Drawing from the Well
Scenes Arranged: 0
Total Scenes: 166
Yesterday was a busy work day and by nightfall, I was exhausted. I ended up knocking out before 10. So, yeah, no writing yesterday. I’ve got the next scene set lined up in my head, I just have to arrange it in yWriter. I’m hoping I can plow through that this morning after I post this blog. Here’s hoping.
Filling the Well
That Hideous Strength: 54%
Elegy: Page 11 of 89
Jessica Jones: S2E12 of 13
Yes, I finally made some progress on Jessica Jones. I’m almost there and the show is keeping me interested as it approaches its climax, even if not enthralled. At this point, I’m finishing it to check it off my list. This is especially true when considering that it is cancelled after this season. So, just tying off a loose end. Today will be another busy wedding day so I don’t expect much well-filling today.
Polishing the Well
As I said, I went to bed before 10 last night. That said, I feel totally refreshed. I think last night was the second good night of sleep I needed like a week ago. Now I’m primed for what’s next.
Well Chat
Picking Yourself Up When You Fall Down
Let’s talk about failure for a minute.
What? That doesn’t sound like fun?
We’ve all failed many, many times. I would venture to guess that we have all failed more times than we would like to admit. We’ve been failing all our lives…because that is the only way to learn. We failed when we learned to walk. We fell down enough times that we figured out the pitfalls and how to properly balance with one foot in motion until BOOM we walked. The same with talking, arithmetic, long division, trigonometry, calculus…
Yeah, it’s a lot of math failing. I identify because I’ve learned A LOT of math in my life.
As we age, we move on from the “simpler” failures to bigger things. We start failing friendships, relationships, jobs, driving, and other objectively-complicated things. The difference with many of these is that we don’t actually learn from them. We develop bad habits that create behavioral grooves in our brains and even when we know it’s the wrong choice, we keep navigating down those well-trodden paths.
I don’t have solutions for that.
What I can talk about is how you can learn from failure in writing. Because I’ve learned A LOT in the last couple of decades (read: failed A LOT). Considering that I started with outright plagiarism for pleasure, I’ve come a long way.
So how did I learn? Well, I started by trusting my gut. We have an innate sense for good story. That’s humans, not just authors. We know when to listen or watch and when to disengage. So the first thing is to know when something is good by feeling your own excitement. You can also ask yourself if this is something you would want to read/watch if YOU had not written it. If this was someone else’s, would you take the time to consume it? If not, it’s probably not good enough yet.
Next, look to your heroes in writing. What are some of your favorite stories/books/movies? Why? What makes them great to you? Your next step is to break out the pieces of those works that you like and incorporate them into your own work. I’m not saying write Lord of the Things set in Middle-Hearth with a hero named Grodo and his best friend Tam taking a magical ring and throwing it into Mount Foom to defeat the enemy Lauron. No. You don’t copy and you don’t write spiritual successors. But if, for example, Lord of the Rings is one of your favorites, as it is mine, ask yourself why.
- Is it the sprawling world? Create one.
- Is it the deep lore and long history? Write it.
- Is it the victory of “little people” over the super-powerful? Give birth to them.
- Is it magic? Design some.
A great example of using Lord of the Rings as a base and then making something totally your own out of it is The Iron Tower trilogy (and other works in the same universe) by Dennis L. McKiernan. A good friend of mine let me borrow the trilogy last year and I devoured it. I could pick up on the inspiration from Lord of the Rings, but I also detected the differences where McKiernan made this world his own. In some ways, I enjoyed it more than Tolkien. This is someone who was literally told by the Tolkien estate he couldn’t write a story in Middle-Earth so he went and made his own based on inspiration FROM Middle-Earth.
The last step is to bring in a professional. After you’ve figured out what you like in your favorites and incorporated those ELEMENTS into your own work and done the best job you can, look for professional help. Get an editor to go over your work with a fine-toothed comb to point out any and all issues. When you’ve put that much work into your writing, you start to lose sight of both the finest details and the overarching trends. My editor pointed out diversity and length as two of the major issues in my book. So I went back and got brutal with my book and myself and churned out what I think is the best version I can possibly put together.
These same methods can be used in your personal life, but in vastly different applications (obviously). I’m not going to go into it here because I am not a therapist and think it would be irresponsible to advise in such a way. But, for me, this is how I get over failure. I look at what happened, identify the problem, and design a new mental furrow to follow next time. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But what I TRY (read: fail oftentimes) to do is avoid wallowing in my self-loathing and self-disappointment and determine the way forward.
I’ve started research on an upcoming blog series and I’m both curious to learn more and excited about it. It may not come until first of the month. I want to make sure that I’m clear on it before I try to discuss it. So stay tuned for that and have a great weekend.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG