Summer Reading or How Books can Save your Life

One of the reasons I love summer is because I have more time for reading. This past summer I noticed a theme running through a number of the stories and novels I was reading: Books and/or writing as life savers. I'll mention three of the bunch here.

Among Others by Jo Walton.

Dan Savage began a YouTube project to help LGBTQIA kids who were being harassed in school. He asked queer adults to talk about how great their lives are now: it will get better, they will find community and through that community love and acceptance. I describe Jo Walton's novel as an "It Gets Better" project for any kid who feels marginalized. Morwenna Phelps finds herself in a boarding school after some very bad stuff happens in her home life. She finds enough solace in Science Fiction to stay sane, but she comes into her own when she finds a Sci-Fi book group in the local town. Books can save you and finding other people who love books can make your life worth living.

Because Mori figures out her life through reflecting on the books she has read or is reading, for me, this novel also served as a primer for the canon of English language Sci-Fi pre-1979. (While most of the books Mori reflects on are science fiction, her own world is infused with fantasy elements--fairies!)

Plus it has an amazing ending in which The Lord of the Rings becomes both weapon and shield.

A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar.

Jevick was raised on an island with no written language to speak of. His father, a wealthy pepper farmer, decides that it will add to his prestige to teach his son to read and write, and so hires a tutor from Olondria, where reading is commonplace, where books abound. Jevick falls in love with books and eventually makes his way to Olondria. There he is driven to near-insanity by the ghost of young girl from his archipelago. He learns finally that he can approach her not in fear, but in love, when he honors her request to write down her life.  Jevick must save himself and calm his ghost and the only way he can do that is through writing.

For me, the most powerful metaphor in the novel is that books can stand in for our jut, in Jevick's language meaning something like spirit/soul/self. What we put into books gives us, creates, the very best of who we are.

The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan

For the most part India Morgan Phelps controls her schizophrenia with therapy and meds. Until she encounters a naked woman by the side of the road and brings her home. This woman might be a siren or she a wolf. Imp can't figure out what is real and what is not real until she writes a story for each.



All of these books blur the line between magic and insanity. As a reader you're never quite sure: are the main characters crazy? or is the world magic? Or are we crazy and the world is magic? We're crazy because the world is magic? In each, the main character carves out a way to live with insanity/in the crazy world through books and/or writing. Notice even the similarity in the main characters' names in Among Others and The Drowning Girl.

I read these three close on the heels of one other and their similar themes really got to me. I kept feeling like maybe the authors were all part a writing group and decided to write on the same prompt.
Reading them also brought home the idea that we focus on what we love, what is closest to us. When someone in the radio business dies, NPR dedicates disproportional airtime to their remembrance. And wouldn't you say that, pretty much, authors are authors because we love books, we love writing. Because we love books, they show up in our writing. I'm sure there must be novels in which the characters dislike reading, but much more often I see reflections about reading, writing, and books showing up in books.

Books are the love poems we write to the books we have fallen in love with.

Scribblerati Flash Fiction

This week I thought we'd try something new.

Writing a novel on your own isn't easy during the best of times. The real world can often work against you, making each page an uphill slog, facing down giants and monsters. I recently started a new job. This new time requirement has severely interrupted my writing schedule, my current WIP's fight for the high ground has slowed to a crawl. As writers, I'm sure this sounds familiar to you, it's an issue we all face, we fellow part-time writers still shackled to our day jobs. It's definitely something I've had to deal with before, and I've found the best thing to do, at least at first, is to just focus on the new job. Don't worry about the work. Go. Settle in. Establish your new schedule. Learn the ropes. After a week or two, you can come back, sit down, pick up your work, and start slaying those giants again.

Granted, sometimes this can be a whole new issue...

You must be worthy...

To combat this, I've decided on a new schedule, a somewhat flexible two hour block of writing each day, some dedicated time to sit down and work on something. Y'know... to ease back into it. It's a new thing. It's only been in place for a week or so, and to be honest it's only been mildly successful so far, hence the inclusion of the word "flexible", but I'm working on being better about it. An important facet is there's no pressure, just continual effort. Butts in seats, people. Butts. In. Seats. Focus on that. That's important. The rest will come.

Working on some side-writing is one thing that can help get you back into the fight. Blogging, for instance. Short stories, maybe. Or maybe, if you don't want to veer too far from your WIP, how about Flash Fiction? Flash Fiction is a style of extreme brevity, 300 to 1000 words. Short, sweet, and to the point.

Let's try it out, shall we?

I posted a picture below. I found it on-line, I'm not sure where it came from, so if it's yours, let me know. Otherwise, for the rest of you... Click on it. What do you see? Write it down, and if you're so inclined, post it in the comment section. It'll be fun. Just keep in mind: 300 to 1000 words only. Also, I recommend that you write your own story first, before you read mine, just to see how close--or how far apart--our worlds turn out to be...

Ready?

Womb World

by Jonathan Hansen

Harrison Holliday leaned on the chromed railing, listening to the soft clink of ice in his drink and the distant groaning dirge of nascent worlds ripening on the vine.

The great marshland steppes of the World Garden stretched to the horizon. From high atop the lustrous ivory needle of the Sales Tower, cool breeze tickling at his face, Harrison could see dozens of young planets. They rose above the clouds, slowly coalescing, swaying on thick green stalks as wide as a city. He watched oceans of water sluice from them, land masses heaving, cracking and rumbling, crashing together, thundering, booming echoes.

A sound from long ago, from the days of his bone thin youth, days of panting in the stagnant heat, the damp-cotton-thick humidity, knee-deep in squelching muck. Whenever the Overseers and their spark-sticks and the choking diesel smoke of the Weeders were across the fields, in those moments he would pause and look up into the azure sky. The other Sprayers would trudge on, bent under their sloshing canisters of Pesticide, eyes down and hunting for the small green shoots poking from the mud, but he would look up, the huge sphere of a growing nu-world looming overhead, and watch the brilliant white flights of marsh birds wheeling out of the sun’s glare, swooping among the vines, soaring on slow wings.

He would watch them fly away, a molten brand of longing twisting in his guts.

His eyes fell on the Work Camps, the sprawl of muddy hovels clinging like a rotten fungal shelf to the Garden’s edge, to a land of upheaval, shattered by giant arcs of twisted roots. He tossed back his drink, amber fire burning down his throat, and looked up into that same azure sky, seeing a far off gleam floating in low orbit high above.

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

He turned. A smiling young woman waited. He recognized her model. Beautiful in a pre-packaged way, precision styled, bred in the Customer Service Vats to be preternaturally personable. Sales. Lens embedded in the center of her pale blue eyes whirred and focused.

 “Words can’t describe,” he said.

“Mr. Holliday,” she extended a slim fingered hand. He shook, feeling warm skin that must have cost a fortune. “How can we be of service today?”

Harrison glanced past her, eyes skipping over the man standing on the other side of the Observation Deck. Big and built, powerful, an aggressive, military grade model, with a neck like a bull and a face like it was cut from granite. There was probably a titanium chassis under his skin and a wolf’s lust for blood programmed into his brain. His black suit hung on him like a Butcher’s Apron. The man didn’t move. He just stared.

Harrison turned back, a friendly smile. “I need to buy a planet.”

“Well, you have come to the right place, Mr. Holliday.” She linked his arm in hers and turned him back toward the slow creaking sway of the World Garden. “Voluspa Origins Industries is the leading producer of Nu-worlds,” she said. “With our patented Hephaestus Forge Engine, we now have over 6 dozen spinning in four different star systems. Building Universes for future Worlds,” she chirped proudly. “Now, if you’ll let me know what you’re looking for, I can help choose a world best suited to your needs.”

A quick wafting puff of perfume.

Subtle tendrils of lilacs, lilting, soft as kisses.

