Sabotaged by My Own Story

One of the more annoying things that can happen to you as a writer is this: realizing that the thing you’ve been working on for two months is utter crap.

Yeah, it happens sometimes.

In the best circumstances, you’ll have an idea for a story and you’ll sit down to write it and everything just clicks and it comes out pretty damn good.

In the worst circumstances, you’ll have an idea but you just can’t get it to come together right. Very frustrating, that.

I’ve just spent almost two months trying to hammer out this particular story—the second Hawthorne adventure. And two months is a LONG time to write a short piece. It shouldn’t have taken more than a few days, tops. I kept going back to it every morning, trying to make it do what I needed it to do, but the characters just kept mulling around pointlessly, the prose absolutely refused to be anything other than listless and boring. And yet I kept at it, trying to revive what was becoming increasingly more apparent as a corpse.

You notice how I'm refraining from strong language right now? Refraining, because if I start cursing and spouting obscenities I'm likely to keep doing it all day.

It was a decent idea, one that I would be loath to toss away entirely. But my execution of it was just a giant fumble from the get-go. Maybe I over-thought it. Maybe the various elements clashed too much. Or maybe it just wasn’t ready to be born yet. I don’t know. Whatever the case, it was a total disaster.

Some writers (including me, I like to think) have a sort of built-in sensor that tells them when a story isn’t working. Sometimes you won’t even know why, exactly; you’ll just feel it. And once that intuition sets in, it’s almost as if the story is DELIBERATELY keeping you from moving forward. Like it knows better and is trying to sabotage you for your own good.

So what do you do when your intuition finally has enough of you fumbling around in the dark and comes to the surface long enough to tell you to put on the brakes?

Accept it, I guess.

Put it down, move on to something else. Maybe let the idea foment for a while and come back to it later.

So that’s what I’m doing with this particular story. I’m turning it loose, letting it get its shit together. Hopefully we’ll hook up later and work things out.

If you’re one of the four or five readers anxious for the next Hawthorne adventure, don’t worry, another one is on the horizon. Just not the one I’d originally intended.

In the meantime, I have some other projects I need to get to, projects that my frustrating struggle with an obstinate story had been holding up.

Writers: what do YOU do when a story stabs you in the back and refuses to cooperate?

Damaged

Happy New Year, friends. Let’s talk for a minute about damaged people, our fascination with them, and why emotionally-scarred protagonists move us so much.

What was it, a couple of years ago now, when the actor Owen Wilson tried to kill himself? I don’t know all the particulars, nor do I really care that much, but I do recall a brief flurry of media attention about it that died away as quickly as it started. Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky character actor, seemingly without a care in the world, gets depressed over a girlfriend or some-such and tries to top himself… well, I’m not without compassion, even though I never gave Owen Wilson much thought before that. I silently wished him well and went on with things.

But I learned something interesting about my wife then. Like me, she’d never been particularly interested in Owen Wilson. But after his failed attempt at suicide, he was suddenly… intriguing. We watched a flurry of his movies, some good, some bad, and I got a sense that Kim was searching for something inside the actor, some indication of the turbulent waters that roiled under the surface of his easy grin.

Her fascination with him came and went pretty quickly, but I found it all quite telling. She, like almost all of us, is compassionate about the emotional pain that other people carry. But more than that, she—and we—find it… interesting.

While Wilson’s personal anguish was well-disguised until then, the writers we tend to deify wore their pain and discontent on their sleeves. I doubt anyone was surprised that day in ’61 when Hemingway topped himself. And who can say they were thrown for a loop when Hunter Thompson did the same thing? Edgar Allan Poe, Robert E. Howard, David Goodis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Patricia Highsmith, Dashiell Hammett, Kurt Vonnegut… our personal pantheons are crowded with writers who seemed driven by pain. Even the Patron Saint of American Writers, Mark Twain himself, was, in his later years, fueled by misery.

And the stories they wrote reflected it. The protagonists of their stories were, usually, not heroic in the traditional sense—they were desperate for… something. A sense of accomplishment, or closure, or self-worth. And more often than not, none of those things came by the end of the story.

There’s a looming sense of unresolved, open-endedness to the best stories from those writers, an absolute refusal to sugar-coat their fictional worlds. They were bitter reflections of the universe in the writer’s minds. Dark, unforgiving places where nothing pure could really take root and flourish.

Why do so many of us respond to that? Why do we find it so… satisfying?

Do we recognize that world?

Granted, there are many readers (maybe even the majority of them) who don’t want to linger there. They want real heroes to identify with, they want healthy relationships played out on the page, they want resolution, and to see the bad guys lose and the universe set right. Who can blame them for wanting that? And maybe those readers are mentally healthier than the rest of us.

Or maybe, just maybe, those readers are afraid of something. I don’t know.

As for me, I’ll take the damaged protagonist, and the ambiguous ending and the universe askew. I know that place and am comfortable there.

OFF THE RECORD and other stuff

Just a quick note-- I'd planned on starting a new series of weekly posts today on the great writers of hard-boiled and nor lit from the '50's and early '60's. But I'm putting that off for another couple of weeks, at least. I've wound up unexpectedly busy these last few weeks with writing stuff, and to be honest, as much as I love posting here at Psycho-Noir, fiction writing takes priority.

