My biggest lesson this fall?
Stay true to yourself.
Stay true to yourself as a writer. As a creator. As a person.
It all reached a tipping point with my participation in the Horror Writer’s Association’s Mentor Program—a great opportunity. Through some self-reflection, and a few subtle nudges, from said Mentor (whose name I will share once the semester is over), I came to some conclusions.
These are a bit “technical” and relate to writing fiction, but at the same time, I realized, they’re really about the same, underlying thing: Staying true to yourself and your artistic vision.
The first conclusion has to do with writing descriptions. When I started out writing, I layered in lots of description. In time, I realized this is something I picked up from 19th Century Lit. (I confess!). I would have descriptions going on for paragraphs, sometimes pages. This is (mostly) a relic of a time before TV and photographs, when writers had to give fairly detailed descriptions to make you feel like “you were there.” In time, I came to learn that this wasn’t really done anymore. So what did I do? I cut out almost ALL description. I cut it down to the bone.
So, my mentor recently was like:
“Darius, this is good stuff, but as I’m reading I’m often like, ‘OK. Wait, where are now? Are we in the same room? Have they moved? What does this person look like? I mean, I know they’re a man, but how old are they? What are they wearing? What color hair do they have?’ I just feel there aren’t enough clues in the text for me to picture these things and people.”
Oops. I had gone TOO far. In a bid to suit present tastes, I had cut out too much description, leaving my readers adrift. Had I buckled to contemporary tastes too much? I was left wondering…
The second conclusion I came to, has to do with that hobgoblin which haunts many a new writer: “voice.” Try as you might, you will NEVER find an adequate definition of “authorial voice” online. (I defy, Thee! Go find it! Go ahead, try!). Or, you will find that everyone HAS THEIR OWN definition. Which, excuse me, is NOT what “definition” means.
BUT, every agent and editor is convinced (apparently!?) that a writer’s voice is absolutely ESSENTIAL to success in writing….
So, I made that fatal mistake and asked myself: “Well, Darius, what is voice? And, more importantly, what is YOUR voice?”
I decided…After searching far and wide, and consuming much bad, bad advice on the Internet, that voice essentially meant: “Telling a story to someone one-on-one as if you were sitting right across from them.”
Going back, I can see why I thought this…It seems reasonable enough. After all, some great stories and novels were written in this way:
“Let me tell you what I saw down on the Loch, last Tuesday…Well, there I was…”
OK. Fine. Great.
So, I made a decision: I would write ALL my stories this way… As if I was across from someone telling them a story…Naturally, one-on-one.
And so I wrote and wrote…
And then shared some of it with my mentor.
Again, here he is:
“Darius, again, some really great stuff here…But I have to say…It’s not really in the narrative present.”
“O.K.” I say, feeling the start of heart palpitations.
“It sounds,” my mentor said. “Like someone is telling you a story.”
“And is that a bad thing?” I said, the palpitations now thundering in my head.
“Not necessarily, it can work. But if it pulls readers out of the ‘narrative present,’ it can be problematic.”
This provoked a long (and, on my part, somewhat hysterical) conversation on “voice” and what it might mean…and how ‘telling a story’ is a great way to do that.
My mentor explained that that’s all well and good, but sometime this will put readers into the past and not in the action (the “narrative present”).
In the end, I realized I had got it wrong to some extent….So…
Again, I had let something I thought one “ought to do in writing” sidetrack me and lead me down the wrong track. I had been more right than I knew about “description” and “voice.” The second has to come naturally, or not at all.
I had let my perceptions of “the right thing to do” or “the modern way” or “what editors/agents expect” derail what I was writing. And in the end, it had a negative influence on my writing style.
Now, I’m trying to incorporate some of what my mentor said with my gut instinct. I’m taking even what he says with a grain of salt (of course) and trying to recover what I really want to say and how I really want to write.
And what it’s really taught me is this:
No one can outwrite you at writing you. You are this one, unique person that will never come around again. Your unique, personal upbringing, education, and experience are what make you “you.” And that’s the deep mine you’ve got down into each day to bring up the nuggets of literary excellence. Description, voice, plotting, tone, pacing—all these technical things—they’re fine and necessary. Don’t get me wrong! But they should take a back seat to writing what you feel and know is right in your gut.
At the end of the day—you will service yourself, your writing and your readers—far better if you just follow where you heart leads. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn tips and tricks and clever things. You should…But you should bend all those clever things to the service of your heart and instincts. (When it comes to creating art, following the heart is seldom wrong!).
And so, that’s what I leave you with today, Friends.
Follow your passion!
Good luck!
Writing Update – Fall 2023
Also….
I had a lot of great things happen in the last three months, writing wise. I really did. This includes the debuts of a new poem and a new work getting its first audio treatment. But there were also some things that were a bit less…ahem…glorious.
First, my poem “Symmetry” appeared in the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Star*Line Magazine (Issue 46.3). It’s my second poem to appear in Star*Line and I always like seeing my name in their Table of Contents!
Second, my story “Go Ask Alice” was produced by The NoSleep Podcast for their “Suddenly Shocking” series. I thought the voice actors (as always) really captured the pedantry of the rabbit and the shrewdness of “Alice.” All with great sound effects and atmospheric music. It was very well done!
Third, I gave my first author interview ever with Matthew Selznick of the Sonitotum Podcast. You can listen to the (over-hour-long) episode at the link above. I think it really captured some of my creative process and especially how I got into writing poetry.
Of course, I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit that this season also came with some setbacks. Here are a few big ones.
First, I passed 300 lifetime rejections. In one “memorable” rejection, a journal I had waited for a looooooong time to open, finally did with a one-week submission window. I sent in a piece I had been meaning to send its way for some time. The magazine didn’t accept simultaneous submissions—so the piece would have to be there (and only there) for the duration. It sat and sat…and SAT….
….Then, one day, I got the news that the whole journal was shutting down. In an email. No rejection. No acceptance. No nothing. That SUCKED. But it sucked for dozens of other writers, too, who got the same email. Which….I don’t know…Did not make it better?
Anyway, I also pitched a new novella (I’ll call it “TP” for now) at StokerCon. It’s a great opportunity to pitch something live to real editors/agents and I felt I did a great job (I had never done that before). I had three requests for the manuscript (two full requests, one partial). And yeah! It was a great adrenaline rush…
And then…
I sent the manuscript out three times…and at the end of the process, I got three polite, professional “No Thank Yous.”
Which, my friends, also SUCKED…
Mightily…
It stung enough for me to take a deep breath…Do a long meditation session…And take a little break from the write, edit, submit cycle.
In fact, I’m doing something a little different now…It’s called the write, edit, write, edit, write, edit cycle. Did you find the missing ingredient? The missing R? At any rate, it’s what I need right now and cutting out that last step has been really, really, really…good.
And “good” is what I need right now… because….
I’m working on wrapping up a new writing project. So, I don’t need rejection, or distraction, or bullshit, to interfere. I just need to go to that little cabin in the woods, grind out the words and polish them…
So…
That’s all for now.
See you in December where I’ll look back at my year in writing 2023.
I’ve got a lot to do between now and then. Bye for now!
Inside the Writer's Mind 