He inhaled, felt it drag down into his lungs, felt it wrap his brain. Intoxicating, stupefying. She smiled, dazzling white. Harrison bit down hard, splitting the capsule hidden under his tongue. A wash of icy cold clarity poured over him.

He blinked and grunted, suddenly wide awake. “Colonization,” he clarified.

Her perfectly arched brows drew together, confused, examining him, lens re-focusing. “Artificial?” she asked, probing.

“Human. Nu-worlds. New possibilities. Right?” He said, “Just like the commercial.”

“Human colonization?” An indulgent look, “The paperwork for an M-class is no small matter, Mr. Holliday, approvals, regulations, controls, corporate licensing,” she said, “not to mention the price...”

“We’re solvent,” He held out an open palm, lines of data hanging in mid-air, sparking like chain lightning between his fingers, “I’m sure you’ll find everything in order.”

Doubtful, but compliant and Sale-hungry, she reached out; a single fingertip touched his own.

It was like a spark of static electricity, a harpoon spike of data thrown across a vast gulf in that instant of contact. She froze, mouth half-open. He gripped her hand, held her steady, one eye on the Security Bull across the Deck. She twitched as her programming was flayed. The virus was like a squirt of crimson into clear water, staining, infecting, and then leaping across her uplink. She jerked and snapped, eyes rolling white, falling in a heap to the teakwood deck. The Security Drone took a single step, hand inside his black coat, and then he crumpled too.

For a moment, Harrsion Holliday let the cool wind ruffle his hair, listening to the distant creak and boom. The Program pinged as it ravaged the security net, once, twice, all clear. Far below in the bowels of the tower’s command center, he imagined chaos, while out on the vast marshland steppes, he knew the Gardeners were just now noticing, turning in the swampy, fly-swarmed dank as the Overseers dropped and the big chugging bulk of the Weeders rolled to a stop.

He opened his commlink.

“Packaged delivered. Door’s open.”

High above, he saw the distant low orbit gleam respond to his signal, blooming little bursts of orange fire. Tiny shapes darted away, the silver glints of fast attack ships turning toward the surface in a wide arc, engines screaming as they burned through the atmosphere.

Out in the Garden, the Harvest Charges thundered and flashed, the virus igniting them. The stalks splintered and groaned and the nu-worlds broke free.

All the way out to the horizon, he saw Nu-worlds start to rise, half-crumpled balloons, too young, too soon. They cracked and crumbled and broke apart in the freezing vacuum of space.

“Nu-worlds. New beginnings,” he said to the sound of far off cheers.

The End

All right, that's mine. How about you?

Thanksgiving

Ah, the holidays. A time of gluttony and sloth and drunken vindictiveness. Take a deep breath, my friend, taste that rarefied air. It is truly the most wonderful time of the year. A time when family gathers around your edges like slavering wolves lurking just beyond the firelight. A time of crowds, seething and surging, a greasy tide of humanity smashing through the poorly maintained levees of good manners, drowning decent behavior, and swamping class and taste with a stagnant backwash of sweaty desperation, trapped within the gaudy confines of the Mall, damp and reeking. 

I'm just kidding, you're all wonderful, really.

So yeah... Thanksgiving. You know what I love? Cornbread stuffing. That is some good shit right there, my friends. If you haven't had it, I highly recommend rectifying that little error ASAP. There's still time, the groceries stores as of yet, are not completely looted. Just a friendly tip from me to you, amigo.

So... Holidays... Holi-DAZE, amirite? Know what I mean?

No? Well, allow me to explain.

With all the crazed running about of this time of year, with all the panic and petty anger and opportunistic backstabbing and what-not that looms over the next few days as we gather to "celebrate", there's one thing that always, inevitably, ultimately suffers.

What? No. Children? No. What the...?

Your WRITING. The answer is: Your writing.

Your writing always suffers during all the hub-bub and what-cha'doin' of this time of year. It gets lost in the shuffle. One day skipped becomes two, three, a week very easily. The holidays can be momentum killers and as we all know, forward momentum? That's your book right there, my friends. You gotta keep rolling, you gotta push, push, push to the end. Finish. When it comes to your first draft, it is of the utmost importance: Finish the story.

