Monday, January 2, 2012

One Year, Baby!

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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