The Hard-On In Writing: Rewriting & Editing

Okay, to recap this month’s posts: To detail or not: kill your darlings, it’s not lying if you call it fiction, and it’s okay to write crap. Basically I’m coming back around to kill your darlings, rewriting and editing. Wow! It feels a little full circle, but that’s the process with writing unless you’re perfect. I’m not perfect. I’ll probably make several mistakes today, but that’s okay because I’m human. I don’t mean to make so many mistakes, but I’d rather make mistakes than have regrets. I intend to leave this world without a single regret, and hopefully surrounded by a rainbow of men and…*blush*...er, um, way off topic, back to editing and rewriting.

I’m currently reading The Alphabet versus The Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image. I’m only sixty or so pages into it, and I have no idea what I’ll take away from this book as a whole. So far it has me thinking about the fact that I don’t even question my own literacy, though I can remember back to when I couldn’t read. When subtitles in a film would frustrate me or even a pictureless book seemed daunting and overwhelming. If not for Mrs. G, my favorite librarian, I wouldn’t have risen to the challenge of reading and writing.

I started writing stories around the time I learned to read. Although The Alphabet Versus The Goddess inspired some of my favorite songs on Ani Difranco’s latest CD, Which Side Are You On? and she’s my favorite writer’s block unlock tool, I really don’t know. As Once Upon A Time likes to remind viewers in almost every single episode, there’s a price to pay for using magic. Not to jump off on a philosophical tangent but if literacy is a magic power that I have, what is the price I pay for being able to use it? Editing?

In my head, every piece I write is a movie playing out. Most of the time the visual lands on the page. When I edit, if it’s not there already, I plop down the details. It is my hope that the reader sees the picture I envisioned on each and every page. Or at the very least they get a vivid picture that will keep them reading. The parts that end up being crap, I might rework, delete, or edit. I never know until I’m re-reading, rewriting what will stay and what will end up lost to the dreaded delete button. I enjoy editing videos and stuff, but when it comes to self-editing my writing, I’m lousy at it. I’m much too close to the story to see what I wrote.

It’s a rough draft though. It’s the garden that needs tending. Sure there’s plenty of fertilizer and dirt in the mix, but underneath it all there is a story. A character drowning in bad writing. An emotional scene that makes the story worth reading. One dimensional characters that come to life. No matter what level my writing is at, I always need other people to read what I wrote tell me where I’m unclear, what’s not working. Dare I say, an outside editor or beta reader?

This is not to say that we as writers don’t need to do our own editing and rewriting. Before I could start submitting my work to a professional editor, I had to clean it up, flush out the story, rev up the scenes, and capture the details. Grammar and punctuation rules come into play here. I'm still not perfect at them, but I generally take care of the glaring mistakes that make a reader cringe.

So what happens if it still really, really, really sucks? If it doesn't look like editing will help at all? Well, rewriting the entire thing may be in order. With Forced to Change I ended up writing the bulk of the story in first person narrative, then switched it to third person narrative, and then ended up back in first person narrative. I know insane, right? Granted it was after I was already under contract with the third person draft when I went back through and set it to first person. The only thing I can say about this amount of work was, wow. Even as much work as it ended up being, I knew my characters, scenes, plots, theme, and settings backward and forward. I was so much happier with the latest draft once that was done. That accidental insane amount of labor will be a tool I use again one day.

Anyway, so that’s my writing journey for the most part. Write crap. Detail for no other reason than to detail. Kill your darlings. Above all else, write. When anyone asks me the trick to being a writer my answer is always, WRITE...You’ll pick up the rest along the way, but if you don’t start somewhere even if it’s something as simple as typing the following line over and over again, ‘just write...’ you’ll never have anything to edit or rewrite. So write it down or type it up or speak it into a recording device and get it out there. The tricks and tools come eventually.

Writing Down The Boners!