So what do you do?



Good question, Ponder Cat, what do you do? Well, here's 5 suggestions straight from my pie-hole.

1. Make time

Be a little bit selfish. Take some time for yourself Why not? The rest of the free world will be busy setting new records for selfish behavior, so who can judge you for taking an hour or two a day to scribble away in a corner somewhere? Here's a tip for those of you traveling out of town: Get a hotel room. Sure, it costs more than staying for free at a relative's house and sleeping in one of their ridiculously uncomfortable beds... or does it?

2. Adjust your expectations

Okay, your output is going to be lowered. You're probably not going to be able to pull off a 2000 word day for the next week or so. Accept it. It's not a big deal. Maybe you won't get chapters done, so what? Shoot for a few scenes instead. Family visits are nothing but Time Leeches, they will suck up every available moment and employ it towards their own horrible and twisted agenda, it's not the end of the world. Remember, my friends: Thanksgiving isn't forever, we'll make it.

3. Be prepared

Have your note book and pen ready. Have your tablet and laptop charged. Keep your Jump drive close. You may have to snatch moments where you can, so don't waste them hunting around for your stuff. Keep it with you.

4. Adapt

If you're one of those people who needs a perfectly balanced environment with the right chair and the right desk set up at exactly the right angle of slanting sunlight, with only one specific recording of a certain band with the volume just so and the perfect vase of very specific flowers perfectly arranged before you can actually set pen to paper and begin writing... then you're screwed. I can't help you. Get lost. And honestly, I question whether or not you really want to write and whether or not those conditions you set are actually roadblocks set up to act as excuses as to why you never seem to get anything written, except those first 25 pages you keep re-editing and re-editing...

But I digress--

Anyway, be ready to write not just when you can, but where you can. Is everyone watching football, snoring and farting away on the couch, and is that really the only place to sit? Then sit down. Write there. Tune the noise and distraction out. If you want to do it, if you want to write, here's your chance. Get some work done. Hey, at least they're all too busy to bother you, right?

5. Alternate progress
Ok, fine, maybe you can't settle in and relax enough for the ol' Imagination to properly kick in. Don't worry about it. No problem, it happens. But what about your plotting? How about some notes? Even just sitting there and thinking about stuff is something, right? (Although, I suggest you write your thoughts down, memory is not as reliable later as we believe it to be in the moment.) Snatches of dialogue, character bits, it's all important. This is what that little notebook you carry around with you everywhere is for.

Put it to use. Get to work.

And there you go...

Happy Thanksgiving!
Jon (and the rest of the Scribblerati, I assume.)

Done by summer's end...?

I started my second attempt at a novel back in January.

Well, that's not totally true. I wrote the first chapter of what would become my second attempt at novel a year or so ago.

Wait... no.

Farther back, I guess I first tried to make it a short story, maybe two years ago, but it was too big and clunky and just wouldn't fit. It burst at the short story's seams. It wouldn't fit and yet still say all the things I wanted it to say.

Which was, to say the least, a bit frustrating and problematic... at least, at first.

So I took the short story and I churned out a first chapter, just to try it out and see if it could walk around a bit. I tested it out, first among the venerable bastards of the Scribblerati and then in David Oppegaard's nascent Loft class.

It seemed to do all right. It could walk. In fact, it did better than all right. It didn't just walk, it ran. I'm pretty sure I've talked about this project on here before. At the very least I talked about what the book was generally concerned with, right?

Right.

So anyway, in January--new year, starting out fresh and all that--I sat down and started working on it in earnest. Tentatively working-titled as Monsters, I wanted to finish it by summer's end. It wasn't easy. Well, ok, sometimes it was easy. Sometimes the prose flowed like a mighty river. Sometimes the hum of the screen was so loud while I was staring at a blank page, it just about drove me insane. But now, 13 chapters in and on the other side of a short but wicked bout of writer's block, now 68,000 odd words along, I figure there's only four chapters and just under a month left.

For those of you keeping score, that's a chapter a week.

I think I can do it. I do. I think I can do it and here's why. Stepping into the project, I only had one goal: Done by summer's end. But I should clarify, I mean first draft done. It doesn't have to be pretty. It doesn't have to be good. It doesn't even have to be all that coherent. It just has to be done.

First draft done.

By summer's end.

One chapter a week.

Yeesch. I'm pretty sure I can do it.

Hopefully...

But here's the other trick... You ready for this? It doesn't matter if I get done by summer's end. See that? It doesn't matter. It's just an arbitrary goal. It's one I think I'll pull off, or at least, near enough to make no difference, but in the end, whether I make it or not...

No big whoop. The only thing that matters is finishing.

First draft done.

Hooray!



Then, my plan is to set the humped and wretched beast aside for a few weeks, probably the whole of September, and then take it and the responses I have already received from the Scribblerati, sit down, and get started on the second draft.

Which is the reason I'm doing this blog here today. The second draft. This is where I will fix it. This is where I will smooth things out, make them a little more clear, make them fit better, make them better serve the story. This is where I will determine the story, to be honest. I'm sure I will lose characters, I'm sure I will combine some as well. I'll move some to the forefront and some to the background. I will cut scenes and I will add others. The first draft just provides the frame work, the shape, the big block of stone. The second draft is all about the shaping, the chiseling off of the unnecessary bits, of turning that big block of stone into a beautiful statue... or at least, a statue.

And here's the little guiding light. Here is something to see by in that word-crammed darkness, a map to guide my way, to guide your way in your own work. It is filled with things to think about and things to remember. Print it out. Tack it to you wall. Learn it, love it, live it.

It's Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling.

That's a bunch of basic true-isms there, kids. Think what you will of Pixar (although as a hint... The correct way to think of them is that they're awesome. Don't think so? You're wrong.), regardless of how you may feel about them and their films, as a writer, it's important to know that this list is right. It's a good tool. Sure, y'know, maybe don't worry about it so much at first, but later... like I said, in the second draft? Keep it close, because the path through the second draft can be darker and meaner and more discouraging than the last time, so it's good to have a map.

Keep writing,

Good luck,

Jon

What is best in life?

So true, so very, very true. But he forgot a part y'know. It's true. Do you know what's really best in life, or maybe more accurately, do you know what is ALSO best in life?

A day of writing.

That's what I'm doing this weekend. I have to mow tomorrow and I may have to do some grocery shopping at some point too. Plus, I am definitely going to see the Avengers again tonight. (Wait, what? You haven't seen the Avengers yet? What the HELL is wrong with you, man? Go. Go on... Go! Ugh!... some people...) Anyways, that's my plans for this particular weekend, a couple of errands, nothing else, nothing....

Except for writing.

You see, a couple of weeks ago, I took up a new six month position at the Salt Mines. They were having a lot of turn-over lately due to a recent (and quite frankly somewhat excessive--I'm looking at you, Head Overseer Mungo) rate of slave deaths, coupled with the openings of several new mines, so now my days have been starting early and running long once again.

These days, I get up with the sun, pack in with all the mewling, stinking dregs of humanity all jammed in tight into their cattle car, and I spend my days writing down the general process of drudgery and shame that makes up daily life here at the Salt Mines, and all in order to ensure that the other business casual day-slaves are clear on what exactly is expected of them and how exactly they are to go about doing it.

It's really not that bad, to be honest, at least as far as Salt Mine slave positions go. It's a lot of: Mine the salt. Load the Salt. Lug the salt out of the mine for your masters. Be quick about it, or we'll whip the crap out of you. Repeat until you die.

For this I get nearly $0.15 an hour and a hole to piss in, too! Ha! I swear, it is just like Christmas. The downside, of course, is that my writing schedule has been thrown off.

Maybe "thrown off" isn't quite the right term. Derailed. That's a good way to put it. In fact, in the past two weeks, I haven't written at all. It is frustrating, to say the least.

(sad face...)

This weekend though, oh, this weekend! This weekend, I get back on track. This weekend, I remember what is good in life and I make myself a little time to get some writing done. In fact, I'm gonna get started right now!

You should try it. Make some time to work on your writing. I feel better already.

Thank you, Conan!

Jon

The Dog Days of the First Draft

They say the most important part of writing is to finish something.



That's it.

Edits? Critiques? Rewrites? Yes, that is all very important too, most definitely, but without actually finishing something, then what's the point, right? In the early stages, you have to keep that forward momentum going. You have to ignore the glaring faults. You have to ignore the inconsistencies. You have to ignore all those nagging doubts nipping at your heels like a pack of wolves looking to bring you down.

You have to finish. At least, that's what they say...

But it's not always that easy, you know?

No. In fact, it's really hard. Most people won't do it. Most people can't do it, because it's hard. It's hard to keep going when you know there are problems and there's no end in sight and it all feels just... terrible. 

Plot problems. Pacing problems. Inconsistent details. Unecessary characters. Things to add. Things to subtract. Unclear direction. Not enough description. Too much description. Questions of value and worth. Concerns about marketability. You should never write toward the market, but that doesn't mean you should be wasting your time on a dud project, right? And how do you know if it's a dud project or not? Questions, comments and concerns. It pokes at you. It slows you down and it can stop you cold. It threatens to take you out at the knees.

That's where I am right now, the middle of nowhere with a long way to go.

I'm working on my second book, so I've kind of touched on these ideas before. 

I've talked about starting over. I've talked about motivation. I am a little over halfway through the first draft now (at least, that's what my general plotting tells me), which means I am smack dab in the doldrums, slogging through a narrative quagmire as I try to bridge one part to the next, plagued with motivation and world detail questions, blah, blah, blah... right? It's maddening, but you have to ignore it and keep on keeping on, because as soon as you start editing and re-editing, and then editing some more, as soon as you start spinning your wheels, staring at that blank page and worrying about what comes next, as soon as you start fretting over value...

You're sunk.

You have to finish. I mean, really, what other choice do you have? Quit writing? No, you have to remember that it's supposed to be like this. After all, what's the common addendum to the Finish Something Rule:

But that's the sticking point, right?

I may know that I can come back, that I can fix it all later, but sometimes it is hard to keep that in mind. At times I feel like that room in my head filled with all the junk and scrap and bits and pieces that I drag out and hammer into the shape of my stories is pitch black and I am just stumbling around in there hoping to find my way. And sometimes it feels like that's not going to happen, that I'm just stumbling around in the dark. Lost. That's scary. It threatens the whole project.

I know my first book was a struggle. I know that. Thinking back on it now, it seems like it just kind of happened. One day: Poof! Book. Like I just wrote a few chapters, I planned ahead a bit, maybe changed my mind here and there, wrote a bit more when some stuff occurred to me and then it was done. Boom.

First draft finished, easy-breezy, lemon-squeezey!

That's a lie, of course, a recollection colored by fear and doubt and probably the failings of an aging mind, but still... When you're in the middle of it all, and that second draft is so far away, it's hard to remember that the first draft is an important tool. That it's just a frame work, a map to something better. It's hard to remember that the First Draft is just that, a First Draft, one of many and that it's not done.

And honestly, barreling ahead? That can often be the fun part. What happens next? It could be anything. It could be inspiring. It could be new and brilliant and twisty and awesome. It could change everything. What happens next? It could be amazing, yeah, but that fear and doubt reminds you that it could also be terrible.

But that's the rub, right? What happens next? To find out, you have to keep going. You have to finish, even if it might get ugly.

Keep writing,
Jon

Oh... you're a WRITER.

There are so many clichés out there about writers, and about how people perceive writers. For a long time, I thought that most of them were untrue – that is until I started writing in earnest. Then some of them started to slide into place.

