Is My Garden Overrun?

I have not written a post on this blog in four months. In that time, however, I have agonized over not writing anything on a regular basis. A blog, I think, is a great way to flirt with madness.

On the one hand, I figure that writing here is a way to be informal and still sort of publish something, a "business casual" outfit, as it were. It gives me a chance to play around with ideas, and to write about things that pique my interest, without feeling the tension that comes with deadlines.

At the same time, a blog also triggers all the anxieties I have about writing, like "What if the things I write are completely boring to everyone other than me," or "What if I run out of ideas?" And this is on an informal platform for writing. So it builds the idea that I really cannot write anything interesting--if not a simple blog post, how will I ever write a script, story, or article worth reading?--which in turn makes me shrink away from writing that much more, and on and on.

So after a four-month absence, I decided to squinch my eyes shut, scream loudly, and run back to my blog to see how badly I messed everything up by not writing on here for so long. And, it turns out, it's not that bad. My posts are not overrun with spam comments for sex pills; in fact, it looks like I've had at least modest pageviews in the intervening time. People find the articles that interest them, which is all I could ever want.

And though I feel compelled to write something about why I was not writing on here for a while, I don't think that's a good idea. I suspect the Internet is lousy with blogs that are about five posts, four of them apologies. And the only people who would take any interest in why I've felt too busy to write would be close enough to me that a blog is poor choice for informing them. And really, what needs to be said? "I intend to write, shit comes up, and I get lazy."

One thing that I really like about a blog is that I can fill it with assorted information, and audiences will find their way to whatever they like. Someone might like my entries on pulp fiction, someone else might like my entries on the archives world. Few if any people probably want to read everything I write on here. And while it would be awesome if I could write brilliant things all the time, that's not going to happen. So I will keep writing things that catch my fancy as they come to mind, try to go easier on myself for not turning my blog into a literary masterpiece--and therefore giving myself permission to write more--and not apologize when I let it go.

...Except for this apology. Sorry about that.

Why the Internet Makes Brainstorming Great

When I was in 2nd grade, my class took a field trip to a rural garbage treatment plant. While on the tour, we were told that the smokestacks of the plant were equipped with an electric grid of some kind that essentially knocked the more harmful particulate matter out of the smoke, resulting in a cleaner exhaust from burning garbage. (How accurate this statement was, I never did find out.) But in my 2nd-grade brain, I hatched an idea: If an electric grid could make exhaust from burning garbage clean(er), why not build a smaller version of that technology on the tailpipes of cars, thereby reducing the pollutants in their exhaust. I mentioned this to my teacher, who suggested I write a letter to an automotive company asking them this same question. I don't think I ever did write that letter. But cut me some slack; I was in 2nd grade.

This idea I had in 2nd grade possibly could never go anywhere. Did the technology the tour guide described at the plant really work the way he described it to us? Would such a thing work on a car? Could it be cheaply replicated on a miniature scale? I have no idea. And because I did not go into mechanical engineering, nor did I amass a large amount of money that I can use to fund random research projects, I am not really in a position to contribute to this idea. Also, even if I had written that letter as a 2nd-grader, chances are it would have never made it to the desk of someone in a position to investigate it.

But the really great thing about living in an age of global communication is that all the current 2nd-grade-children in the world can throw these ideas out in a public forum, where they could be seen by any Net-connected person in the world. Suppose I had been able to post my idea online in 2nd grade. Maybe it would have been picked up by someone searching for information about reducing auto pollution and who, unlike a small boy in rural Wisconsin, would be in a position to either directly investigate such a possibility or to pass it on to some engineer. Or maybe the electric-grid-on-tailpipes idea really is not feasible, but to the right person it contains the spark of an idea that could result in a useful new technology. This simple question from a person not in a position to carry it any further might be a catalyst for something worthwhile.

The Internet makes brainstorming great. Don't get me wrong: brainstorming is always great, but the Internet makes it transformative on a much larger level. Brainstorming is how we approach any problem--from "How do we feed the world" to "What should the monster look like in my horror story"--and a good brainstorming session is the first step to coming up with solutions. Not every idea in a brainstorming session is useful, but gather enough ideas and some of them are bound to be good. So just imagine the possibility of billions of people brainstorming ideas to address social problems, new technology, or even new art forms. Lots of bad ideas will get created, but more than a few good ideas are bound to come out in the process.

