“The trick with science fiction is not to prove that something--a machine, a technology, a history, a new way of being--would be possible. It's to temporarily convince us that it already exists.”
Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden

author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

actually writing blog

From Typewriter To WordPerfect
Sat 2010-03-06 12:34:56 (single post)
First Breath
  • 2,680 words (if poetry, lines) long

For two days running now I've rolled out of bed and up to the desk for two hours' solid fiction work. And I've learned at least two things about this process, thing which were true both this morning and yesterday and thus are likely to remain true going forward:

  1. It is the best way to start a day EVAR.
  2. By the time I'm done, I reek.
So. Hurray for early morning writing and hot water and soap!

Yesterday was spent at the typewriter finishing the new story, or the new from-the-head draft of old story, depending on how you want to think about it. Today was spent typing the first revision into WordPerfect 5.1. It changed a lot from the one draft to the next. The first part changed tense and, I hope, became more nuanced; the second part incorporated the worldbuilding that went on in my head while I was busy procrastinating. (While it's true that thinking about writing is not writing, it's also true that none of the time thinking about writing is wasted so long as one does, eventually, write.)

Then I sent it off to my critique group. Hitting the SEND button on that email magically unleashed all the feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing that until now I'd been successfully repressing. "Oh, Gods, talk about purple prose." "Everyone's going to go 'WHAAAAT?' when they get to this part." "Self-indulgent much?" "The use of that word there is a point-of-view problem." "I can't believe I let anyone see this dreck." You know how it goes.

But since the draft is done and it has been emailed out, I get to indulge these feelings. They're negative, sure, but they wash through and over and away. Meanwhile, just relaxing and letting my guard down against those feelings, which I couldn't do before if I wanted to ever finish writing the story, is a relief. Why? Well. There's a character in a book I love who discovers that her magical talent is to suppress magic in her immediate environs; when she arrives in a place with no magic at all, it's like this huge weight lifts off her shoulders. She hadn't realized how draining this involuntary function was until it was able to just stop. It's kind of like that. Negative feelings suck, but constantly patrolling the mental walls against them is exhausting. Until Wednesday, when it's time to listen to what everyone thinks of the story, I get to rest those defense mechanisms.

Which is about all the insight I've got to share this morning. So. Bonus links!

Why my blog
has no comments function

Summary: Because it's hard work. I know my limits, sometimes.

Old Story Now In Print. New Story Now On Typewriter.
Tue 2010-03-02 20:15:33 (single post)
First Breath
  • 1,070 words (if poetry, lines) long
Melissa's Ghost
  • 54,629 words (if poetry, lines) long
The Day the Sidewalks Melted
  • 566 words (if poetry, lines) long

Big news: "The Day the Sidewalks Melted" is now live for you to read in Ideomancer volume 9, issue 1. Read it here. And since it won't take you all that much time to read, go read the rest of the free, online magazine while you're at it. The other stories are breathtaking, the poetry likewise, and the reviews illuminating.

And consider donating, since that's how the staff of Ideomancer keep the magazine going and the contributors paid year after year.

Meanwhile, I'm working on a new story, which is news and really oughtn't to be. That is, I ought to be doing it often enough--writing new stories--that it's not newsworthy. But I finally realized, considering the woefully slow progress I've been making on finishing the NaNoWriMo 2009 draft of Melissa's Ghost (I'm afraid John's getting the proof copy for an anniversary present; it wasn't done in time for his birthday), that putting off everything else until I'm done with that job is a recipe for unhappiness.

Recipe for happiness:

  • One story idea that won't let you go.
  • A portable Smith-Corona that's gathering dust.
  • Five minutes reviewing the typewriter's instruction manual.
  • About two and a half hours.
Which got me through the first half of the story. Now I'm having a hard time sitting down to the second half because I'm constantly thinking of ways to fix the first half. Which I'm not allowed to do until I've typed the second half.

It's not actually a new story, but it's such a revision over the first time it showed up that it might as well be. What's it about? Well, in one sense, it's about succubi and how they reproduce. In another, it's about lives of ennui, lives of substance, and profound transformation. It's probably only going to be about 1500 words by the end of the day.

The end of the day will not be later than this weekend. I have promised it to the twice-monthly critique group. No, not the original typewritten draft. It'll get retyped into WordPerfect and revised first. Then emailed.

See, I'm not entirely a luddite here. (I mean, look! Blog post! On the internet!) It's just that sometimes, to recover from a stall, I have to switch from my daily laptop to something a little more "me plus words minus everything else". Sometimes I need to dust off the Ancient Decrepit DOS 6.2 Compaq, hide away from the wifi and from all my fancy editing tools. And sometimes I need to escape the bureaucracy of file names and directory trees and run away to where the paper shows up before the words rather than after, to where each letter has weight and the price of going too fast is a key-jam or the whiteout ribbon.

And sometimes I just need that immediate reward of a bell going "ding!" every time I invent a new ten-word sequence or so. "Go you! Now come up with another ten. Good job! Again!"

Seriously. You should try it. It's refreshing.

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