Week of April 2-8 (belated)

[mrissa]

Two rejections, one of which was a policy change to no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts.

yhlee took a writing survey which included the question of what you would write if you were the writer you wanted to be. I don't think it works that way; if it does, I'll never find out. I don't know how else to become the writer you want to be except by writing the things you really want to write. I don't think that always works, it's just that I don't know what else does. I've known some people who needed to write things they thought of as "practice" or "not serious" or "not real," but most of the people I know who've done well with that have written things they thought were fun or interesting.

This is the life you get, and you don't know how much more of it you get. Waiting until you're perfect, or even some nebulous "better," is not going to make it the life you want. Don't wait until you're skinny to wear pretty clothes. Don't wait until you're no longer nervous to ask that special person out. And don't wait until you're your own ideal writer to write the story that has wrapped itself around your heart and head. You'll never learn to do it justice but by trying.

Central Iowa was extremely dusty yesterday. Not dry -- the creeks and all were plenty full. Just dry. Also our car CD player attempted to eat one of our CDs, but we thwarted it with judicious application of my knife. Why I Carry A Multitool, Instance 476.

I'm pretty sure that since this is lj, "does this happen to anyone else?" is going to be yes here, but we'll give it a shot: sometimes I fall asleep after reading something and dream that I'm still reading it. Does this happen to anyone else? The style stays constant -- apparently my brain can either produce the correct style on command or the illusion thereof -- but the plot often veers wildly off into a different direction completely -- from truepenny into Agatha Christie, for example, or from David Brin into Connie Willis, or from Patrick O'Brian into Isaac Asimov. This is disconcerting, particularly when I wake up and try to go back to where I was reading before: wait, is this before the butler killed Bernard? Have the dolphins started running madly around the corridors yet? Has the Zeroth Law of Naval Battles been discovered, or is that a few pages on?

On second thought, maybe this is just me.

Comments

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Not just you. This is part of the reason I bathe with Quack Aubrey, the Very Yellow Admiral.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there are other very good reasons. I'm still snickering here.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

The tub has not been attacked by Napoleon's navy since I took him home. (So it must be working.) But I had to take him from 7 identical siblings -- Jack, Kack, Lack, etc., each with a little axe and helmet.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

You've noticed that about LJ, too, have you?

In this case, I have to say that it's at least not me; I can't fall asleep while reading.

[wilfulcait.livejournal.com]

I'm with callunav; every attempt to fall asleep while reading results in staying up much later than planned.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I didn't say "while reading," I said, "after reading." As in read for awhile, put book down, take nap.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Oh! Sorry for the mis-read.

In that case --

Still no. But it sounds very entertaining. It reminds me of the friend who's been frustrated for a decade or more, now, because she dreamed she was reading just a little bit of the /last/ Dorothy Sayers novel, titled Tempus Fugit.

[cadithial.livejournal.com]

This happens to me usually when falling asleep while rereading a book :)

[hilarymoonmurph.livejournal.com]

Nope, it's not just you.

Sometimes, I forget what I actually read and remember what I dreamed. I've added some amazing subplots to many great classics of literature that way...

[katallen.livejournal.com]

I've done it with a few books... mostly when I am not enjoying the actual story so much. I had a much more interesting version of "The Woman in White" than anyone else in my O'Level English class. Likewise "Oliver Twist" is more interesting when combined with the Baker Street Irregulars and Logan's Run ::grins::

But I'm seriously bad about falling asleep during uninteresting movies -- when unable/unwilling to just leave the room -- and dreaming up better middles and ends. Which, I guess, is just the subconscious and accidental version of what I do a lot when writing... steal, fiddle, fix, remodel...
On more than a couple of occasions, I've actually been happy to watch a film again and then realised that the 'that's a decent film' memories were about my version. I think it's only once where I watched and realised that their version was better than mine (and that possibly because I'd been too young and stuffed with Xmas food to get the subtle angsty stuff).

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

John Scalzi does say he deliberately wrote _Agent to the Stars_ as a light, not challenging, novel, rather than jumping right into what he wanted to write, and that approach seems to have worked out for him.

[ladysea.livejournal.com]

My poor brain, and how I am going to inflict it on others. =P

I read this: we thwarted it with judicious application of my knife

And I saw that standard horror movie scene with the knife and the person in the shower. Just in the shower was your car CD player.


Don't mind me. I am ill and it is affecting my brain.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The movie you mean is "Psycho," and I can just see it. Heh.

[ladysea.livejournal.com]

I have seen it in a few other really, REALLY, bad B-movies. =P And I so spaced the name "Psycho". I guess I am more sick than I thought.

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

In high school I dreamed that way every night. I'd finish a book in the afternoon, start a new one, dream some more of it, wake up. Every night.

Don't wait to be perfect

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

I've also gotten some perspective by realizing that what was The Perfect Story Oh How Will I Ever Be Good Enough To Write This say, three years ago, is now all but forgotten today unless I go back through my archives. Not always, but more often than not. So just because something seems Incredibly Wonderful to me now doesn't mean I should wait to write it, because it might not seem all that shiny after I've had more experience.

If that makes any sense.

Re: Don't wait to be perfect

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes. Hmm. It was an obvious leap for me when stories from a year previous didn't look stupid. They weren't what I'd write at the current moment, but they no longer looked like a hideously bad idea. And then I knew I was getting somewhere with all this.

[dendrophilous.livejournal.com]

I have a memory that's obviously false, but here it is:

When I was young (5? 6?) I was reading _Little House in the Big Woods_ for the first time, and fell asleep, and dreamed the rest of the book. And then when I woke up and read it, it was exactly like I'd dreamt it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't think your answer was particularly skewed that way, but the question kind of hit me wrong.

But then, I've only had problems with quantity in a particular genre: that I've been having trouble writing as much SF as I'd like, not writing SF at all, so maybe that's why I'm not connecting with the question in the same way as you did.