No, we’re not all outsized naked mole-rats, smelling of unwashed hair and swigging Jack Daniels while we listen to Mahler for inspiration – Telling our friends we’re writing the Great American Novel on our antique typewriter, while really we’re spending all our time anonymously posting vitriolic online diatribes about Stephenie Meyer.

That’s simply not true. I prefer Maker’s Mark.

Buh-dum-dump.

But really, now. Not one of my fine Scribblerati friends, nor I, fit that description. Well, to my knowledge. I don’t spy on them at home, after all. (Okay, now I just got an image of a tipsy Lisa cackling maniacally while typing EDWARD SUX in all caps on some tweener website, and the image is very funny.)

But I digress.

So, yes, some of the clichés are untrue, or untrue at least for my writer friends and me. I’m sure those people exist.

But how about the old trope that once you tell someone you’re a writer, one of two questions pops out of their mouth – 1) “Where do you get all your ideas?” and 2) “You’re not going to study me and put me in your book, are you?” – I used to think this was just the silly invention of screenwriters (Like the fact that people in movies and on TV almost never say goodbye on the telephone. Go ahead, check it out. They just hang up, knowing the conversation is done. People pretty much don’t do that in real life.) – but I’ve been asked both of these things quite a few times in the last several years.

"He didn't even say goodbye!"

To answer them, 1) I’ve always found this question very odd. I get my ideas from my brain. Like you do. (Click here for tonal context.) I, unlike some writers, have an excess of ideas. I am an idea factory. A good, sometimes great, idea factory, if I do say so myself. It doesn’t matter, of course, unless, until I actually finish something. People don’t want to read plot pitches and descriptions of futuristic societies; they want to read completed stories.

2) I will only study you and use elements of you to create a character if you are exceedingly bizarre and/or fascinating, and if you’re asking me that question, I’m sorry, but you’re probably not. (Wow, I sounded like Jon there.) Okay, that's a little unfair, and untrue. Of course writers draw on their interactions with other human beings to write believable characters, but I, in my admittedly limited experience - let's say I've created 50 characters in my lifetime thus far - have never based a character solely on one person. (Except, perhaps historical figures. But even then you're making a lot of it up, playing a part.)

But back to a cliché that I mentioned earlier… the idea that every writer aspires to write the Great American (or Irish, or Belgian, or whathaveyou) Novel. I don’t. I don’t need to be the next William Styron or James Joyce. Okay, maybe I’d take F. Scott Fitzgerald or Kurt Vonnegut Jr., but only because I adore their writing. But I’m not them, I know I’m not them, and not only that, I don’t have a burning desire to impress the world of academia with my writing efforts, nor to go down in the annals of time as one of the greatest writers who ever lived. Sure, I want stellar reviews, and I want to share my stories with millions of people and, naturally, make a lot of money doing what I love, but mostly, all I’ve ever wanted to do is entertain the nice people. (Click here for tonal context.)

And speaking of Mr. Vonnegut, I came across this quote today.

I then thought about what…was it Neil Gaiman? said was the best piece of writing advice he could give: “Finish something.”

The first quote is freeing, and the second is both frightening for those of us who haven’t finished a novel yet, and beautiful in its simplicity. Stop fretting over perfection, or failure. Finish it, finish it, finish it. Another cliché about aspiring novelists – we're forever working on that first novel, and never completing it.

For today, I’d like to combine those two ideas, and task myself to finish something creative that is NOT my novel. Finishing an artistic endeavor is immensely satisfying, and I think it fuels us creatively in all areas. A novel takes so long to write, that that satisfaction can only be taken in small doses (I finished this chapter! I finished this draft!), and as for the final word of the final page of the final draft? It takes years of mostly solitary effort. So, for today, I say finish a sewing project, a painting, a poem, a clay model, practice a monologue, do something, FINISH something artistic – no matter how good or how lousy it is, as Mr. Vonnegut would advise. Who's with me?

(As for me, I’m going to pounce on my Wonder Woman crop art. My progress thus far. Her skin, if you're wondering, is quinoa.)