So what kinds of things might make Internet brainstorming useful? I have a few ideas:

1. People should write often about their skills, interests, and dilemmas. They should write constructively, but also they should not be afraid to pose questions or toss out crazy ideas. Doing this in some kind of publicly accessible forum (like a blog that can be retrieved in Web searches) boosts the possibility that an idea will drift across the right person's screen. More to the point, people should contribute to the global discussion on issues in which they have either particular knowledge or particular interest.

2. People working on a solution to a given problem should--with some regularity--do Web searches that might put them in touch with the brainstorming blog posts. Over time, people will innately standardize their language so that such posts get picked up more easily. Working on research for neural mapping? Why not do the occasional Web search for "neural mapping" and "brainstorm"? Over time, people might start seeing the terms appear together more often and start using them to get noticed. Granted, this is setting the incautious researcher up for a lot of Web results that lead nowhere. But researchers are good at finding needed information, and over time they can figure out more efficient ways to spot good ideas.

3. Websites that serve as idea banks could make Web brainstorming a new social networking phenomenon. Suppose someone created a wiki-style idea bank for automotive technology. It could have categories for different topics (Alternate fuel sources, Efficient engine design, Automated cars), and users could contribute their ideas. The site's operator could vet ideas to catch the inevitable spam and troll-ish comments.

In fact, I think the "Web idea banks" idea is great. I wonder whether anyone has thought of it....

Writing and the "What-If" Game

When I get stuck on a story, I find that I like to play the "What-if" game with my stories. I think I arrived at this idea from a combination of different sources (I recall Orson Scott Card giving advice in a book on character that worked into it), but it has become a key tool in my own writing, and sometimes I use when criticizing other stories.

The "What-if" game is pretty simple in theory: Reading through my story, I look for things I imagine to be important, and I ask "What if things turned out differently?" Maybe Character A has wronged Character B and asks for forgiveness. Character B forgives him and the story moves on, but later I feel like the story is lacking in something. So I go back and ask, "What if Character B had not forgiven him? How would it change the story?" I then go to the appropriate notebook and start listing how I think the new scenario would change the story. Sometimes it is a great way to get over writer's block.

It can also work in the outlining phase of story writing. I have been working on one story for a while, and I used the "What-if" game to try all the different permutations of my characters. What if Character A was female? What if Character A was older? Not all of these decisions drastically affect my story; I would not, for example, assume that a female character could not do anything a male character could. But it might affect how I think other characters might respond, or how I think readers might respond. And when a given relationship seems too cliche, nothing helps like changing the characters' identities. And if I start out by imagining several different permutations for each character (instead of insisting that any character has to have a given set of traits), then I am able to outline several different scenarios and pick the one that interests me most.

The game is helpful when considering a different turn of events that has serious consequences on the plot. But what about where I cannot see a significant change to the story by changing a given detail? Well, that is a good sign that the detail I am considering is not too important, for one. Changing a character's gender might or might not change the course of the story (although it might have broader cultural implications); if a character could be male or female with no significant change to the story, I have no need to insist on one gender, beyond what I think is more interesting. But it could be kept in the background, or maybe even left to the reader's imagination. On the other hand, whether a certain character lives or dies probably will change the course of the story significantly. If it doesn't, I probably should not bother with that plot point at all.

The "What-if" game is a pretty basic writing tool, maybe, but I think it is good to keep in mind. If you are stuck in a story, try it out as a way to get creative. Even if you are not stuck, try it out and see whether it leads to any new ideas you like more. Our first ideas for stories often come from what feels natural, but that's not always the most interesting. Sometimes thinking of all the alternatives can help you find the great idea you would otherwise miss.

Characters and Self-reflection

The more stories I write, the more I find I am learning about myself. And not only in terms of writing--although I am learning a lot with literally every story I write--but also in terms of how I feel about the world around me. This is something I suspect everyone who writes fiction (or non-fiction, for that matter) has experienced. I have added this to the reasons writing is important to me.

When I develop characters, I have to use some notion of common human experience to create them. If I want to make a character into someone a reader can understand, I have to make that character's reactions to the world around him what, I assume, most people would feel in the same position. The thing is, I am just objective enough when I am wearing my Editor Emil hat that I can read what I have written and recognize that maybe not everyone would feel the same way.