In Natalie Goldberg’s book, Writing Down The Bones:Freeing The Writer Within she points out human beings are the only species on Earth with this magical power, literacy, reading and writing. I read the book years ago and have since lost my copy. I mean to replace it one day, so I’ll do a bit a paraphrasing for this post. The one thing that stood out in the book to me, the thing I needed to read most was that it’s okay to write crap. Giving myself permission to write badly is the most valuable tool I ever put in my writing tool box.

Why? Writer’s block...You could be the most talented writer in the world, a true perfectionist at the craft of writing and if you are congratulations, I’m so happy for you. Writing is probably as easy for you as breathing. Not me though. As I mentioned in an earlier post I started out as a ‘edit as you go’ writer. I had to make the switch to a ‘write by the seat of my pants’ writer after reading that book.

I had these great ideas for stories and I would write anywhere for 2,000 to 10,000 words on a particular piece and I’d stop. Either I couldn’t get back into the flow of it or I had no idea how to move the story forward to get to the end. I wrote myself into a corner constantly or the story just got really boring. Cringe worthy material graced the pages and I couldn’t write another word. Before Writing Down The Bones I let myself be defeated by writer’s block. I considered writing a hobby and continued to pursue jobs that took me far away from the goal of writing for a living.

I needed to know how to finish the story. I was desperate to figure that out. Even when I copied another author’s style, storyline I still couldn’t make the magic happen for me. I discovered a formula to most of the books I read and while studying the craft of writing I picked up on a few things like plot, theme, setting, and story world. I stumbled onto Randy Ingermanson’s newsletter which spoke of this formula that I could see in other writers and still had yet to figure out for my work.

Unemployment found me attacking the craft of writing a story like a puzzle that needed figuring out. It could be put together if only I could find the key to the map of writing fiction. I turned to reading authors and genres I enjoyed and I tried to get my characters to do the same, finish telling the story.

Overall my biggest issue turned out to be writer’s block. When I read Writing Down The Bones it was like finding a key to my map with writing. That key was it is okay to write shit, crap, junk. Bad writing is allowed. That was the most freeing thing I could hear about writing. I immediately changed my goal. Instead of telling a great story and worrying that every detail was perfect, I wrote total and complete garbage. The only thing that mattered was I was writing, my new goal.

I’d finish the scene and get past it onto the next. Impossible unrealistic crap could and did happen to my characters. Scene changes that made no sense sprinkled their way across my words. A real world setting would switch to the future and take place on another planet in an entirely different universe. All of sudden in a modern urban tale there would be a 15th century warrior. Fairies and elves would run rampant or a minor character abruptly took center stage. I was writing. Something was happening on the page or nothing was happening on the page and that was okay. Nothing happening was the basis of one of my favorite television shows, Seinfeld. That show elevated the power of ‘nothing’ to a new level.

My grammar and punctuation were awful. There weren’t even darlings that needed killing. It was mundane dribble, but hey, I was writing and finishing stories. As I’ve said, I hate, loathe my first novel with a passion. I got that first novel length story under my belt about two months after I read that it was okay to write terrible stuff.

I was so proud of myself for finishing. Yeah, Woo Hoo! I proved to myself that I could group 75,000 words together to tell a story. I may hate the novel, but after it was done I managed to figure out my next biggest issue as a writer. I read and re-read every single word over and over again cringing the entire time. Often with lots of alcohol to help me get through it. It was painful to discover I had other issues now that I'd made writer's block my bitch. I was able to triage my weaknesses and learned what my strengths were as a writer. Being able to do that honestly and truly as a writer was humbling, yet very freeing.

Turns out that although I wrote for my enjoyment my target audience at that time was my biggest supporter of my writing, my aunt. She’s married to a minister and related to me through blood. This woman who I love and adore changed my diapers and has known me all my life. In the back of my head I was writing stories to please her. Turns out, my fantasies, the things I really enjoyed reading (and writing) were not for her eyes. I know where I intended my first novel to go. My aunt wanted to read it and I’d agreed to send it to her chapter by chapter as I wrote it. I so did not write the novel I meant to write. I only realized this hard truth as I finished writing my first novel.

