Wading through shit.

I pretend like I have feelings.

wading through shit is tough. i usually let the writing set up for a few days--then i go back to make sure i didn't let too much emotion through, so that it is fairly dry, not too mawkish or melodramatic, and easier to handle. this works with real shit, too--s6

Oh, I thought you had gotten a copy of my novel. Whew, what a relief.

The sea of truth and self-awareness is indeed made completely of leaky fecal matter.

I use the Goldilocks approach to writing, which means I need at least three tries to get an important scene right. The first try usually is too emotional/ melodramatic, the second is too snarky/bitchy and the third usually settles into the right slot. That doesn't mean it's perfect but at least all my emotional rag-twisting is over with and I can do some real work on it.

I used to get upset about it but I've mellowed with age and just accept it now.

Lifelongdagger said:

Just wondered how it is for others when a scene touches too much. How do you get through it?

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Denial. I remember that I'm writing about imaginary characters in imaginary situations. The subject matter might be uncomfortable to me, but it's not about me.

Just remember, "this too shall pass" and it won't be so bad. You can look at life any way you choose to--it's up to you. The shit made you who you are today--hopefully more empathetic with others who've also gone through shit. Look at yourself and you will see a reflection that is much, much stronger for it, able to help somebody who's just now wading through the muck. Your experience is helping them to slog through to the other side.

This happens to me all the time. Sometimes I will have visualized a scene, planned a bit of dialogue, or developed a particular character to feel a certain thing, and I find myself unwittingly feeling it 'too strongly'. At first I attribute this to my oversensitivity. But I'm certain, in the end, I've only reacted emotionally because I've stumbled into my own shit (more common problem than you might imagine).

But that realization only makes me want to get it on the page all the faster, to transcribe that human thing into the wor(l)d. because I tend to think that's what people are most interested in reading. That's why I read: to come close to something.

I remind myself that I am on my MC's time and not my own. In my current novel, my MC is very difficult and I allow her to work through things on her own. Sometimes it is like pulling teeth to get a page, others it is a breeze. When she is killing things the words flow when it comes to emotional stuff it comes to a dead halt.

I'm something of an authority on wading through shit, since I do it for a living. (Note: All zoo keeper jokes involve poo. Or hoses.)

My current WIP required me to touch on some feelings of extreme inadequacy and jealousy from my youth. Okay, and from my present non-youth as well. And the book I'm outlining about Houdini is going to be way more of a gut-ripper for me. I like to pepper my MCs with the worst parts of my own personality, and then have terrible things happen to them because of their flaws. Yeah, baring parts of your life or your self and subjecting them to not only thought and examination, but later on to criticism, is painful and horrible. It's also a risk worth taking, because if you do it well it can create some lovely, fine art.

I like to pepper my MCs with the worst parts of my own personality, and then have terrible things happen to them because of their flaws.

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Glad to know I'm not the only freak who does this.

Mad Queen said:

Glad to know I'm not the only freak who does this.

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Oh my god. Relieving, isn't it?

I can probably subtitle my Houdini book "Warring Factions of Libbie's Brain in the Very Late 1800s." It's going to be a doozy. One part of me will be acting like a psycho on trains all across the North American continent. Two other parts of me will be having an affair. One part of me will be seducing another. I'll be trading my virginity to myself for an orange. I'll be throwing my unchecked ego off of bridges wrapped in a straight jacket while my insecurity will be holding its breath in a bath-tub for four minutes as my inner control-freak who's afraid of a wrathful God screams at me through the water.

I'm looking forward to starting on this manuscript, I can tell you.

Writerly hip boots give that half-millimeter of separation from our personal lives so we don't have to soak the stuff into our clothes and skin to get it on paper. We can still stand in it, smell it, feel its texture, and see how it oozes around us. Close personal involvement in our writing can don these hip boots and let us relax in knowing that when we write novels, we are just making it all up. Little bits of us may end up in the muck, but we surround that with more made-up stuff--an efficient patch kit.

I like the occasional bout of catharsis, so I just go with it.

As I have often said to Lori, "The only way out is through."

Write through the pain, you must.

