I'm going to take a chance here...
We're all writers on this thread and I share this because I actually LIKE talking to other writers about the process... THe other evernioning, I started to write a further chapter in my Vampire Series before realizing it was ABSOLUTE CRAP!!! I reprint it below:
Dectective Holland proves as clever as she is beautiful. She's a regular guest at the house these evenings. We share interests. In art, music, history, literature. She's a charming and indeed attractive companion. I am quite taken with her as indeed she is with me. She brings books for me. She borrows tomes from my library. And returns them and we discuss. All night conversations. Smiling faces. Molly knows to eat before she comes to the house as the one time I invited her to dinner was more than awkward.
The Contessa Karen is aware now of what happened to Consuela and is conscious of why this lady detective has taken an interest in us. She refuses to even discuss it with me. It is a problem. It is my problem and I must resolve it. But I am aware that I have disappointed her. Again. Lucius is a regular visitor to the house now. My kind are not properly capable of what you call jealousy and yet I am unsettled by his visits. Karen brightens in his company. With me she is distant now and even impatient; Not only have I let her down but she adopts a manner that suggests that she was a fool to think that I would not. Things are not well between us.
It is no real wonder that I find myself drawn to the mortal Molly.
Of course I have know other men of my kind, and it troubles me to say that I have know none as utterly fascinating as Lucius Ammaticus. He is utterly assured, absolutely endearing and totally charming. He is in fact very kind to me. But always a superiority, an unstated expertise, a knowingness...
The other evening in the library we were drinking wine, (Karen had taken to the night) and he produced a volume of Gibbon from the shelves. He filpped through the pages and uttered a low throaty laugh.
"Have you read this?" he asked.
I had, I nodded.
"It's so fucking dry when written down though..." he murmured as he sipped his wine. "You don't get the feel of what it was like. A thousand Dacian bastards with their curved razor-sharp swords charging like demons at eighty of us, and me trying to keep the poor bastards in line... 'Sheilds Up, you sons of whores!'..." He turned to look at me. "I pissed myself, can you believe that? Of course we stood steady and saw them off. But you were a soldier once, right?"
I said I was.
"Do you ever miss it?" he asked.
But I said I didn't.
" I do," he whispered.
THIS is what happens when you WRITE when you are not REALLY in the mood to write... It MEANDERS and doesn't GO anywhere... Also, here, I've lost the VOICE, the TONE of the characters... It simply doesn't work... (Lucius would NEVER swear, for example...) Actually, maybe he would...
SOME GOOD IDEAS HERE, but scrap it and back to the drawing board!
xx SF
(This IS actually the Literary Equivalent of strumming idly upon a guitar as one waits for inspiration... Fun, but not work, in fairness...)
I feel you, Mate. I tend to agonise over the same paragraph, rewriting it over and over again until I eventually get the shits and walk away. But I keep coming back to it, and eventually it breaks free. Well, except for the waffle below. For the life of me, I just couldn't get this one to keep going...
I only saw his eyes open for a second. They were blue, almost as pale as mine. And the glimmer of relief that flashed in them before he let his head fall to the ice prickled my skin.
Pacing from side to side along the bank, I tried to get his attention with a series of short barks. But he just lay there in the failing purple light of dusk, not moving. He was at least two hundred yards away, across ice that was not strong enough to support my weight, let alone his. I could hear it cracking angrily from where I stood. If I didn’t help him, he was going to fall through into the freezing lake below.
Gingerly, I paced out onto the ice, spreading my paws as wide as I possibly could. The creaking protests beneath me got louder and louder with every step, forcing me to lay down to spread my one hundred twenty pound load. The cracks dulled as I slid myself across the icy surface, but they didn’t disappear entirely. Regardless, I slithered toward the injured stranger. I couldn’t just leave him there.
As I got closer, maybe fifty yards out, I could see the handle of a dagger protruding from his back. His thick, grey fur was matted with blood, and the ice too had turned crimson in front of his snout. I barked again, trying to get his attention. He flinched at the sound, but his eyes remained closed.
The smell of blood was thick in the air as I reached his unconscious body. I could see that he had sustained a number of stab wounds, all deep and angry. I nuzzled his snout and licked at his face, causing him to stir.
Please, his deep voice echoed weakly in my mind. I need your help…
Can you move? I telepathically queried.
His eyes half opened, boring directly into my own. They were filled with defeat. I…no…I’m sorry…I can’t go any farther…
Shit! I thought, suddenly becoming aware that whoever had attacked him might well be looking to finish him off. He was a big, powerful werewolf, easily twice my size. If they had done this to him, I had no chance.
There was nothing else for it. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck with my teeth and began dragging him back to the shore. Despite his weight, he slipped easily on the frozen surface. We made good progress, sliding head to head across the crackling ice. I was almost in a backwards run, heaving on the tough folds of skin and fur around his neck. He tried to help between groans and spluttering bouts of coughing, but his paws ended up flailing uselessly behind him.
My hindquarters crashed painfully into the bank, causing me to tumble backwards. I kept hold of my burden, hoping that our momentum would carry him off the ice. For the most part it did. I dragged him up the slope the last few feet, his own paws finally managing to find some useful purchase in the snow-covered earth.
