I was going to write this earlier, but I got highjacked by the big galloots who live in my household. Seeing me in that rare time defined as “between books” they crowded around me early this morning and begged for waffles, which I’ve made and they’ve consumed. (No, sending them to Denny’s or such won’t work, as these are low carb waffles. So, I have to make them.) Of course, I had to stay around while they ate and participate in the near limitless flow of very bad puns.
Robert (aka #1 son) and I have decided it would probably be best for BOTH of our sanities if we didn’t even get in touch after he left, because we seriously worsen each other’s mental health case. If one of us can come up with a ridiculous premiss for a story, the other one goes “I can top that.” And if I say I can write a novel in two days, he’ll say “Then I should be able to write one in one.” And then of course I say “Twelve hours. I bet I can do it in twelve hours.” Yeah, it’s that bad. (I become a functional teen male in those circumstances.) Even Christmas cards between us are likely to make us worse. OTOH we enjoy each other’s company way too much. I was telling him I woke up thinking how completely unmarketable A Few Good Men is and “What was I thinking?” and he said “Well, mom, I just spent Thanksgiving break writing “Catbo, first blood”” (which is not the title, but it’s close enough to the concept. His story is actually called Ratskiller.)
So, this comes down to “writing what has to be.” There is this thing every good writer knows, and every newby and wannabe thinks we’re nuts, which is called “What the story wants” and “the true story flow.”
What do I mean by that? I mean that sometimes, just sometimes, you hit something in your story and you find you can’t write it that away. And sometimes years later you realize the way it wanted to be was “right” in the sense that it made it deeper or more marketable, or fit better with what had come before. Like, not making Tom’s father a total SOB in Draw One In The Dark, say.
But this is not always true. And this is where being under contract to write something can drive the author insane, because you go “But I have to write it this way. It’s what they bought on proposal.” And sometimes the changes aren’t things that make the novel more marketable or better. I’m very much afraid A Few Good Men is weird enough to not find a substantial public. (AND that’s JUST the Usaian religion which figures BIG. We don’t even go into the rest.) Of course, that doesn’t matter so much now, because if Baen doesn’t want it, I can bring it out, and if I put it at 6.99 and it sells 2k books, I can make what I make for most of my books. And surely there are enough crazy people out there to sell 2k books. It can be a cult classic!
I’m not joking when I say “without the possibility of self-publishing it would have died aborning.” Is it a good thing I wrote it? I don’t know. It’s good for MY mental health, because when a character grabs you by the scruff that hard, you HAVE to write him. If I’d blocked that one, I probably wouldn’t have written anything for a year.
But then there’s a ton of minor stuff. Like, Seraphim being called Seraphim. Or Kyrie being called Kyrie. Actually names are a good example. Both book titles and character names come to be from… somewhere (I suspect my toenails.) This is how come one of the books in progress is Space Opera and insists its name is Winter Prince. (In fact ALL the books have Prince in the title for that series. WHY? No clue. Yeah, there’s a prince in it, but he’s the romantic foil, and for the love of BOB the main character’s nickname is Lucky (For Lucrezia.) You’d think the first book being called Lucky’s Revolt would be better, right? Nope. Won’t work that way.)
So, where does that stuff come from? Who knows? I think we’re broken – as writers – in an interesting enough way that allows writing to occur, but brings into it interesting side effects.
My morning’s reading sort of brought this up, too, sideways, in a way, both in terms of “Can you write art when your contract says you must deliver a can of beans” (And let me tell you I totally understand this from the publisher’s perspective too. They have to sell many more copies to make their nut, and… well if what they’ve readied for is a can of beans, well… They have to have THAT.) And in terms of “Are we all nuts, then?”
Both of those might be worth reading. And now I’m going to dust, vacuum and draw spaceships. (Dust and vacuum the house, not spaceships, just so we’re clear here. :) )
According To Hoyt 
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I love the fact that you and your son have a one-upmanship contest over stories. Having a creative family keeps things so much more interesting. I have a photographer for a wife and a graphic artist/ jewelry maker for a daughter. I so wish I had a spaceship to dust and vacuum. It’d make cleaning chores so much more worthwhile. Although that space dust can be hard to get out of corners I hear.
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If I had a spaceship, I’d hope for reliable nanotech to do the dusting… ;)
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As a former fencer (back when I had two intact knees) I advise you to eschew romantic foils in favour of romantic rapiers or possibly romantic epees.
As to delivering Art when what the customer ordered was beans, well:
No version on YouTube by the original artist (Tom Paxton) but this is a classic “talking blues” song and can be heard:
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeXX7ro4U3A ]
Paxton is a far Lefty, but wrote some good songs all the same.
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The preceding post makes much more sense if you are familiar with the oeuvre of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. If this is not the case either wiki it or shrug it off as another instance of RES being more than a trifle peculiar and having a head overfilled with stuff.
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but I like romantic foils! Actually, I am highly uncomfortable calling what I do “art” but let’s say that tight deadlines and having to do it a certain way sometimes interfere with that too. It’s wassmacallit, the price of living in the real world. Mostly I get really frustrated at myself when I can’t follow through as I should.
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The (intended) point of the song quote was that “Art” is crap, at least “Art” in the present, as it is only the test of time that proves truly what is Art and what was mere fashion. As a (putatively) professional writer you should not strive for “Art” so much as craftsmanship. Craftsmanship is within your control, “Art” will be determined by factors long after your death.
One perk of self-publishing is that you are free (well, free-er) to pursue your craft, and if a publisher finds it sufficiently meritorious to think it will support his (hers, its) markup costs then fine & dandy. You are now in the realm of delivering the goods (always an important aspect of craftsmanship) promised, but the promise is being made to your readers, not your publishers (too many of whom, let us face it, have too often demonstrated their goal is to feed their readers the literary equivalent of Big Macs … and yeah, the two whole beef patties are processed filler and their special sauce is sex.)
Look, you’ve gone the “Lit’rachure” route in academia: how many novels do you think will be read, much less influential, fifty, a hundred years from now? I betcha Rex Stout, Stephen King, Agatha Christie, Heinlein and L’Amour will still be read.
I appreciate the need to meet deadlines, but consider whether such pressure is not helpful as well as harmful. Art often consists of the compromises made to get a project done on time.
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No. Of course deadlines need to be there and they will even on the things I publish myself. There’s a thing called “If I don’t write, we don’t get paid” that works to get me working. And it totally makes things happen, otherwise, you know… I could fiddle with a short story till the end of the world.
I think my problem with contracts, really, is the same as my problem with credit purchases. I OWE something. Now, with credit I can just pay. With stories being due, brain locks up and I end up ridiculously late. I hear from Toni that LMB has the same issue.
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Hehe, nice. Couldn’t help seeing a bit of me and my sis in your description of the friendly competition between you and your son. Ain’t it great when the creative bug runs in the family?:)
Anyway, I have the ‘problem’ you mention, and totally empathise. It’s all connections, I guess, in the way we’re interpreting language and then making those connections work with the voice of the story and our imagination. But it’s very frustrating when a project derails because you just know something’s not right…. only you can’t put your finger on what it is and deadlines are looming so you can’t cater for the uncertainties! Thought I would get better at this as time went on, but… oh, well, there’s always hope:)
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Got a scene that I can’t get rid of. The damned thing keeps coming back. And I don’t know why it keeps coming back, because I just can’t make it fit right.
Non-Fiction is easier [GRIN].
Wayne
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