Completely Conflicting Contradictions

One problem with having a world of information at your fingertips on a minute-by-minute basis is that not everyone is sharing the same information. There are so many different views, opinions, and experiences out there that sometimes there is no straight answer to the question you are asking.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on edits and revisions for my zombie apocalypse novel. It is my hope and desire to go through the entire manuscript once, making revisions as I go and fixing up loose ends and missed opportunities, and then re-read the entire thing to see if there is anything (as a reader) that bugs me or doesn’t make any sense.

And if all the writers of the world were to read that paragraph that I just wrote, I’d wind up with 2 million emails explaining to me exactly why my plan is 100% wrong.

Didn’t honestly think I’d get a chance to use this pic again…heh.

I’ve never been one to follow in the exact footsteps of those who came before me (I like to climb a tree here and there, or swim across the lake instead of going around it), but I do research sometimes, and what I’ve been reading on the topic of editing and revision has got my head about ready to explode. The thing is, whether you’re talking to professional writers, editors, agents, publishers, or amateurs, you get wildly different stories on how things should be.

– I’ve been told that revisions should always be done by themselves, as a giant whole, and that editing (for typos and the like) should be the absolute last thing you ever do to a manuscript.

– I’ve read that revisions should be avoided at all costs because changing parts of the story changes the story itself and you wind up destroying the world that you had originally created.

– I’ve read that editing should never be done by the actual author because the one who wrote the story doesn’t tend to notice any of the tiny, niggling little errors and end up missing most of them.

– I’ve been told that no story is ready for publication until it has been edited again and again until the author’s fingers have begun to bleed from the torture, and then edited again.

– I’ve been told that perfectionism is what kills most stories and that editing should be kept to a minimum because nothing is ever perfect and trying to make it so will only torture you.

– I’ve read that if you think your story is complete crap, you’re probably delusional.

– I’ve read that if you can’t find anything wrong with your story, you’re probably delusional.

The list goes on and on, a never-ending list of contradictory advice that pulls a writer in a thousand different directions and threatens to make one go insane. Which advice do you take? Do you follow the tips of your favorite author, or perhaps the wise words of professional whose made a living at telling writers how to write?  Do you listen to your fellow writers or your critique group, or do you follow what’s in your heart? Do you engage the services of other professionals to do the hard work for you or do you buckle down, even though you feel like you have no idea what you’re doing, and figure it out on your own?

I’d love to have a straight answer, for someone to simply tell me “Do this, this, and then this, and you’re done”, but I’m fairly certain that kind of solution does not exist.

Myself, I revise and edit at the same time, even though many people tell me that’s a recipe for disaster; I simply can’t separate the two functions in my brain. I also take advice from the critiques of others, but I also follow my own instinct when it comes to certain things because I believe in the “write what you would want to read” way of thinking. The big question mark for me, right now, is how to know when I’m done. With my currently plan I’ll be going through the entire manuscript twice, which is twice as many times as some people go through their manuscripts, and ten times fewer than some other people go through theirs. But here’s the thing: as I go through my manuscript, making my little revisions and edits here and there, I find that I’m happy with the story overall. Sure there are little things to change, typos to fix, poor wording to rearrange, but for the most part I’m happy. I think the story is good.

And that scares the bejeezus out of me.

How do you handle editing and revisions? Do you follow the advice of others or just do what comes naturally to you? Please share!

Perfectection is Meaningless if it’s Never Seen

Week 7 of The Artist’s Way covers a few topics, some of which I skimmed over. The chapter as a whole is dedicated to “recovering a sense of connection”, which is a bit broad.

The first topic is “listening”, which I skimmed through because what we’re supposed to be “listening” to is a higher power guiding our creativity. As previously mentioned, this isn’t exactly my bag. I do agree with a few concepts, such as “get your story down” rather than constantly trying to “make stuff up”, which basically means to listen to your internal creativity rather than constantly trying to “come up” with the next great American novel. You’ll be amazed with what will willingly come out of your own imagination if you just relax and let it happen.