I transformed into my human form, instantly gasping at the freezing assault of the wind gusting across my naked flesh. Already shivering uncontrollably, I reached for the dagger sticking out of his back. I pressed my left palm firmly to his back, right beside the wound, and pushed in hard as I withdrew the blade with my other hand.
His tortured squeal chilled me to the bone.
I kept pressure on the wound, the warmth of his sticky blood seeping out from between my fingers. Our bodies trembled in unison, mine from the cold, his from painful sobs. It was heartbreaking.
When the bleeding stopped, I silently spoke to him through my touch. I need to call another of our wardens to help get you back to my post.
No! his voice boomed in my mind.
You’re too big, I soothed. I can’t get you over the ridge on my own.
They’ll hear you. He transformed into his human form, laying face down in the snow. His muscular back and broad shoulders split with four deep knife wounds. “If you help me,” he gasped, “I can walk.”
“I don’t think…”
“Help me up!” he ordered, his tone deep and commanding.
The perfect metaphor for my own writer's block as it turns out. But in reality, I left his stabbed ass for dead by the lake, and went home for a hot chocolate.
My latest story is a racy little piece about what happens when someone cute from work invites you over to watch Netflix and Chill. I thought it would be good with a bit of editing. But I agree with you. My best work comes with inspiration. If I just write to fill space, that is all I do. Fill space.
One of the things, (perhaps the MOST thing) I like about Lush is the chance to talk to other (TALENTED) writers about HOW IT WORKS...
I find it helps in many ways to realize that OTHER writers find it as difficult as I often do, (despite the fact that they MAKE it look easy and effortless...)
Thanks, Comrades, Guys and Dolls.
(Sincerely.)
xx SF
I wholeheartedly agree with you. If I am not in the proper mood to write, I stay away from any of the stories I might have in development. If my heart and head aren't enthusiastic about a story, what comes out on the monitor reflects that.
My latest story took a few days longer to finish and submit simply because I followed that basic rule and stayed away from it. I take great pride in crafting a story or poem. I'm not going to jeopardize the quality I seek because I am impatient or under the gun for a self-imposed deadline.
But when I am into it, really into it, I can write until my fingers get numb.
I can totally relate. When I get stuck, and everything that comes out of me sounds like nonsense, I get frustrated and walk away.
I have started to try something different. Usually when I write, I just write, one chapter after the other in order. But with my latest work, I broke up all the chapters into their own documents. This way, it seems easier for me to focus on one scene or chapter at a time (and it makes it SOOOO much easier for me to change things around - which I am continually doing with this story).
I also found that doing it this way allows me to almost walk away from a chapter that I'm not inspired to write. I can switch it up and move onto something else that's tickling my fancy.
Stephanie-- Your first example hardly even seems like a serious story. It's all telling and no showing and seems to be more of a summary that a living story. The reason show don't tell is important is because when you just show what the characters are doing, you draw the reader in as he or she becomes a living part of the action by trying to figure out what's happening. Anytime you tell him what's happening, you push him out of the story's context. You alienate him and eventually alienate yourself.
Wilful-- I just really have no interest in reading any story told from a dog's POV. I know Harlan Ellison has done it, but those were extraordinary exceptional conditions (dog geneticially modified to be super intelligent)
The important thing to remember is: Story, Story, Story!! Words follow a story, it doesn't work the other way round. You can't just start writing and have a story emerge from the the scrap hear of verbiage you've spewed out.
Whenever you get stuck or tangled up in confusion, return to your story. What does your story need now to proceed?
I write even if I don't feel like it. Even if it's crap, there will be ONE sentence, or a least one phrase, that has some game. And I go from there.
i am incapable of writing crap. even my grocery lists are brilliant.
You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.
I've got reams of crap that will never see the light of day. I keep it because, as Verbal said, sometimes there is something worthy hiding inside.
It takes a very special piece of crap for me to want to share it.
My crap writing never lives to see the dawn. I wait until it is sound asleep in bed, unable to fight back as I tie it's hands and feet with black nylon cord. It struggles fiercely, bucking and kicking as I drag it down the stairs and bundle it into the trunk of my car. Every time I make that drive deep into the woods in the middle of the night, it takes a little bit longer.
I haul it out, bound and gagged, never able to escape it's fate. It's dragged roughly through the sparse foliage, and over the dank, mossy ground until we reach a small clearing in the trees. It watches me closely as I take my time digging a hole. Every glimmer of the cold moonlight that reflects off the head of the shovel, gleams in it's terrified eyes. It knows what's going to happen, it's happened before. Many times.
I watch the last remnants of hope fade from it's face, before slowly contorting into a sorrowful realisation of truth. It's going to die tonight, and nothing it can do can stop that. It lies down without a struggle as the cold, wet earth is piled onto of it's shivering form one shovel at a time, until only one desperate eye remains uncovered.
"Why do you make me do this to you?" I scream, my voice breaking as it echoes through the deserted night. "I gave you everything."
Those were the last words it ever heard.
