Nerds Have More Fun
22 Jun
I spent last Monday in the National Gallery’s East Building by myself, and then I had a lovely long weekend playing tour guide around DC—this time for my best friend and her family. We wandered around the Mall, went to the newly-renovated Museum of American History, and saw the Jefferson memorial lit up at 11pm. So that’s more stuffing my brain with useless information, the thing I love to do second best in all the world.
The first being to make up stories about the useless things I’ve stuffed into my brain, obviously. Which might account for the story I wrote last week, which takes place during the dirty, dirty Adams/Jackson election of 1828 and involves… witches, I think. Weirdly enough, written before I went to the American History Museum and picked up a book on the subject. I’m just that lame all the time.
That was just one of the ridiculous ideas that started clamoring for attention the second I finished that AF edit. It was like the dam broke after seven months of forced editing. Since I stopped that whole “real job” thing a few years back, that’s the longest I’ve gone without writing a shiny new first draft. Not because I wanted to (god, believe me, I did not want to be editing), but because it seemed the responsible thing to do; too many novels in various states of disrepair, each uglier than the last. In the last four months, I hardly even wrote anything short until that week when I was moving—and therefore not editing anything for the first time in forever—and my brain freaked out with all that freedom. That’s how I ended up with a 20k novella. (Vampire in a cage, cravats. That one.)
I’m making this official: I will never do that to myself again. It was miserable. I realize it’s stupid to keep puking up novels and not doing anything with them, because I’ll never get anywhere if I don’t polish them up and send out the queries. But dear god, not for seven months straight. The hell was I thinking?
So now I’m writing whatever the hell I want, and gnawing through the pile of nonfiction I’ve accumulated this year—both research for my current, lazily-paced novel project (currently: A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America) and random things I picked up on the bargain table at the National Gallery, or just because I’m, as previously stated, a huge nerd (currently: Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence).
Hence the lack of book reviews lately. Not exactly speculative, at least in that way. Don’t hate me because I read boring things. I’ll use them later, and put a lot of magic, sex, and death in them! Some might say they already contain a lot of magic, sex, and death, and I’m just being overly blunt. But hey, I don’t mind. There are worse things to be.
Seriously though, how long can you survive without writing something new? Any stories of misery or happiness from prolonged editing/not writing? Or do you take comfort in editing and find the actual writing to be the more miserable activity?
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Now playing: Suede – She’s In Fashion
via FoxyTunes
Right now I’d be happy to be editing, writing, making up titles, anything. I’m convinced the muse has left me. Perhaps I shouldn’t have given up chocolate.
Stuff your head with information!
Then again, it might just explode.
Giving up chocolate was brave though. Very brave. So long as you don’t give up caffeine and alcohol, though, you should be fine.
… right?
I ping back and forth. Having spent the last few months happily editting the selkie story, and writing nothing new, now I can’t talk myself into going back and edit anything for love nor money, and I’m writing ghost stories again. Greenhelm’s on the same cycle, but it’s usually a year on, a year off.
I think the longest I’ve gone has been about a year – not because I’ve timed it, but because I think that’s roughly how long I was going through edits on Ashes and Storm.
Fates didn’t have the same benefit – I’d gotten the idea into my head to do short stories by the time edits hit for that one, so when it was off with other people I’d try to start writing.
I think it was harder that way, though. I have a lot of trouble bouncing back and forth between modes. I can go from creative to editorial in a blink, but going from editing my own stuff to writing it, I tend to psych myself out.
Editing is comforting and meditative, even when it drives me batty. There’s none of the difficulty of trying to decide what words to use to get the scene rolling. I think the act of writing is one of terrified desperation more often than of inspiration, for me. (My muse says this is because I think too hard and need to learn to shut up and listen to her. I’m sure she has a point.)
On the other hand, finishing a large project and sending it off, much as it feels like being deprived of my blankie, tends to knock cool stuff loose for the next thing.
I wrote a story about engineers at a proteomics conference ; )
I’m in the same boat as you, not having written anything new – aside from a few short stories – since November. And considering the half dozen projects that want out, yes, it’s starting to drive me slightly insane. I love writing rough drafts, partially just because it’s fun, and partially because it’s so much easier to track your own progress and feel productive.
It’s my own damn fault, though: I took four months editing ARtFP when I could’ve done it in two if laziness and TV adventures hadn’t gotten in the way. Thing is, with two books unfinished and the desire to query nagging at me, I really want to make some headway on getting my books in semi-query-able state before I start on a new one.
So yeah, I’m just gonna have to tough it out a bit longer. Fun times!
Nat (#1, that’d be NK), I’d kind of gotten that impression about you and Greenhelm from our discussions about it. I have some projects that cycle slowly like that, and it’s always nice to see them again. I suspect Greenhelm must be like an old friend for you these days. Those are always the best. Thanks for satisfying my curiosity!
Megh, that’s exactly what I wondered. I don’t mind bouncing between modes after a draft is complete, but your drafts go a lot faster than mine (after the first, which I just puke, and you construct with a good deal more care, if the last one is any indication). I like the idea of it as terrified inspiration; that suits you and your working method (and muse…) very well. Certain gear shifts are always harder than others, that’s for damn sure.
Nat (#2), oh god, you must be an engineer by trade. (Or like me, married to an engineer.) Nerds unite! *high five
Cory, yes, exactly. I took too long editing my last one because of distractions as well, which made the four months turn into seven. Four, I could’ve done. Seven is just ridiculous. We’re on the same schedule, apparently. And in the exact same dilemma, like you say.
*high five back*