NeuroFizz said:

Writerly hip boots give that half-millimeter of separation from our personal lives so we don't have to soak the stuff into our clothes and skin to get it on paper. We can still stand in it, smell it, feel its texture, and see how it oozes around us. Close personal involvement in our writing can don these hip boots and let us relax in knowing that when we write novels, we are just making it all up. Little bits of us may end up in the muck, but we surround that with more made-up stuff--an efficient patch kit.

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Wow. That's actually what I do. Of course I didn't call them hip boots, I called em waders

And just shortened the entire ordeal to "plodding." Ugh! It sucks. But you just gotta take a deep breath, hold your nose and wade on in. You'll get out eventually and usually (At least for me) I'm rewarded with several chapters of extremely easy prose

Sometimes there's a leak in the hip boots.

If anyone asks if you're crying, just tell them you're writing about onions.

Shit always gets written. Hip boots are essential. Editing is also shitly at times. I keep turning the shit over until it is compost and then I grow roses. Or potatoes.

I am currently neck deep in shit! I am trying to work on this chapter atm which has been stalled for three days. Each day I get almost a new paragraph but damn it is getting old. I would skip ahead, but I have been letting this manuscript develop organically and follow the MC. I'll construct and tighten during editing. So, without an outline I must continue to wade through my shit. Either that or eat it.

Got some shit here, too.

I hate writing sex.

For whatever reason this post just inspired me to wade through 1000 more words of shit...so thanks! It does feel like quite the slog sometimes. Who invented the myth of being struck by divine lightning? The reality is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay less glamorous and involves cursing, PJs, and a filthy desk, apparently.

I just engross myself completely in the character and become the character, but surprisingly, I've learned not to be scared of it. I like when I can use my own experience to write. It makes it easier for me. So it may be wading through shit, but I've just learn that it happens and let myself fall into it.

Matera the Mad said:

Shit always gets written. Hip boots are essential. Editing is also shitly at times. I keep turning the shit over until it is compost and then I grow roses. Or potatoes.

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lol LOVE IT!!

May I use this as signature on other forums or here, or on my fridge etc?

JasonRobert said:

I am currently neck deep in shit! I am trying to work on this chapter atm which has been stalled for three days. Each day I get almost a new paragraph but damn it is getting old. I would skip ahead, but I have been letting this manuscript develop organically and follow the MC. I'll construct and tighten during editing. So, without an outline I must continue to wade through my shit. Either that or eat it.

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Dude, I had the same problem.

Seriously. 3 days ago.

I prided myself on how organically I'd let the story develop. But I realized every time I went to write, I didn't know what to happen. I was on chapter 16, needing to get to chapter 20. I knew what had to happen in 20, but 17, 18 and 19?

I was flopping around like a god damn fish on a dock.

So I sat down, wrote three words.

Simplify
Clarify
Identify.

I'm so gay, I know that... Anyways, under each of these three words I wrote what my problems were.

Simplify:
"Too many factions in the park, not enough time to develop them."

Clarify:
"Why the hell does MC even give a shit about his wife. What major turnaround happens at the end to make him spend the next 60 thousand words chasing after her?"

Identify:
"Who is doing what here? If rhodes is going to take over the shelter, why not just kill them all?"

Guess what happened?

As an author we sometimes have to make tough decisions and realize that our little baby changed as they became a toddler, and didn't turn out the way we wanted, and we have to take over and mold them the way we want.

The result?
1. I reduced it from 4 factions in the amusement park to 2. 1 isn't even really a faction, the others are the survivors.

2. Mitch and his wife are not on this vacation because their marriage is on the rocks. They're on an anniversary and love each other dearly. (This also solved the problem that my MC looked like a pussy and his wife was a bitch, which was remarked on by a critiquer.)

3. Conrad, the security guard who disappeared in chapter 3 comes back to save the shelter people from the survivors and negotiates their exile with clever use of a hunting rifle.

This meant rewriting chapters 1 and 2. It meant slight changes in 3 and 4. And I wrote some backstory to explain who rhodes and why he wanted to kill the people in the shelter.

I spit through all those changes and the last 4 chapters in 2 nights.

So, sometimes you have to take a step back, analyze the problem, and make those decisions.