Finding The Oasis
I’m no expert (yet) however I have just finished my fourth full length novel and two novellas, one of which Admiral’s Lady: Eyes of Ice, Heart of Fire, is up on amazon. The other still pending. Being a compilation of Jason and Spalding stories.
I’ve had a few questions about my writing process along the way and thinking about it, back in March on the Jim Butcher Forum I posted the below in response to a question. Both the question and my answer have been added below.
I figured why rewrite something that just plain sings and does most everything I was hoping for: re-explaining the/my writing process and how to get into the word production.
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[quote author=roteral link=topic=36815.msg1818244#msg1818244 date=1363211740]
You guys amaze me. Some of you guys get 9000 words a day with limited time but I cant even get a couple of words in and I have almost the whole day. I guess I just can’t get into it. How do you guys do it?
[/quote]
RE: My Response below –
If you’ve ever seen the Care Bears I visualize my struggles to write sometimes like what No Heart is always trying to do. Turn Everyone including the carebears into a Grey, blah, uninspiring, lethargic creature.
That’s why I refer to my innate desire to stare at the screen or worse, surf the net or read someone else’s book instead of write my own, as The Desert. Cap locks very much deliberate.
I have all day to write, at least for right now. Every time I start writing it looks like something that came out the hind end of a dog. First I refuse myself permission to go online. I set myself a little time in the beginning and end of my day to do it. After that avaunt your foul seducer! I go to a part of the house without internet access. I refuse to open my kindle.
I write the first sentence. I stare at it a moment and finish the paragraph hoping against hope it looks cooler once its complete than the dog dodoo it is now. Its not. And yet amazingly, my books on amazon are selling very well. I can’t get my head wrapped around this paradox. I don’t want to write because what I am writing is complete and utter dung, and yet people like it. Convincing myself it’ll all be made nice and pretty during the editing pass, because other wise why would anyone read this drek? I force my self to write. I don’t want to, I’m ruining my book with every sentance that spews from my hands. I have to. I do it because my job is to write today and really if you’ve got a good editor, he/she or it doesn’t even need to be a writer to be a real help.
I set myself a realisitic target. For me that’s 5k a day. When I started out I said 1k. I did that and wrote 2k instead. So I said, 2k and then did 3k for a while. I declared the move at 3k and like a runner training up, before I knew it I had 5k days. Now I do between 6 and 9k a day. My daily goal is 5k so that at anytime after I finish my daily quota and I want to stop I am totally free to do so. If I write more in one day and have a family function the next, I take that extra apply it against tomorrow and thus have a lower target yet still am able to spit it out like clockwork.
Don’t look at my numbers. Set yourself a goal. Refuse to stop because its bad. More give yourself permission to write the bomb and I’m not talking about the fun bomb or cool bomb, I’m saying the stink bomb. I originally wrote the Little Admiral because I couldn’t bear the thought of ruining my Military Insect story, that is still almost half done, that story is cool, its wonderful and its still not done. While I’m almost done with the first draft of my 3rd Spineward Sector’s Novels. Go figure huh?
I gave myself a story I didn’t mind messing up. I set out determined to have some fun along the way, as anyone who’s read my somewhat humorous Admiral Who should be able to tell and I bore down.
You have to harness your creativity and break it to your will, when you force it in the direction of the book you are writing and it suddenly goes all No Heart on you turning dull and grey with disinterest. You must force yourself through that desert one dehydrated, dull, boring step at at time, until you finally force your sub-conscious to realize, just like a little child that wants to go out and play, that its not going to get away with it. There is no fast one, your sub-conscious writing child can play, there’s no trick, no constant cries for water or the toilet or I’m hungry right before bed time that will let your winy inner, creative child out of its chores.
Just like an angry child, you spank it or time out it or just plain don’t let it do anything fun until the chores are done and eventually it will do it. After a while your little inner kid won’t even notice how terrible its chores are and just give a perfunctory whine at the beginning. Then as you slog through some utter drek, your imagination will reluctantly take off and before you know it you’re actually writing something fun! You love it even if no one else will! and almost before you can realize it, even though you’ve been stuck laboriously writing it every step of the way, you’re done. You have a book. Its yours. you’re proud of it, even if totally terrified everyone else will turn up their nose at the stink coming out of it.
Then low and behold you edit and fix and repair and suddenly its not the utter stink bomb you thought it was.
That’s how you write 9k a day. In my experience.
The Deposed King
10 comments
Paul - May 11, 2013 11:22 pm
I like your take on “Writers Block” and its solution.
