Cycling Explained Differently
June 14, 2024 by Harvey
In today’s Journal
* Cycling Explained Differently
* Yet Another Stab at Writing Into the Dark
* A Writer Posed a Dilemma
* And One More Note
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
The following short guest post started life as a comment on theTNDJ post “This Is Next-Level Stuff.” But most TNDJ readers don’t check back for comments and this was too good to miss.
Cycling Explained Differently
a short guest post by Dawn M. Turner
Rather than try to explain “cycling” to many writers (which is a pointless act of frustration anyway), I just tell them I’m “editing.”
They have ZERO understanding of editing in creative mind instead of critically, and when I’ve tested the waters, most of them aren’t interested in learning about it.
Then they wonder why I enjoy “editing” while they see it as drudgery. Well, they tend to see the WRITING the same way—you know, we’re supposed to “suffer” for our art—so why should their editing be any different?
[So I explain to them that] [w]hen I “edit,” I simply read, fixing missing/extra words, tweaking word choices or fleshing out usually small but relevant details I missed when writing.
Not to mention straightening out any confusing sentence structures I somehow twisted around in writing too fast. It’s definitely a more enjoyable way of “editing” than what the myth-keepers do. I think I’ll stick with it, and let them “suffer” for their “art.”
***
Thanks for allowing me to share this, Dawn.
I find it almost humorous that so many long-term professional writers “get” WITD and cycling via the creative subconscious despite the fact that so many novices continue to tell us there’s a better way.
So I keep trying (mostly in vain) to explain it. But humans seldom are willing to believe the simplest truths. Still, all we can do is keep trying.
Thanks for pulling in tandem with me and notables like DWS, KKR, Vin Zandri, Charles Bukowski, Lee Child, Stephen King, et al.
Regarding those, as another respondent wrote to me recently, “It seems to me that if a writer I respect and admire like Bukowski tells me he doesn’t rewrite, but does his best in the first draft, checks for errors and then moves on, [as a writer] I should take note of that.”
Hear hear.
Yet Another Stab at Writing Into the Dark
A Writer Posed a Dilemma in a comment:
Comment and Questions: “Part 3 has come to a standstill as I do the Part 1 edits. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I’m certain) I’ve halted at a section where killing or not killing someone is eating away at me.
“While it’s on the back burner for now, the direction I want to go is bothering me. In your opinion, should I take on writing both ways and let the fallout land where it wants to go? Or might I choose only one and do the same? I think I know the answer, but another opinion wouldn’t hurt.”
Response: Try not to think about the story at all as you’re making a conscious-mind editing pass, correcting the quotation mark issue. Finish that first so you have a clean mss to look at.
Re the dilemma,
if the “direction I want to go” is what your characters want to do, go with it.
If it’s what YOU want to do, ignore it and follow what the characters want to do.
In other words, write the story as it unfolds, not as you would like it to unfold or as you expect it to unfold. Allow it to be the characters’ authentic story.
When you do that, the pressure is off because you have no decisions to make. You don’t decide WHAT is presented on the page, only HOW it is presented.
And One More Note
from a friend via email:
“It’s not just outlines, which I’ve never been big on…. These inner voices, these characters, these stories, I conjured them. If I do a sloppy job putting them out there, what am I, really? A thief.
“I’ve picked their pockets, tried to steal their shiny things and claim them as my own. But, I made a bad job of it and now they’ve all been exiled to Obscurity Island.
“The bullying, critical mind. I’ve been fighting with that toxic harpy for years. I watched a cool hippie professor on You Tube a few days ago that gave a light-switch remedy (for me anyway) for that. Ask yourself two questions:
Are these thoughts useful?
How do they behave?”
And here’s another wonderfully written comment from that same writer:
The struggle to tame that inner critic is possibly the fight of our lifetimes. I ran away and hid for years under technical writing. Who can criticize evidenced truth, right? Nah, it followed me there, too. Come to think of it, it followed me everywhere… time to give that witch her eviction notice.
“[The critical mind]’s core is our wonderful brain’s early warning system (amygdala).It’s supposed to let us know if we’re about to get mugged or hit by a train, not harp on endlessly…. Re-train that witch. Put her back on traffic and watching for sketchy salespeople. The rest of that, your creativity, YOU’VE got that, you don’t need her anymore.”
Thanks, DP. I’ve included the “hippie professor” link in Of Interest.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Two Easily Remembered Questions That Silence Negative Thoughts “A quick technique to train your harpy.” DP
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 900
Writing of Blackwell Ops 25: Rafe Andersen
Day 1…… 3243 words. To date…… 3243
Day 2…… 1354 words. To date…… 4597
Day 3…… 2899 words. To date…… 7496
Day 4…… 1545 words. To date…… 9041
Fiction for June…………………….….… 22205
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 362802
Fiction since October 1………………… 665859
Nonfiction for June……………………… 13660
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 197290
2024 consumable words……………… 560092
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 9
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 91
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 239
Short story collections…………………… 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies, and they will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Please see StoneThreadPublishing.com for all your fiction and nonfiction needs. Buy Direct!
>>> we’re supposed to “suffer” for our art
I'm sorry, Harvey, but I do suffer for my art. I often end up with a sore ass, tired eyes, cramped shoulders, and tingling fingers. (grin) And sometimes that's even if I DO take my breaks as scheduled. It's all great fun, though, even the cycling. And even editing a 115-thousand word tome for the dreaded you-know-what.
When I moved here ten years ago, I went to a once-a-month "writer" get-together. I thought it would be a good way to get the lay of the land, so to speak. Needless to day, I quickly discovered a lot of whining about hard work, no fun, complete drudgery and no one that produced anything. I went a second time just for spite and then left for good, never to return. I found the experience rather horrendous, truth be told. No regrets, though. It, too, was a learning experience.