Another topic that I skimmed through was “jealousy”, in which the author goes over the concept of poisoning ourselves by being jealous of those who have made it, those who are living the dream that we dream for ourselves. She talks about how jealousy is an evil that keeps us from our dreams, but that it can also be a useful tool in helping us to achieve them. An exercise she suggests is to make a list of people you are jealous of. Next to the person’s name, write the reason you are jealous of them, and next to that write a constructive idea for how you can better yourself now that you know what you’re jealous of. For example, I might say that I’m jealous of so-and-so because they have a real writing office where they can work in peace, and for my constructive idea I might say that I’ll find a way to section off a small area of my house just for me, in which I can make my own little office. Jealous becomes constructive enhancement, you see?

But the topics I paid most attention to were “perfectionism” and “risk”. Risk is pretty obvious, I think…we’re all afraid of taking them, but sometimes risks are required in order to achieve our goals. For instance, if I send my manuscript into a publisher, I risk receiving a scathing rejection that feels like an arrow through my heart. But if I never take that risk, there’s no chance that I’ll ever receive a glowing acceptance that rockets my writing career forward. That’s life.

Perfectionism might be a little more vague, because depending on who you’re talking to it might be a good thing or a bad thing. I’ve worked with people who were perfectionists, and to the big bosses that seemed like a good thing, because of course they want everything to be done perfectly, but to the people working with those perfectionists on a daily basis it was a constant source of misery, because with a perfectionist you can never get anything done. This is especially true of writers. If there are any writers reading this right now, I’d be willing to bet that if you’re completely honest with yourself, you fall into this category. This was my biggest hindrance for years. I was the writer who re-writes the first chapter over and over again, always coming up with ways to make it better, always trying to make it absolutely perfect before moving on. But the thing is, as any professional, successful writer will tell you, no matter how many times you re-write something, it will never be perfect, it will never satisfy you, and it will never be done. I’ve heard it said that a book is never done, the author simply chose a place to stop. And it’s true. Any story can go a bit further, be shined up a bit more, be added to or changed to make it “better”, but if you move forward with those thoughts in mind, you’ll never end up with a book…you’ll always just have a collection of words in a notebook or a computer file, dying to become a book.

I could finalize those red-lines, then red-line up the red-lines, and just keep going and going until what I’ve got looks nothing like what I started with, and then keep going some more…

None of the tasks for this week actually coincide with the “perfectionist” topic (which I found a bit annoying) so I don’t have anything of the sort to share for this post, but I will make a suggestion of myself for anyone who struggles with perfectionism:

BLOG.

It doesn’t have to be a professional blog, it doesn’t have to be about any one topic in particular. You can treat it like an online diary, or you can address topics you care about. You can share things you think bear sharing (recipes, parenting tips, book reviews), give your opinion on big events happening in the news, or just talk about your day. Whatever you do, do it on a regular basis (three times a week, minimum, seems to be a generally accepted number of days) and make it public. When you write a post, make sure people know about it through Twitter, Facebook, or what-have-you. Gain followers, even if they’re just a scattering of family members and online friends.

I suggest this because blogging is a different beast from writing novels (or painting portraits, or running marathons, or whatever else it is that you’re trying to do with absolute perfectionism). Blogging requires you to get the words on the page and get them sent. If you want to adhere to your schedule (which you do, because you have readers now and you don’t want to disappoint them!) you will get your ass in the chair, write the post, and get it sent. There’s no time to sit there for days at a time, picking at each paragraph, trying to turn your post into a literary masterpiece. You write, you maybe proofread once to make sure you don’t have any terribly embarrassing typos, and you post. Nothing will beat the perfectionism out of you faster than being forced to ignore it on a very regular basis.

Do you fight with perfectionism in your day-to-day life? How do you deal with it? Has it kept you from making headway on your goals? Have you tried blogging, or are you going to try? Have you thought of any other ways to help beat the perfectionism out of you? Please share!