I dropped my wonderful aunt as a beta reader. Considering she was the only beta reader I had at the time it was pretty easy to do. My next couple of beta readers were virtual female friends but eventually I landed on the right ones for me, dirty old men. At that point, I had a target audience that fit with the kind of writing I wanted to do and this little porn writer was born. So, I write down the boners, or orgasms, sometimes both, occasionally neither. I write until I finish the story and then the hard, difficult work starts. Rewrites and editing...

Pennies Add Up At The Pubic, Uh Public Library

I don't mean to do a PSA this week, but as I learned last week, I have to go with what's on my mind. I can't fight it. It's a moral imperative! Anyway, here's my story about pubic, I mean public libraries...Yes, the 'pubic' thing still makes me giggle as much as when I was a kid and someone said it the first time.

As I mentioned in my last post my mother and I moved a lot when I was a kid because of her job. I changed schools so much I thought it was normal. It took awhile for me to be able to express what I was feeling about it and I found writing the key to getting those feelings out. At the same time I discovered the school library. Writing and reading go hand and hand and my first short story was inspired by Iggy’s House by Judy Blume, a book I read until it fell apart.

From the first step into one, I thought a library was a magical place and Mrs. G., my first librarian, was the sorceress of that world. I started with Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Suess and soon it was my favorite book. I checked it out of the school library over and over for five months straight. I felt my school’s copy was mine. All mine. I really didn’t get the concept of a library, I was only six after all.

I don’t know if Mrs. G had actually loaned the book out to someone else or if she put the book out of my reach, but one day she gave me a copy of Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret while telling me my favorite Dr. Suess book wasn’t available. I still wasn’t quite at that reading level yet, so we found some Encyclopedia Browns and a dictionary until I could read at Judy Blume level.

I began devouring books and by the end of second grade I was reading at a fifth grade level. I was a stickler for my favorite authors and discovered that if I liked a book by one person, I usually enjoyed reading other books by the same person. Judy Blume wrote one adult novel and I begged my mother to buy the book so I could read it. I didn’t see the issue, but my mother did because I was only eight years old. She bought and pre-read the naughty Judy Blume book. When she finished she said it was too mature for me. Probably a good call.

Mrs. G offered me Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys but I continued looking for tougher, longer material. Age appropriate books weren’t for me. Once I broke away from Dr. Suess and had accomplished Watership Down I needed epic novels to hold my reading attention. I drifted to mysteries and suspense and finally that mixed with romance became my bag.

My mother finally turned over the Judy Blume adult book I’d been so eager to read a year before and her review of it was it was a boring read, but yeah, I could read it. I have to admit, I didn’t like it either. I had a hard time reading the book and gave up a couple of times before forcing myself to read each and every word.

The problem was, it wasn’t what Judy Blume did. She wrote about little girls, with little girl issues, storytelling I could and did relate to. Her writing style really didn’t transcend into adult material. I also had plenty of writers to pick from who did it better by that time. Don’t get me wrong, the writing as a whole was good. There was nothing wrong with the book. I just had an expectation of storytelling from Ms. Judy Blume that was not delivered in that one book.

Mrs. G continued her recommendations and I continued reading and then my mother got the promotion she couldn’t pass up and I had to leave my librarian friend, my school, my home, everything. As a parting gift Mrs. G once again opened my eyes to a new author, Christopher Pike, and a new word, ‘Godspeed’ which I had to look up in my trusty worn out dictionary.

My mother stopped trying to censor my reading material by the time I was ten and she said, “My kid is reading. Why should I curb what it is she reads?”

Something close to that statement was made to my sixth grade teacher who’d confiscated my Jackie Collin’s novel in class one day. The teacher went on and on, holding me after class while the office called my mother.

To hear the teacher tell it, I’d been reading a copy of The Story of O or some truly pornographic material in her classroom. I’d exposed and tainted the other innocent students to XXX material just by reading a book. I’d done something wrong, evil, depraved. There was no reason in the world for me to have such filth in my possession. Did my mother know what a little pervert I was? I should be ashamed of myself, etc. and I listened with a mostly bored affect while I waited for my mother to arrive.