For example, in a recent draft of a story, I have a character motivated by a sense of loss. He has lost a friend because she gained an intense drive to pursue her own goals, without him. (Sorry about the vagueness; this is still a work-in-progress, and I do not want to divulge too many things that might change, should the story ever go anywhere.) This motivates him to go to almost any length to get her back, even if it means destroying her sense of motivation.

For this story to work, a reader would have to sympathize with this character. I figure we can all relate to losing a friend because that friend changes, and the desire to win a friend back for selfish reasons can lead us to sabotage the happiness of others. Those are valid concepts. But the way I wrote the character, I had given him very little that seemed sympathetic, from the outside. From the inside--as I was first drafting the story--he seemed like someone I could be. But with even a modicum of distance, I could see that I had not written a sympathetic character, I had written a selfish jerk that believed himself to be sympathetic. The lesson I think I learned: We can be sympathetic in our own minds even when others would say we look out only for ourselves. Also, it is easier to spot selfishness in others than in oneself.

I should amend what I wrote a moment ago. It is not that writing helps me learn about myself; writing and then editing helps me learn about myself. No matter how much planning and outlining I do, the moment I start writing a first draft of a story always feels like a leap of faith. I worked hard on my notes and then I set them aside and just plunge in, headfirst. So much of what comes out of it is how my experiences say others should act and react, with the assumption that everyone is like me. The real beauty of writing comes in editing and revising, when I can read those barely-conscious thoughts and see what they say about how I respond to the world. My stories can grow from that, and hopefully I can, too.

Labor Pains

Much mental space is occupied by the assault on labor rights for state workers in Wisconsin this week. I try to muster energy to work on other things, but I have not been able to go for more than 15 minutes without some reminder of the current struggle popping up. It is a passionate issue for people on both sides. My friends and I are mostly state workers and are facing a dearth of job openings in state and are increasingly hoping to leave for greener pastures. (Or at least for pastures where the right to collectively bargain is not stripped away.) Between this, preparing for my baby to be born this spring, and the few job interviews I do have coming up, I am feeling a lot of stress and little relief.

Still, whenever I find just ten minutes to work on writing, I feel much better.

Writing Today, Interview Tomorrow

I managed today to write a first draft of a story I had been outlining this past week, which is a nice cap to writing work for the last week. Now it needs a little break for me to come at it with different eyes, and the revisions can start. I like the overall structure of it and I think the characters came out well. It needs a few structural changes that I can think of now, and I am sure a good half-dozen other ideas will come to mind once I start in on it. But that also frees me up to start working on the next outline will the first story simmers.

The more I write, the more I feel like a cooking analogy is helpful for me, even though I tend not to cook more than simple dishes. When I make a dinner with, say, three dishes to it, I have to prepare all the initial dry ingredients, get the first dish to a point where something is baking or boiling, and then do part of the next dish. I move back and forth as each dish gets to a point where I am ready for it again. I have started feeling the same about my writing. Some things are at an outlining point, then when the outline is ready I can write a draft. Then the draft needs to "bake" while I start the next outline, but I also have to remember to get back to the first story before it becomes a burnt mess. Good cooking and good writing require a common mentality.

I also have a job interview, of sorts, tomorrow morning. It is a contract job in arrangement and possibly cataloging, though I am not yet clear what scope the contractor has in mind for my work. It would be a nice break in my daily work routine, however, and something theoretically higher paying than my current cataloging post. I am thinking contract work can be a good way to get established in Madison because a number of individuals and smaller institutions apparently send requests to the Historical Society for individual help. With a good referral, I can perhaps acquire more of these contracting jobs. No benefits would come from them, but I could get a decent wage and possibly have more time to write. And in the end, that feels like the most important thing.

Sick Day - Guilt Over Not Writing

So I spent the entire day at home with some sort of sore throat/general aches and pains-type illness. Accordingly, I got no writing done. (Well, I did fill out and submit a couple more job applications for archivist positions, but...). So now I am full of remorse about not writing.
On the other hand, tomorrow is a new day, and I am pretty well engrossed in a couple of short story outlines. I have been reading some of John D. Swain's short stories and feeling positive about my writing. I have read with skepticism that, in writing a short story, it is always best to start the story as close to the climax as possible. This is an idea I tended to chafe it, but when I looked at several stories I enjoyed with this idea in mind--Swain's "Robbing the Roost" is a good example--I see how that idea works in practice. It has helped me out already with building my outlines. So: more reading tonight, and more outlining tomorrow!

