedback I’ve received.

Novels, on the other hand, can be a little harder on the ego. Short stories are written (usually) in much less time and require much less investment. I’ve lived with novels for years. The characters in those novels have been around for a long time. I’m closer to the novels I’ve written. So criticism on something of that scale can be much harder to take. And the implications are more extensive. You could theoretically rewrite a short story from scratch and still capture the original idea or emotion. A novel is a much more complicated beast.

And yet, as I realized lately, criticism is still necessary. Maybe more so. Because you get so close, it’s difficult to see what’s not working, or what may need to be improved on. Those characters that are so alive in your head may still be cardboard on the page. The amount of time you’ve spent on the novel may make it seem like there’s no other way to work it until someone points out those possibilities to you.

I’m currently waiting on feedback for my most recent completed novel. This is the one that I intend to send to my agent when it’s all done with revisions. I got a little sneak peek at some of the feedback today and my first reaction was – oh, god, this sucks. I’m a horrible writer. How could I have let that character be so limp? How could I have overlooked (what seem to be) such obvious problems? Have I spent years working on what ultimately is a poor story? My wounded ego was doing its elaborate death dance, clutching its breast, staggering about my mind, moaning and gnashing its teeth. But then something interesting happened. My inner writer woke up and pushed the ego aside and started thinking about ways to improve the story. It started thinking of the feedback critically and connecting dots. It started seeing outside the stone boundaries of the story and realized that they weren’t stone after all. More like Lego. I could unsnap this piece, and build something else. And, for a moment, it was actually exciting.

I don’t know that I’ll ever get over that initial ego bruising. It’s just the way my mind works – I like to be good at what I do, I want to do the best work I can. But I’m swiftly coming to realize that that outside perspective isn’t just desirable, it’s a necessary thing for me. And ultimately, regardless of whether I agree with every single criticism I receive, it will help me write a better novel. So I guess I’ll continue to grit my teeth and do it.

There’s also something else that crystallized for me today. Often when giving feedback, people will make suggestions for changes you can make. Ideas that they’ve thought of that can make the story better. Often, these ideas don’t work for me. They didn’t come from my brain, they seem foreign and not the way I want to handle it. But just as often, they spark my own ideas. Like a Tetris game, my mind takes the suggestion and twists it into a configuration that fits in with how I view the story. And moments like that are often magic.

Writing is often a solitary pursuit, and one of the reasons I like it is because I tend to be in complete control (at least in the formative stages). But lately I’m finding I can’t discount the input of others. It frequently makes things better.

I am, of course, interested in hearing how other people deal with this. Am I particularly sensitive on this issue?

As a follow-up to my last post (and by the way, thanks for all the chiming in and the support on that one) I was talking to N last night about whether or not this kind of thing goes away. Whether the goalposts just keep on moving and getting bigger (or would that be smaller) as you progress. And my answer was that it does. For me, the next big one is selling a novel. After that it will be something else. The urge is always there to do better, make it bigger, make more of an impact in some way.

Then this morning, I read this post from Ty Franck about a recent brush with Hollywood, and I guess it sort of illustrates that point. There are different levels. And the one that he had a glimpse of (itself a different level from where he says he is) is like a different planet from where I am. A dimly lit spot in the sky, if that. Those are things I don’t even think about or strive for.

It helps to give you a sense of perspective.

[Edited to give proper attribution to the post]

I’ve been thinking a lot about ambition lately. Or perhaps thinking isn’t the right word. I’ve been dealing with the side effects of ambition. In my case the lion’s share of my ambition revolves (unsurprisingly) around writing. I’ve wanted to be a published author since I was a kid. I’ve wanted to be a novelist. These are desires that are so ingrained in me that they feel sometimes like tortures. I’ve often wished that I could just walk away. That I could abandon pursuing these goals. But I have never been able to.

In the beginning, serving this ambition is, if not quite easy, at least entirely within one’s grasp. You write. And you continue to write and produce and revise and hone and polish. If, like me, you want to publish a novel, you write one. You put in the hours and the blood, sweat, and tears. And I have. And though I may not have been as diligent about it in years past, I have managed to do it. I’ve written novels. I’ve rewritten them. I’ve revised them. With no one other than myself to oppose me.

Yet it seems that even after the momentum starts setting in, where you’re writing more regularly, and more effectively, and when you start to achieve some small measure of success, that things start to get more difficult. Other people start to enter the mix. Whereas it was just you before, it’s now beta readers and agents and editors and suddenly control is something you no longer lay sole claim to. And the publishing industry is slow. And while I know all of this, and know I have to let go and know that my focus should be on just producing the best fiction I can, it’s bloody frustrating at times. The kind of frustrating that makes me shake. The kind of frustrating that makes me want to break things. The kind of frustrating that sometimes turns dark and quiet and takes on the faint whiff of defeat, the spectre that it will never happen.

