Today
at Seven Heroes Books, we are celebrating our one year anniversary.
Quite exciting! And, this event provides us with some sort of
requirement to summarize what we have done in the past year, and what we
may have learned.
Jason:
Kyle, what was your most confusing writing event of the year? You know,
something that made you bewildered as to what you should do. This could
be something happening in the plot of one of your stories, or something
you read about writing and wasn’t sure how to react, or whatever else
have you. Please, lay on the bed and let it all out.
Kyle:
For me, the most confusing time is when I hit a point in my plot where I
know I don’t know how to move forward. I try to force it, but nothing I
do seems exactly right. That’s always very confusing. Because I may
write something that seems okay, but deep down in my gut, I know it’s
not what goes here. Conversely, my best times are that moment of
clarity, when something falls into place and I know how to proceed with
the story.
Jason: On my end, it was similar to your issue. When finishing The Write Message,
I put myself on a timeline to get it to publication, and without an
editor, I was unsure if the story was even good. Checking through
chapters and wondering what I might have messed up, or if I had taken
something too far wasn’t a good feeling. Of course, most of the writing
seemed to flow well and the story was done well in many key areas. That
just makes room for improvement on the next go.
Kyle: Did you have a favorite quote about writing from this year?
Jason:
“You write gold. Except you suck.” This is my own creation, but the two
sentences piece together an idea many of us have about writing:
improvements are almost constant, but with every power-up we become
increasingly aware of those who are superior in some way. The journey
will continue that way indefinitely, but I suppose something to learn
from this is that most likely you will never write a piece that is
wholly golden, and on the flip-side, shit will not permeate entirely.
Nice bit of optimism there, no?
Kyle:
The best piece of writing advice I heard this year was something to the
effect of: “I’m a shitty writer, but I’m a great rewriter.” I really
tried to take this to heart this year. This means not being too harsh in
judging your first drafts, not getting overly attached to the original
plot lines or bits of prose, and finally, expect to do it all over again
and be better off for it. One of the best parts of being a writer is
that you get to turn back the clock, and quite laterally, rewrite
history.
Jason:
Yay! So, that means I can buy some Google stock back in the 90’s when
it was cheap, or not what you meant? Either way, these thoughts are what
will continue help us along 2011. Later on, I’m sure, we’ll do a piece
about time-management and writing. Till then, happy re-writing,
everyone, and we hope to see you around soon!
-JK
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