THE STORY SO FAR: PART 176

“MARCH OR DIE”—OR DO I MEAN “WRITE?”

JUST REMEMBER: IT MAY WELL BE A LONG MARCH

My beautiful sister Lucy’s web site has once again produced an admirable graphic. She must be telepathic.

Sometimes I think that everybody can write, but what stops most people is the amount of stamina required. We are talking years, at best, and probably longer. Of course my comment about everybody being able to write is not true—a great many people can scarcely construct a coherent paragraph, let alone write a 400 page book, but I am just saying it to emphasize that making a living from writing requires more endurance than you can imagine. And the number of people who believe in you may shrink to a frighteningly small total. The good news is that all you need is one. The bad news is that you may not have even that—unless, and until, you are financially successful. Becoming a good writer, in the critical sense, does not cut it because we—such value being part of our current cultural norms--are conditioned to regard financial success as the only determinant. True, it is important and useful—but, it is not, and should not be, the sole standard by which we judge achievement.

People will support almost anyone doing anything for a limited time—frequently without understanding it—but they get very exasperated when months stretch into years; and their support evaporates and tends to be replaced by frustration, irritation and anger.

Why so? Because most of us live corporate or government manipulated, structured lives which are divided into predictable bite-sized bits within the context of short time frames. Pay is generally predictable—as long as you have a job, which you can lose if you step out of line—and comes every couple of weeks or every month. Accordingly someone who is prepared to wait for years for an uncertain payoff is considered both irresponsible and arguably insane. And he or she is certainly different—and different is not considered to be good. People are uncomfortable around you. They wonder what you do all day—suspect it has to be something dubious—and marginalize you. If nothing else, you are the antithesis of the corporate/government mindset—so your very existence threatens the status quo. You really need to be put down—literally, metaphorically; or both..

Welcome to my writer’s world. Is it worth it? Many would think not. I can’t think of anything more invigorating. Do I mind the setbacks, the judgmental attitudes, the negative comments and the criticism?

What I mind is irrelevant. I just know I have got to continue. I guess, if we were talking about religion, we would call that faith—and perhaps it is.

My heart goes out to my fellow struggling writers—and all writers, whether successful or not, struggle. Hang in there! You may have no immediate support, but you are not alone. I doubt you give a damn. You have writing.

 

WHERE DOES AN AUTHOR PARK AN IDEA?

Image via Wikipedia

OBSERVE THAT SHAKESPEARE'S CUFFS - NORMALLY
 COVERED IN NOTES, ARE NOT SHOWN.
THE MAN WOULD WRITE ANYWHERE - A CUFF HERE, A BOSOM THERE

Department of Missing Ideas & Half-Formed Thoughts

Words are fine and beautiful things, but they are of limited value to an author unless they add up to a fully formed thought or idea; and they are rarely so obliging. Instead ideas have an irritating habit of arriving in fragments, in an untimely manner, and sometimes litter one’s mind for years. Worse, they have a disconcerting habit of retreating into one’s darkest recesses to the point where even the most brilliant thought can be forgotten. That is a tragedy of Hamlet-like proportions for a writer. That raises the question of where one should park an idea until needed; in such a form that it can be found. The latter is the really important bit and the hardest.

I don’t think there is any one solution. Rumor has it that Shakespeare plotted everything on his cuffs (driving Anne Hathaway nuts), but the traditional way was to carry around a notebook and keep a journal. It remains a thoroughly sound approach, but so much is going on these days that I’m of the view that one needs some kind of free-text database as well. Ideally, it should copy a web page (in whole or part) with a click of a mouse, be always on hand in one’s browser, handle multi-media, and keep the data itself on both one’s computer and the Cloud – and work on PCs, and Macs and the full range of electronic gizmos. Such a product is Evernote which is available in both Free and Premium Editions. As I mentioned yesterday – while forgetting to explain Evernote (it was one of those days) - the definite guide to Evernote is Brett Kelly’s Evernote Essentials. Not only will it tell upu a lot but, above all, it will tell you how to find.

Department of Research Without Ending Up Dead

Some writers don’t need to do any research  - and such people have my respect and admiration – but where thriller writing is concerned, I’m a believer in a three pronged approach: (1) Read every book you reasonably can on the subject. (2) Research the Internet. (3) Talk to those who know, and get as close to the reality as possible – short of getting yourself killed.

The reading-oneself-in part should come first. People will respect you more if you have done your homework, and they’ll talk more freely if they respect you – and you are more likely to know what questions to ask.

When I was researching the character of Etan for GAMES OF THE HANGMAN I spent several days hanging around the set of an excellent current affairs program called TODAY TONIGHT. The impressive presenter,  Olivia O’Leary (I think I was smitten for a while), memorably remarked over dinner that her boyfriend, the famous journalist Robert Fisk, had advised her that the only way to assess the truth of a situation was “to be there and put your hands in their wounds.”