When it became clear to my teacher that my mother supported my reading whatever I wanted to read regardless of content she changed her story with a quickness and ended up backpedaling to the problem wasn’t the material, but the fact that I was reading during class. She returned the book and although other students were reading Sweet Valley Twin books in her classroom and those books weren’t taken away from them, you know, whatever.

Over the years I can’t remember all the librarians names because only two ever really stood out for me. They were nice and all, but no one could or did replace what Mrs. G was to me. They were the school librarians and they didn’t have time to keep giving me recommendations. Their priorities were the entire school, not just one person.

As a result, I got my first public library card. Every weekend my mother drove me to it and I picked out a few books here and there, but the suggestions being made to me at the time just weren’t satisfying me and so I started rereading everything I already owned and started sharing authors and titles with my mother.

The library, school or public, was no longer a magical place. A librarian wasn’t an all knowing wizard.  It wasn’t until high school that I met Mrs. S. Mrs. S and Mrs. G had similar approaches to being a librarian and soon Mrs. S was as good a friend as Mrs. G had been. In addition to books Mrs. S was responsible for all the audio visual media and she sparked my interest in how television shows and movies were made. Although I never officially became an AV geek, I was the go to person for Mrs. S if a piece of equipment wasn’t connected correctly. The school library was once again my sanctuary and Mrs. S let me have free reign throughout high school. She retired the year I graduated from high school.

Fast forward quite a few years later and a permanent move to the south, I went to my public library to use the computer. I didn’t have to get a library card to use the computer. It wasn’t until after one jellyfish picture and a couple more years that I finally got a library card again.

The librarian I dealt with was friendly enough and she even turned me onto a wealth of new authors, but I didn’t expect or need her to replace Mrs. G or Mrs. S. What she did open my eyes to was the fact that my sanctuary was in trouble. For whatever reason, I grew up thinking that my public library would always be there for me. The truth of the matter is public libraries are in trouble. I’ve watched over the years as the hours were cut, the fine fees bumped up and new material is harder and harder to find.

This public service is in major financial need. Their funding is cut all the time and even my small help of returning books late just to incur the late fee or donating my books when I move isn’t enough to save them. In an age of e-readers and internet there seems to be less consideration of what a public library can do for a person. Almost as if their function is becoming obsolete.

In defense of the public library, they are changing and meeting the challenge of such technology driven times. I can access content online, browse material and interface without physically stepping into one. Also, I can place a book on hold, or check out electronic copies of material. When I do enter the public library, there are computers available and color me old, but I like being able to pick up a physical book. I enjoy touching and turning the pages. I prefer that format to an e-reader because I don’t have to make sure the batteries are charged to read a book.

An entire universe can be found in the pages of a single book. There are millions of friends to be discovered in the volumes lining the shelves. Although the public library is a free service to their customers it does take money to keep the doors open. Some libraries get very creative with this challenge. For example the scheduled book burning put on by the Troy, Michigan public library.

For me, I create and pay library fines (usually under $0.25 per book). I get this practice is a bit douchy to the person waiting to read the book I have checked out. But if every person who owed the library paid their fines, public libraries wouldn’t be in financial trouble.

They are in trouble. Every year more and more libraries close their doors permanently. I try to do my part because I feel their value to a community is priceless. It’s rather easy to get involved and as simple as going out to your public library’s website. You’ll find Friends of the Library or a comparable version and other ways to support your own public library a click away. Mine even has an Amazon wish list where I can purchase a book to get it on their shelves or in their electronic database.

Maybe you are the type of person who never used this public service or you think only geeks step foot into one. Or you’re a reader, but you download all of your books or purchase them online, from bookstores. Personally, I don’t always have money to spend on books or even entertainment in general. The public library doesn’t just have books. You can borrow movies, music, etc. and it’s free (unless you return the item late and have to pay the tiny fine for doing so) to you to use.Or think of it this way, some of your taxes are going to it, so you’re already paying for the service you might as well use it.