And then there’s the success around you. I do not begrudge anyone their success. I know many brilliantly talented people who have achieved what I am shooting for, and respect many more. I know that others have put in their time and their own energies into their works and I am happy to see and even sometimes share in their successes.  But there are times when I’m just not so gracious. Times when people are talking about their books and their signings and the top ten lists they made that make me clench my fists. Not because they don’t deserve it – not that at all. But because I want the chance to try for that as well. The chance to fail as well, I suppose, but at least to do so from the arena and not from the wings. If I fail I want it to be broken and bloody after a long fight and not before. And there’s a part of me that just wants someone to step forward and tell me what I need to do to get that.

Yet I know that’s not how it works. I know that, but sometimes it’s hard to accept. Sometimes it’s hard to get that down into my bones where the fire seems to be. Sometimes I just want to blaze incandescently rather than slowly turn up the dimmer. And sometimes I just want to douse the light, if only for a little bit.

In the end, it still comes down to me, and I know that the best thing I can do is to just focus on the work. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do. If one of my novels is in a holding pattern, I have to switch to another. It will take as long as it takes. These are things I tell myself repeatedly. Sometimes I even listen.

I suppose this is me whining. It feels a lot like whining. But it’s sometimes hard to be so close to something that it’s not something you do, it’s something you are. I hope I do it justice.

I remarked the other day that lately I’ve been in novel mode. Whereas short stories used to be my primary focus, and the most fertile ground for my imagination, lately I seem to have progressed into full-on novel mode. Which isn’t to say that I haven’t been working on short stories, but the few that I have been working on have come slowly and without the sense of energy or excitement that I’m accustomed to.

Novels, on the other hand, I have nothing but enthusiasm for. Perhaps too much.

Currently it would be fair to say that I’m working on four novels. Yes, four.

1. The first is the middle grade fantasy that (I hope) is almost finished.  It’s currently in the hands of someone whose opinion I greatly admire and respect and once I get that feedback, I’ll be able to (hopefully) fix it up and send it to my agent (I love saying that).

2. The second is an adult post-apocalyptic novel that I started last year. I recently hit a stalling point about midway through the book, but I intend to push past this and try to finish it up by the summer. Overall it’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever worked on. But I’m just in that mid-novel icky part now.

3. Number 3 is a YA book that I wrote years ago (though not targeted to a YA market). I got feedback on it from my writing group, Altered Fluid, then let it sit for a while. Now I’ve decided to go back to it and work on revising it, substantially rewriting sections and, for lack of a better term, complicating it. This one is what I like to call postapocalyptic fantasy.

4. This is a new project, an adult urban fantasy but with a character I’ve been writing (unpublished) for a while. The idea for the novel was originally a short story, but one I could never seem to trim down and get to work well enough. With a slight reimagining (kinda like squinting at the story sideways) and some expansion, I think it works much better as a novel. It’s a concept I can see working as a series (at least for me). I’m only a couple of chapters into this one, but what helps is that I already know the shape of the story. It’s just filling in parts at this point.

But wait – there’s a fifth! Lurking in the background is the adult fantasy novel that I had been sending out to agents last year. It turns out that it needs a good deal of work – work I’m intending to do – but right now I’m trying to digest and internalize what exactly needs to be done. I got a lot of feedback and I just need to figure out how to make it work.

Do you think that’s enough?

(That’s not to mention the other three novel-length projects that are waiting in the wings, anxious for their time on the center stage).

I’d better get writing…

It’s follow-up post day here on the blog, it seems. First I wrote about games, now I’m writing about writing.

Last night, along with some others, I went to a tea shop to write. As mentioned in my earlier post, I’ve found that leaving my apartment usually yields better results and I was hoping for more corroboration of that. I brought with me my laptop and a list of the projects I wanted to work on.

It went very well. In just over two hours I had over 2K words, probably closer to 2.5K, not including sections that I had revised. I worked on two short stories (gaining some momentum in their plots and basically figuring out the ending of one) and two novels (finishing out two chapters). You might think that it was counterproductive to work on so much, but I was able to get enough down to help make them more substantial, but I left off with enough that I could easily jump back into them.

For me, it was a very productive evening. And it made me enthusiastic to continue to get writing done. To keep working on these stories. And having multiple projects on the burners means that I can always switch to something else when one of them cools off.

I’m beginning to think that this might be an optimum strategy for me – aim for about a half hour every day, but then fit in 2 hour (or more) longer sessions where I can put down more words. Not only would it result in steadily producing more, but it would be easier to work around my schedule (because as much as I love writing, I need to have a life, too).

The thing that works best for me in these situations, is that I feel more compelled to write. I sometimes chat for a bit with my companions, but eventually I turn back to the screen. And it actually helps sometimes if the other people in the tea shop are loud or annoying because it only makes me want to put on my headphones and completely immerse myself in what I’m working on.

Next month, some of my fellow writers and I will be going on a 4-5 day writing retreat like we do every year. It’s a similar idea – you’re surrounded by other people writing and away from your home and the usual distractions, so you tend to put more time into the writing. And you have people around to talk about writing or issues you’re having or whatever. But I find that to be a helpful exercise.

So, since I’ve been asking questions in these things lately – for you writers out there, do you regularly write with others? Does it help? Do you find that it helps you focus?