The good news (good news if you like reading my fiction, that is) is that over the remainder of the year you'll be seeing three or four stories from me at various places. One that I can mention right now is a new anthology being put together by Luca Veste, called OFF THE RECORD. About 30 writers are coming together for it, and the proceeds will go to children's literacy charities. So... well-done, Luca, and I'm happy to be part of it.

Information on the other projects as they roll out.

I WILL get to the series on hard-boiled/noir writers as soon as time permits.

And just one more quick thing, while I'm thinking of it-- a thank you. The warm responses I've received to THE BASTARD HAND and DIG TEN GRAVES has been a real antidote to that crippling self-doubt that plagues most writers at one time or another. The positive reviews and kind words have left me feeling that maybe I'm doing something right. I feel very, very good about my work these days. Again, thank you.

...and that's as sentimental as you're gonna see me get, so don't get used to it, fuckers.

"Writers are Sleazy and Annoying."

Some people hate writers.
They think we are self-absorbed assholes with no clue about how to interact with the real world. We can’t fix your car, we can’t balance a checkbook, we don’t know how to talk to girlies.
And yeah, that’s all true, for the most part (and before you comment, saying, ‘hey, jag-ass, I’m a writer and my checkbook is perfectly balanced and I’m composed and charming with the lady-folk’, please remember I’m talking about everyone except YOU, okay?).
But that’s not really the point, and it’s not the main reason the writah-hatah-playahs hate. They hate because on the social media sites, we spend a lot of time posting about writing—our own writing and the writing of others we admire.
And that just ain’t right.
None of this hate has actually been directed at me, understand. I haven’t had any first-hand encounters with people who gave me hell for posting about my work. But I actually saw this on Twitter once, a couple months ago: “I don’t follow writers, because all they do is try to shove their book down your throat. They’re just sleazy and annoying”. It made me a little sad, because the solution, the thing that would satisfy the writer’s need to get his work out there and at the same time not alienate anyone, doesn’t present itself very easily.
In my case, it comes down to this—a good chunk of my FB friends and Twitter followers are also writers. And as an avid reader and Fan-Boy, I actually WANT to know about their work. I really do. So it’s hard to get my head around someone who is put off by that… but I guess I get it, to some extent. The writers who post absolutely NOTHING but stuff about their latest novel or story or review can be obnoxious, yeah, okay. I’ve learned from watching other writers who’ve been doing this longer than I have that your best bet is to keep the self-promotion stuff down to two or three times a week, if you can. Just so you don’t annoy the people you’re trying to get to buy your stuff.
But here’s what it really comes down to. I don’t have two separate personas. There’s not the “Writer Heath” and the “Average Fella Heath”. It’s the same guy. My posts about writing (whether it’s MY work or someone else’s) don’t come from a different head than the posts about how we went to the museum or how my daughter cracks me up or what I had for breakfast.
So I have to assume that, if you know me, or if you like me at all, you might be interested in knowing that I have a new story out. Or that I’d really like you to buy my book or write a review or something. Just like, if I know and like you, I’m actually INTERESTED in the fact that you got a promotion or saw a kick-ass movie or that your kid is sick this week. I’m not being facetious. If we’re connected on any of the social networking sites, I actually consider you a FRIEND of sorts.
I suspect the problem comes from writers who actually think of themselves as two different personas. They're in it solely to promote their work, and nothing else. But if you're a writer, or artist or dancer or what-have-ya, the people following you are doing so because they want to know something about you other than that. This is not solely a professional venture. Let them know you're a human, and not just a writing-marketing machine. Share something about yourself. Be a real human being.
I bet that would make all the difference.
By the way, come back next time, so I can try to get you to buy something, okay?

Flying without a Net

Been flying without a net with the new book I'm working on, which is unfortunate, because I keep falling off the highwire and cracking my head open on the ground below.
That is, writing without an outline. Just... seeing where it takes me.
Eh. Not such a good idea. So many wrong turns, so many characters without a clear motivation, so many threads that keep getting tangled up. A few minutes ago, I decided I didn't have a fucking clue what I was doing and really need to re-think this whole project...
At it's core, it's a good solid concept involving a washed-up ex-wrestler, his much smarter girlfriend, a Memphis mobster with two crazy-ass strong-arms, and fifty G worth of money that they all want. Let the hilarity ensue. But less than 80 pages in (working without a net, as I say) the various plot threads have become hopelessly tangled and nonsensical. This whole "seeing where it takes me" thing has led to too many POV shifts, too many peripheral characters with not much to do other than say a few words or pound a few heads or take a few drugs. I'm totally losing sight of the story.
So I'm thinking of starting fresh, this time with a halfway decent outline, concentrating on two or three central characters, and seeing if I can salvage anything out of this mess.
I know some of you work very well without an outline, but for me... man, it's a disaster.
So tell me, if you're a writer... outline or no outline for your work? And if you're a reader... do you prefer stories with tight, insulated casts, or big, sprawling byzantine plots?

P.S. That image above, which has nothing to do with anything I was just talking about, is by the magnificent Christopher Moonlight, if you're interested. You can find his work at Moonlight Art Magazine. I'm a big fan of his.