Lilith Saintcrow

Come sit at the feet of Auntie Lili, dear Readers. It’s Friday, which means another chapter of Selene is up–and it also means another writing post. I’m sitting here with sweat drying on me from the treadmill, having my morning cup of coffee, and feeling just the teensiest bit ornery.

So let’s talk about something writerly. Let’s talk about the I could do it betters.

Before we get into this, a public service announcement. If you don’t agree with me about writing or about the creative process, fine. Go read someone you do agree with. Don’t send me hate mail or comment about how you’re a precious speshul snowflake and I’ve destroyed your will to write/live. Any and all such comments/hatemails will be ruthlessly mocked and bashed on the head. My patience, she has officially been exhausted. Besides, if my teensy little opinion can wreak such terrible damage on you, you are low-lying fruit and would be offended/damaged by any old thing; you just happened to choose my stupid little opinion. Get over yourself.

Ahem. Sorry. That just fell out. I now return you to your regularly scheduled Lili.

I’m reading a few different books right now. Ivanhoe with the Selkie, taking Kage Baker’s Mendoza in Hollywood in little chunks on the treadmill because I want it to LAST, Cormac McCarthy at the kitchen table, and Jane Smiley by my chair. Despite this (and the huge TBR pile), I have trouble finding books I like.

When one writes for a living, reading for pleasure becomes a much chancier proposition, because one gets terribly picky. You’re always peering under the hood, so to speak, wondering why the author made this choice instead of that choice; picking apart the sentence structure, anticipating twists, poking little holes in motivation and plot. I would hazard that professional musicians do much the same. It’s hard to turn off the automatic editing inside one’s head, and really hard to find a book that carries one along with it so strongly that the editor is drowned out and the temptation to look under the hood doesn’t get a chance to surface.

That’s one reason for the I could do betters. Another is a young artist just starting out, growing out of the fanfic phase* and feeling the constraint of other people’s characters.

It always starts with the same thought.

Hey, that’s a neat idea…but it would be even neater if the author did x,y,z…You know, I’d do it differently. I’d set it up THIS way.

The less-charitable version of this thought: Holy f!ck, that’s CRAP. I could do better than this.

And lo, a prime source of motivation is uncovered.

It’s kind of declasse to admit you want to do something better, or that you’ve made a value judgment about someone else’s book and want to “do it right”. Most writers will never, ever admit they think this–as indeed, any reasonable human being would hesitate to. Wild horses won’t drag it out of them, nor will wild horses drag out which books they’ve thought this about. (That is a subject reserved for close friends and alcoholic lubrication, if the conversation in the bar at several conventions is any indication.) This is a good thing, actually. Be careful who you open your mouth about the I could do betters to. You never know who might be listening, and publishing being the close little business it is, that person could have control of the next stage of your career at some point. In other words, think this all you want, but be careful who you say it to.

Still, it’s a motivation. And if it gets you writing your own stuff, it’s a valuable source and shouldn’t be discounted. It’s a sign that you’re starting to read critically instead of just instinctively–by which I mean you have internalized some of the rules of good writing/storytelling, and the internalization of those rules means you will start making a better class of writing mistakes.

Hey, the mistakes don’t ever go away. You just make new ones as you get better.

Unfortunately, for every motivation, there is a dark side. And the dark side of this motivation blooms to its noxious excess in the Holier-Than-Thou Fan and the I’m Gonna Writer.

The Holier-Than-Thou Fan is that “blocked” writer who continuously sniffs that Such-And-Such Author is all right, they guess, but would be so much better if they did X. The HTTF will give this advice to a writer from the vast heights of their disinterested condescension, usually in the most hurtful, sneering manner possible. When questioned about their own work, the HTTF will airily remark that of course they’re writing, but the world isn’t ready for their (unfinished) heartbreaking work of staggering genius yet. And besides, they’re Such-And-Such Author’s biggest fan, and they’re just trying to help!

They’re too busy fucking tearing down actual working authors/artists to finish their own goddamn work, and they get their jollies from the passive-aggressive But I’m just trying to help you! You’d be such a pretty girl/good artist if you lost some weight/did what I told you!

Avoid these like the plague, dear fellow writers. Thank them for their input and go on your way. You will never be able to satisfy them, and if you don’t engage they cannot insert their proboscis under your tender skin and suck the ruby fluid beneath.

The I’m Gonna Writer is a different animal, one that hunts in critique groups, writer’s gatherings, and conventions. The IGW is gonna. Gonna finish that huge work, gonna blow the socks off everyone, gonna wow the world, gonna gonna gonna…but they never do, and they won’t take crit. The Gonna Writer knocks other authors with abandon, far more directly than the passive-aggressive HTTF. The Gonna Writer won’t show you the manuscript, because s/he’s had problems with people “stealing” their work.

The Gonna Writer is not going to finish a single goddamn thing. And Heaven help you if you have to provide crit for him or her. You may get a peep at their mess of a manuscript, but when you try to offer constructive pointers, all of a sudden you are The Enemy. Your advice will be scoffed at, and the GW will suddenly flood you with thousands of Reasons. Reasons why you’ve misread the work, reasons why it has to be the way they’re writing it, refined and urbane allusions they’re making that are leagues beyond what any uninitiated hack can speak to.

In other words, they’re not going to listen to a goddamn thing you say.

Both the HTTF and the GW are engaging in that most seductive of timesucks–endlessly talking instead of sitting down and doing. Talking endlessly about how great the work is going to be is much more romantic and gets more positive strokes than the thankless slogging of doing the damn work every day.

This brings us (somewhat circuitously, but hey, you know I digress and this is my journal, it’s allowed) to the point.

All the “I could do better” in the world is useless without hard work.

Young Jedi, it is perfectly okay to feel this way about your reading material. I would go so far as to say it’s a natural recurring phase in a writer’s life. Use that feeling to get yourself to the keyboard each day. Use it to help you flog yourself through the finish line. Use it to help yourself. Don’t give other people the benefit of this opinion–it is meant to be a spur to three people: you, yourself, and yours truly.

Of course, if you’re dishing with your best friend and a cranky, catty comment slips out, well, who can help that? It’s what dishing and best friends are for. Just, for God’s sake, be sure you can trust the friend you dish with.

Like any source of motivation, the I could do betters have their dark side, and they are useless without the commitment to actual work. It doesn’t matter where you find the motivation–anywhere will do, my ducks. Take it where you find it.

But trying, or just thinking I could, isn’t enough. There is only do, or do not.

It ain’t romantic and it ain’t pretty, but it is the bottom line, and it will get you published faster than the Perpetually Unfinished Manuscript Of Staggering Genius will.

Over and out.

* I firmly believe every writer goes through a fanfic phase, as training wheels for their own fiction. That is, however, another blog post.

Related posts:

1. Letter To A Young Writer
2. On Young Adult Fiction
3. This Is The Sound Of A Painfully Squeezed Internet Addiction

This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 11:38 am and is filed under Rant Rant Rave, Writing (About). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.