Author Lynn Viehl posted today about the importance of balancing inspiration and practicality in writing. She brings the point to vivid life by describing the demons Necessity and Creativity, who pull her writing chariot:

“Generally Creativity gets all the credit for the success of the journey — something that would never have happened without Necessity’s determination and endurance — while Necessity takes all the criticism for every bump, pot hole and pitfall along the way — something that it knows would smother Creativity if it had to deal with it.

“They squabble, bicker and try to resist each other, but after a time they learn to travel together. They know that if we hitch only one of them to the chariot, we’re not going anywhere interesting, or we’re not going anywhere at all. Or Ego and Fear will take the lead, in which case there’s going to be a huge pile-up down the road.”

And at the end, she asks, “What’s harnessed to your chariot?”

I would have to say, right now, that Creativity and Fear are pulling my chariot, most of the time in different directions. Sometimes Fear takes the lead and Creativity is almost lost in the cloud of brimstone the demon casts in his wake. Sometimes Creativity charges forward and leaves Fear choking on dust, wondering where she went. It’s an uneven load they have to pull, as alternately thin and bloated as my writing often is, but somehow we manage to arrive together, usually with all limbs intact.

So what demons drive your creative work? Please leave a comment on Lynn’s post at Paperback Writer, and feel free to leave one here as well.

As a sidenote, I can’t believe I missed this when I was researching writers who use Dragon NaturallySpeaking, but Lynn Viehl has a post on Taming the Dragon that I found useful. The comments from other writers were also insightful.

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Posted: November 28th, 2007 under Creativity, Writing.
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I apologize, but my posting is going to be a little light this week so I can spend as much time as possible working on my novel.

If you haven’t yet seen this video about the Writers Guild of America strike from the Daily Show writers, it’s worth watching, both for the humor and for the inside perspective.

Also, take a moment to read Joss Whedon’s response to the New York Times on the writers’ strike:

“We’re talking about story-telling, the most basic human need. Food? That’s an animal need. Shelter? That’s a luxury item that leads to social grouping, which leads directly to fancy scarves. But human awareness is all about story-telling. The selective narrative of your memory. The story of why the Sky Bully throws lightning at you. From the first, stories, even unspoken, separated us from the other, cooler beasts. And now we’re talking about the stories that define our nation’s popular culture - a huge part of its identity. These are the people that think those up. Working writers.”

(via Deep Genre)

(Edit: If you liked the video above, here’s another one from the writers of the Colbert Report.)

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Posted: November 27th, 2007 under Writing.
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It’s been far too long since I’ve added to my blogroll, especially considering the number of great writing blogs I’ve discovered lately. I’d like to take a moment to highlight my additions.

Advanced Fiction Writing

Daily Writing Tips

Fiction Scribe

I Should Be Writing

Justine Larbalestier

The Mess in Progress

A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing

Paperback Writer

Write Anyway

Write Stuff

Writer’s Resource Center

Writing Forward

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Posted: November 23rd, 2007 under Writing.
Comments: 4

They’re always lurking there, just out of sight. Turn your head fast enough and you just might catch them in the act. They’re ready to pounce whenever your attention wavers for a moment.

What are they? They’re ideas that are better than what I’m currently working on. They’re ideas that will ultimately let me down in the same way the current ideas are, but the new ideas have so much promise. It’s so tempting to follow them into the wilderness and never return.

Over the weekend, I was attacked by two story ideas entirely unrelated to my NaNoWriMo novel. One of them was a flash of insight into a story I had originally considered writing for NaNo. I didn’t choose that idea at the beginning of the month because it was really just fragments of a story, gaping plot holes held together with a few bits of thread. But this weekend I had some ideas to patch those holes, and I started to wonder if I should have gone with that idea instead.

The problem I’ve always had with writing a long piece like a novel is that I need to work on it every day to keep the creative energy flowing. If I go more than a day without writing at least a paragraph or two, I lose the thread entirely. When I have to reread to remember what I was writing, I get caught up in editing and never get back to writing. After this happens a few times, I’m completely bored with the first few chapters. It seems easier to start over with a new idea, swearing that I won’t let myself get sidetracked again.

I’ve written about fighting distraction before, in Learning Patience. But it never gets any easier. The monster always uses a different tactic, a different lure to tempt me away from what I should be doing. I know I’m not alone. Many other writers on the NaNo forums have come up with fantastic ideas in the middle of the month when their novels are languishing. Some followed their new ideas with greater success. Some chose to stick with the original plan.

Last weekend I gave in to the wild ideas and had a blast writing about something different. At first I despaired of ever returning to my NaNo novel. I was afraid I’d get sucked into my new story and end up with another half-finished novel on my hands. But after I’d written down my new ideas, the headlong rush slowed. Writing the new novel wasn’t going to be any easier than working on the old.

I realized what I needed was time to reflect on my NaNo novel. No pressure to write, just time to think. I looked at my story as though it belonged to someone else, asking the questions a reader might ask. What happens next? How can the characters possibly get out of this mess? Why do I like these characters so much? As though they had been there all along, the answers popped into my head, and I ran with them straight to the computer and started typing.

I’m still only at 23,000 words, which makes me 12,000 words behind if I still plan to reach 50,000 by November 30. But now I have fresh enthusiasm for the story, and I still have hope that when my voice recognition software arrives I’ll be able to sprint to the end. Even if I don’t make 50,000 words, I think I can finish the story by November 30.

I read an interview with a writer whose name I can’t remember who said when he gets bored with what he’s writing, he opens a new file, writes some erotica for a while, then goes back to his real story. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who needs a distraction once in a while.

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Posted: November 21st, 2007 under NaNoWriMo, Writing.
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Today I’m feeling a little bit like Neil Gaiman in his National Novel Writing Month pep talk:

“You don’t know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you’re pretty sure that even if you finish it it won’t have been worth the time or energy and every time you stop long enough to compare it to the thing that you had in your head when you began—a glittering, brilliant, wonderful novel, in which every word spits fire and burns, a book as good or better than the best book you ever read—it falls so painfully short that you’re pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.”

Neil’s words may not seem inspiring, yet knowing that an author I admire has felt the same way is comforting in a perverse sort of way. The rest of Neil’s pep talk, linked above, is well worth reading for anyone needing inspiration for a creative effort.

Find pep talks by other fantastic writers here.

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Posted: November 20th, 2007 under NaNoWriMo, Writing.
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