Learning From My Own Bad Writing

One important idea I have learned while writing is that, sometimes, a story just does not go anywhere. I sat down recently and hammered out a first draft of a story that does not really have much of a future. However, I do not consider the time I spent writing it to be wasted, and I am glad I wrote the story from beginning to end because it wound up teaching me a little about how I should not write.
First, I tried writing without any outlining beforehand. I know a few writers claim to write without outlining, but I find that, for me, this is a recipe for disaster. I started out with a blank piece of paper and decided I was just going to write and see what developed. If I started worrying along the way about "What exactly is this character's personality," or "Where is this plot going," I shelved those thoughts and kept writing. I trusted that everything would work out organically. It did not.
Without a clear sense of who my characters were, I wrote "people" who perform basic tasks but have no identities. This possibly seemed less glaring to me at the moment because characters like this seem to pop up a lot in horror/fantasy stories. Then again, I could not even say that I had written archetypes; no one was the "final girl" in my story.
I also spent no time planning a story arc, instead trusting that I could build it from scene to scene. And to my credit, when I re-read the draft I did feel like the forward momentum from scene to scene was pretty coherent. But, again, nothing of substance was happening. My story might have developed organically, but not into anything I would enjoy reading had someone else written it. It had its share of plot points that got dropped as it went along, and it thundered toward a pretty "Meh" ending.
Still, even if no amount of revising ever turns the story into something publishable, I feel better for having written it. For one, I taught myself to always outline beforehand, or else my stories will stagger randomly forward. Also, take the time to really plan out who my characters are, rather than allow them to reveal themselves as I write. Third, sometimes I write poorly, but seeing it through as far as I can still gives me a sense of accomplishment. Even if the story never makes it through another full revision, I set out to write a beginning, middle, and an end, and I accomplished my goal. So always, always, keep writing.

Resolutions and Writing

I came up with a few New Year's resolutions, all based around writing as a goal. The advice I have heard many times is that resolutions should be small, achievable goals. Resolutions to "lose weight," "work out more," or "write more" all tend to fail because they are too vague to accomplish. So in trying to come up with goals for 2011, I wanted to avoid anything along the lines of "write more" because I would never really feel that I had accomplished it.

I also had to address some of my anxiety about publishing my writing. I tend to worry about letting other people see what I write, which keeps me from A) getting advice that might help me grow as a writer and B) getting anything I have written published. But the more I thought about it, I actually write a lot of material that is published, at least in the sense of being made publicly available. I write letters--actual ink-on-paper letters, not e-mail--to friends and family, I write finding aids and MARC records at work, and in the past I had a job as a technical writer, where not only did I write every day, I was actually being paid to write. When I give myself that much credit, I can acknowledge that I already write on a daily basis, almost always for the consumption of at least one other person, and now and in the past as a significant part of my jobs. Sure, no one is buying a paperback copy of finding aids I have written for films at the Wisconsin Historical Society, but I still have an audience in mind, and I know records I have written are read and used by other people.

With that in mind, my resolutions:
1. This year, I will write at least two works, outside of my job as an archivist, for publication. I have to try to find a publisher for them, by submitting them to magazines or sites for web fiction. I do not have to be paid a specific amount, nor do I have to win any awards (both of these are issues more or less out of my control at this point), I just have to get something that I have written out there for other people to read and criticize, and twice.
2. I will try to write for my own projects at least 3 times a week, for at least one hour at a time. This is a "baby step" in the process of making writing a part of my normal routine, but it is realistic. So far this year I have had two successful weeks and one unsuccessful week. But I have a few nights each week to myself, and these are perfect times to turn off the TV and the radio, disconnect from Facebook, and just sit and write.
3. To help make writing an integral part of my life, I will keep up written correspondence and I will start keeping a blog. I have been writing letters to people since last fall, and I find this an immensely satisfying activity. As opposed to writing short stories or essays--which can be frustrating more often than rewarding--writing to other people comes easily and gives me a lot of happiness. The purpose of the blog is to give me a venue that requires me to write regularly--and for an audience--but that does not require the sort of revision and editing that goes into my other writing. Hopefully this will not be an excuse for me to keep a dull, ungrammatical, or overly rambling blog!

Bonus goal: If at all possible, get paid for at least one work in which a murder occurs, such as a mystery story. In talking about economic woes with friends I have joked about this and suggested that if I can draw even a modest return on a story in which someone is murdered, I can boast that I "killed someone for money" in 2011.