A lot of people recommend a break from writing or writing something completely different but that has shades of “When you get thrown from a horse try a pony.” or “When you get thrown from a horse take up knitting for a while.”
The Deposed King - May 12, 2013 3:02 am
It is a bit along the lines of ‘if it jams, force it. If it breaks it was never meant to go there in the first place’.
But in my experience this advice works. But like anything else. You have work it and before it can work you.
Hopefully the advice helps someone.
The Deposed King
Alves - May 12, 2013 9:04 pm
Just to whine a little… I have seen three good self-published sci-fi writers cut a deal with one or another traditional publishing houses and as a result their book output went to hell or the publishing house asked for an year or so to re-release their old work and in the mean time nothing new comes out (and after that it looks like the pace of new releases will be slow).
The Deposed King - May 12, 2013 9:44 pm
Traditional Publishers (From what I’ve observed as a voracious reader) can’t really put out more than 2 books a year by any one author. Individual cases may and do vary but that’s probably the rule of thumb to measure things by.
The Deposed King
Vamen - May 13, 2013 12:04 am
Which is a good reason to stay on the indie path 😉 Seriously though, the publishing model isn’t changing fast enough, and the major houses aren’t going to last if they can’t keep ahead of the curve.
Emil - May 13, 2013 4:25 am
I got a question, if you got time to answer it.
Where do The Lucky Clover and all other ships get their food? I have seen no comment about theim going low on food, or bringing in new ones.
Do they have a small farm on the ship, and bring in new fresh food each theim they head to port?
If so, shouldnt they go low on food now as they have been out in space for a quite a long time, and any food stores should be depleted, or near it.
Thats even thinking that they were initially out for a year before the Empire withdrew from the Rim, and that they were full men before that, and a third/quarter of a staff afterwards, which they then brought up with natives (Which, I imagine, eat ALOT) and then all other stuff going on..
// N.1 Hungry European Fan
The Deposed King - May 13, 2013 4:47 am
Well I figured it was a combination of environmental using multi purpose alge tanks for filtering/eating, and stored dried goods that they took on at the various planets they stopped over at. I figured food supplies for a battleship wouldn’t be a significant cost for most of the border worlds with millions of inhabitants. So in lieu of anything that would actually cost too much, like actual credits or military equipment they picked up a fair bit there. Also at easy haven with its old stock piles of frozen vacuum sealed food crates.
Hasn’t been that important to the story so I’ve tended to steer clear of it and not fully define anything.
The Deposed King
Vamen - May 13, 2013 6:36 am
One thing to remember is that no stored energy (like that found in food) is ever ‘lost,’ even after being processed biologically; it’s constantly recycled. That cycle here on Earth depends – almost entirely – on photosynthesis, but there are other processes by which organisms can bind energy (like the thermophiles in deep ocean water, that live near volcanic vents).
In any realistic future, our ability to reclaim energy is going to become a much more significant issue than ‘generating’ it through processes like fusion. Once we have a system like fusion perfected, the focus will shift to maximizing efficiency of reclamation or transmission.
Along the way, we’re going to get really, REALLY good at hydro/aero-ponics. Eventually, a deep space vessel would only need to bring in supplies in their base, chemical forms, like carbon, calcium, nitrogen, etc.. A warship like the Clover would devote more space to crew, weapons, and engines than would a sustainable deep space vessel, but for sure they would have the same systems available… just on a smaller scale.
But we all know that bacon and pancakes beat plain oatmeal for breakfast, so it’s likely that Jason would be constantly arranging for fresh supplies, in order to keep morale high.
Emil - May 13, 2013 8:20 am
Indeed, pancakes do beat oatmeal heh.
Just wondering, do you Americans seriusly eat bacona nd pancakes for breakfast?
Its much more common with some Oatmeal, a sandwish and a glass of milk here for breakfast.
The idea of Pancakes and Bacon for breakfast.. Sounds soooo good! But wont ever happen, I’d get so fat…
// N.1 Hungry European Fan.. so hungry..
Emil - May 13, 2013 8:23 am
Oh ye, ´forgot a side question in my previus post:
How old are the engineers? Feel like all the engineers are 16-18 year old’s, running around..
Do they have to go to school before they are allowed ontop a ship? Are they maybe interns?
So: Basic info, like mathematics and such but actual knowledge they get on ships?
Or maybe, they multitask? Doing theoretical on the ship (Jason was doing he’s Governor on the ship, so similar to that?) when their off the shift, and then
practical when their on shift? (Being yelled at by Spalding..)
// N.1 European Fan