Honesty is More Valuable than Praise

Here's an anecdote:

After most people had left, one of the few remaining guests at the Christmas party I was at happened to be a musician. The hosting family has been known to enjoy his music, so he offered to put in a CD of his, which they were delighted to hear.
"That's me playing the drums on the keyboard," he said during one track, "it's really bad."
I had only just entered the room, and had not heard enough to have an opinion, but it was probably not bad at all. One of the other guests even said "nonsense! It's really good!"
As we passed each other, I chimed in, saying "I thought it was terrible."
"Thanks," he laughed at my sarcastic remark.
After a moment or two of consideration, I realized that this was a fellow creative mind I was in the midst of, and that I understood his nervousness in standing around and listening, waiting to get some sort of feedback and hoping for it to be good. I know what it's like to want to apologize for all the minor flaws that you see in your own work.
I decided to offer up a bit of wisdom on the subject. "Unless people cut you down every once in a while, you'll never get better," I said.
"That's deep," he replied.

I've met creative minds who were terrified of being critiqued. Obviously I didn't actually give the musician a real opinion or advice on his music, since I'd not even really listened to it, but it was nice to meet someone who understood the value of being told your work is crap from time to time.

Always tell me if my work is crap.
-Ryan

Damnit, Snow!

I had things to say this month about interesting topics such as existentialism, sexism, and fibromyalgia. I also could have come up with something to say about my writing.

Instead I want to tell you how quickly I've learned to dislike snow.

Some learn quicker than others.

We all know how it goes, right? When you're a kid, every time that frosty white stuff falls from the sky it's a sign of a possible snow day. You watch your parents shovel the driveway and sidewalk and pile it up onto the yard for you to enjoy, ignoring their warnings that someday you'll despise the chilled white gold.

My Kia Rio does not do so well on the roads when there's any more than zero snow beneath the tires, and the drive to and from work takes anywhere between 20 to 30 minutes. I've discovered that that time can double because of the very substance that I once leaped for joy to see.
Not only do I have to deal with the painful art of becoming mobile after a stop thanks to manual gear shifting, but just about every car on the road is bigger than me. This wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the odd fact that people who've grown up with snow their whole lives forget how to drive in it during the seasons in which it does not fall.

Thankfully I've not been in an accident or spun out yet, but with my daily commute being longer than ever in the past, I cannot confidently assume that I never will.

At least I don't have to deal with shoveling. Yet.
-Ryan

A Clearer Vision Means Throwing Out Hours of Work

I've written before about my devotion to writing to the best of my ability, and how that sometimes means throwing out hours of work for the greater good.

I went through a chunk of time in the middle (more like the beginning) of writing An Offbeat Affair where I didn't write anything. This was partially due to a lack of time, but it was also because I didn't feel comfortable moving forward until I had a better idea of where I was going.
You see, gentle reader, despite having planned out my novel from beginning to end, the process of writing is nothing like making a blueprint for a building. It's much more fluid and dynamic; nothing is set in stone. The story takes on a life of its own and you milk that life for every word its worth - initial planning be damned!

Sometimes, as was true in this case, the story was taking on a life of its own that was quite terrible. I fell into old habits of giving characters traits that were nothing more than gimmicks. It makes sense why I did - I'm used to writing short stories where a character's intentions and psychology don't go nearly as deep as they do in a novel. In a short story I can get away with a character having a gimmick, because the story won't go on long enough for you to realize how shallow a character trait it really is.

I didn't even realize this at first - what I realized was that my story was uninteresting and I had no idea what the characters were really like. I didn't even know what fueled my own main character. Luckily, all I had to do in her case was to go back to the short story I'm basing this novel on and examine her from a new perspective. Her actions could no longer be described simply as "interesting" or "funny," as they had been when all I was concerned with was a short story. I needed to understand why it was interesting or funny. I needed to get into her head and see where she was coming from.

The other characters weren't as easy. In the short story you barely get a glimpse of each one; they hadn't been fleshed out nearly as much as my main character. For her roommate (who actually only appeared in one of my other short stories), who suffered from the most from gimmicks and stereotypes, I had to re-imagine her mental state in a way that was different from her stereotype, and added to the story in a way that the main character did not. I ended up taking a bit of advice from Pixar (yes, the studio that made Toy Story); the best stories come out of forcing two complete opposites to interact with each other (for Toy Story - Buzz and Woody being the new vs. the old).

With a better understanding of who my characters were, I set off to edit what little I'd written of the novel, only to find that there were entire scenes that no longer made sense. As I said earlier, I'm not one to dwell on something I've spent hours working on if it doesn't end up adding to the overall story (a characteristic I surely hope an editor will someday love about me). I've thrown those scenes out, and am going to approach the story from the new understanding of what these characters are like and how they would interact with each other. Throughout this entire process, I've also begun to re-imagine what the ending might be like - again deviating from my initial plan,

So what do I hope you get out of all of this? After all, my blog shouldn't just be me shouting out my struggles and triumphs into a great empty abyss.
If you are a writer: I hope that this inspires you to look at your story with a more critical eye - to realize that parts of your story that you love just may be holding it back from greatness. Realize that your story can be better, but first you need to be willing to let go of what's holding it back.
If you're not a writer: take this example to your own life. Is what you're doing going to be worth it in the end? If you spend hours a day sitting in front of the computer or television, ask yourself if it's worth it. Realize that you can be better, but first you need to be willing to let go of what's holding you back.

If you're an editor: please give me money to write this story for you.
-Ryan