Know Your Writing Demons.

[I've been reading some awesome, thought-provoking blog posts recently from these lovely ladies, and they've inspired me to throw my own thoughts into the mix. It got long, so this is part 1 of 2. Here we go.]

What are writing demons?

They sit at your desk with you, whispering all of their unhelpful advice. There are multitudes, but personally, one talkative trio bugs me the most.

I'd like to introduce them to you, just in case their brothers and sisters live on your desk.

The Not-Now Demon
(a.k.a. Procrastination)

She's definitely a temptress. You know the one. She tries to turn you away from your writing desk at all costs. She assures you that you're totally going to get a lot of writing/revising work done today. But not now.

Maybe it's a little mean to call Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo a demon.
She's not really, but then I always thought of Procrastination being
an impish, fun-loving creature, who doesn't mean to mess you up.
I don't think I could say no if Ponyo just wanted to play.

First, you've got to check Twitter. And refresh your email at least a thousand times. And you really should take a break to do the dishes. And to watch the latest of episode of So You Think You Can Dance/True Blood/Glee. And when was the last time you called your great-aunt Myrtle?

She's a dangerous little demon. Mainly because she seems so harmless. But then half the day slips by before you even realize you're procrastinating...

The Eww-Not-That Demon
(a.k.a. the Internal Editor)

This one's tricky, because you actually need him. I didn't always have him. I spent many blissfully ignorant years scribbling novel-length stories in notebooks that no one was allowed to touch. Back then, my idea of editing was adding the commas and quotation marks I missed.

Okay, so this is actually a demon from Soul Eater,
the show I've been watching most recently on Hulu.
But this is how I think of that little internal editor.

But something happened when I began attending youth summer workshops in high school and creative writing classes in college. Basically, the more I shared my work with others. I began to notice a little editor demon, sitting on my shoulder and whispering in my ear: "Would this character really say that?" "Are you sure you need that sentence?" "This scene is getting too long. Speed it up, Shelby!" "Conflict! Where's the conflict?!?"

I'm happy to have this little guy. He improved my writing like whoa. But that's only when I'm revising.

If he's around when I'm working on a first draft, he can be crippling. He can tear a scene to pieces before I even get it on the pages. All he has to do is wince at a word choice, and all my enthusiasm takes a beating.

The You-Are-Not-Worthy Demon

(a.k.a. Self Doubt)

Okay, so this is the Black Horned King from Disney's the Black Cauldron,
based on a book by Lloyd Alexander. But he gets to be Self-Doubt,
because he freaked me the heck out when I was a kid. (Actually, he still does.)

My least favorite demon of all. We all have him shadowing us, sometimes even on days when we're not at our writing desk. His catch phrase is, "You[r writing] suck[s]." This demon compares us to our favorite writers, and then gleefully tells us, "You'll never be that good." He tells us to quit now before the whole world starts laughing at us.

I wish I could tell you that he has a redeeming quality, but he really doesn't. He is simply unhelpful. And very, very mean.

Now the real questions is, What can we do with these guys?

Good news: They're part of us, so they're just as likely to be wrong as we are. (I may be weird, but I find that a really reassuring thought.)

Bad news: They're part of us, so they go where we go. Running from them won't help. Even if you avoid them one day, they'll find you soon.

They must be conquered. Again and again.

Unfortunately, there's no set formula for how to defeat writing demons.The only step we have in common is realizing they're there and they're ultimately unimportant.

No, the more I'm around different writers, I see more and more that everybody has their own method for every step of the process, including quelling writing demons.

Some writers vent to friends and family.

Some writers work out out to use up all their excess energy and let endorphins do lots of their writer-demon slayage.

Some writers send long, angsty emails in the middle of the night to whoever they think can reassure them - maybe a writer friend or a beta reader or an agent. (I don't recommend this. If you do this too often, then you'll become annoying, and then they'll stop opening your emails. That'll take you back to square one.)

A great many writers turned to substance abuse to combat writing demons, which is where we get the cliché of the alcoholic/druggie artist. (Don't recommend that one either.)

My tactic: Vent to my journal, and possibly a few friends or loved ones if I'm really down. And of course, read fabulous blog posts by fellow writers dealing with their own demons. (Read those if you get a chance; they're awesome.) :-D

Who are your writing demons? How do you deal with them? (And has anyone else named theirs, or am I totally weird?)

Struggling to Emerge from the Vortex

I know. I've been neglecting my blog. It missed me, I'm sure.

I've been super-focused. I wrote 32K in ten days. In fact, I handwrote 32K in ten days, and then I had to type it. (Typing took four days.) In the middle of that, I caught the flu bug and ran a little fever.

This is the vortex - a time of little sleep, little food, and much much writing (I got the phrase from a biography of Louisa May Alcott). Only now, I'm emerging from it slowly, remember that I have bills to pay, laundry to wash, thank you notes to pen, and holiday cookies to bake.

For days, I lay awake at night, imagining the next scene, and now, I lay awake at night, struck by revision ideas. I've even started keeping a notebook by my bed. If I think of something I'm worried about losing, then I'll go so far as to turn on the light and write it down. (If I'm not so worried about losing it, I don't turn on the light and take a chance on not being able to read my own handwriting in the morning.)

I've never written this much this fast in my life - I'm pretty sure. (I've also never really kept track of word counts like this before.) It's not my best work. I'm not saying that all of it is bad, but I changed parts of the plot midway without going back to fix what I've written before. Everything needs some revision before I show it even to my closest friends.

Realizing that I had roughly 70K of revision in front of me - ie. a whole manuscript to make coherent, funny, and meaningful - I started to feel a little overwhelmed.

So, I broke it into steps:

1. Gather all my revision notes and type them up in order of plot chronology (I have nearly 1500 words of notes to myself alone).
2. Tackle one chapter at a time, revising a hard copy and inputting the changes on a new digital copy.
3. Aim for at least two chapters a day.
4. Once Round 1 of revisions are finished, read it all the way through for coherency and consistency.
5. Read competitive titles for comparison.
6. Read the whole thing outloud.

Number 6 is a trick I was told sometime in high school. I never got the chance to test out this great advice, because I wrote all my papers and assignments either late or the study period before it was due - and thus barely had time for Spellcheck.

In college, my hardest class was actually a course on Fairy Tales. We did great things like have a skit every class and make our own magic carpets, but it was also my first class ever where my teacher/professor took off points for unnecessary words and handed back my papers with as much red marks as black ink.

I was furious, at first. I started writing my papers (gasp!) a week early, and I read them aloud to myself several times before the deadline. Then I did some of my best scholarly and creative work, and the course become one of my favorite classes ever.

(I'm sorry to say that I still wrote the rest of my papers a few hours before they were due with coffee and iTunes and my procrastinating friends for company.)

Okay. Off to revise Chapter 1...