creative process

The publishing process made me a better storyteller

/ Scott Nagele / 2 Comments

Maybe I should have kept up my vigorous regimen of procrastination.

Fortunately, I hadn’t given up procrastination cold turkey, I was gradually easing off it as part of a 112 step program.

While I am waiting for my initial beta reader (wife) to list all the things wrong with the first draft of my latest book, I decided to twiddle my thumbs for a good long while before reworking one of the several unpublished novels I keep tucked away for later.

Incidentally, there are a many things wrong with the first draft of the latest book, so it may take her some time to compile them.

Thanks to the fascinating qualities of my twirling thumbs, combined with confluence of youth spring soccer and baseball seasons, and a big project at work, I have rewritten all of 12 pages in the last two months. The manuscript is more than 400 pages, so those dozen pages seem somewhat measly.

Yet, I am a man who can occasionally find sunshine in little things. (My initial beta reader may disagree with this, but she doesn’t always appreciate the subtlety of my understated sunshine.) I am pleased with what I have accomplished.

There’s a lot in those 12 pages. Mostly, there’s a much more engaging beginning to a story than there used to be.

I finished the draft of this novel about 10 years ago. I didn’t publish it because, though I believed it a good story, it wasn’t everything I wanted it to be and I didn’t know why.

Ten years later, I might have figured out why.

My presentation of the story did not measure up to the story itself.

In those 10 years, I could have written 10 novels and still not learned enough about storytelling. As it happens, in those 10 years, I spawned three children, so I may have changed 10,000 diapers but I didn’t write anything near 10 novels.

"How many diapers?"

“How many diapers?”

But it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d written 20. The thing that made me learn most about storytelling was publishing three books.

Publishing wasn’t a financial windfall by any means, but it was a learning experience, and a valuable one. Knowing I would put these stories before the public made me consider them from angles I’d never had to before. It made me focus on readers: how I took hold of them, how I held onto them, and where I led them. It forced me to act like a professional: to analyze my own work and that of competing writers with new attention to detail. It didn’t mean I was going to attempt to copy the successful ones, but it did make me think about the elements that made them a success.

The act of publishing made me more aware of many things about my books, but more than anything else, it made me constantly reevaluate how I present a story. There’s more to learn, but I’m better than I used to be.

If I can keep up this breakneck pace of rewriting, I may actually turn this old novel into a well-presented story to share in about five years or so.

You don’t have to rewrite the good parts

/ Scott Nagele / 6 Comments

My wife is my initial beta reader. Like me, and in a strange coincidence, she also has three young children. Together with her many jobs and responsibilities, these children make it as difficult for her to find time to read as they make it for me to find time to write – probably more so. Consequently, I must be patient and find something else to work on while awaiting the initial feedback on the latest work.

Lacking a suitable idea for a new project, I am left with the daunting notion of revisiting some old projects. I have four unpublished novels in completed draft form. That is to say there are four that come to mind; there may be others my subconscious finds too painful to contemplate.

Of the four, one can probably be fixed to meet my standards for publication. Another might have potential, but needs serious structural work. The other two are long shots. All four need lots of attention.

It’s difficult to get motivated to do the amount of rewriting that even the best of them would require. Rewriting doesn’t touch the good and the fun parts very much. The peaks are fine; it’s the dark, grimy, stinky valleys that beg rewrites. Your brain gets dirty and sweaty at the very bottom of the pit.

I know I eventually have to put on my overalls and get down into the dirt of the salvageable novel, but I’ll still find excuses to put it off. As for the others, I may just save those for when I’m famous, and also dead.

The After I’m Dead (AID) novels will be my last embarrassing legacy. My money-grubbing great-grandchildren will bring them to light for a quick payday. People will shake their heads at the poor quality, but do so quietly out of respect for the departed. Since I will be famous (play along with me) and also dead (couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy), morbid curiosity will turn these into my best-selling books.

-"And now, sweet grandchildren, you must promise that you will never bring this sub-par manuscript to light." -"We won't. We swear on our grandfather's grave."

-“And now, sweet grandchildren, you must promise that you will never bring this sub-par manuscript to light.”
-“We won’t. We swear on our grandfather’s grave.”

My great-grandchildren will buy 10,000 square-foot homes in Malibu and I’ll roll over in my 12 square-foot grave.

Perhaps I should really get to work on rewriting the AID novels after all. I like to keep still when I’m sleeping.

I guess I should start with the salvageable novel first, because nobody gets to live in Malibu if I don’t get famous before I croak. On the other hand, I don’t want to live in Malibu and, at this rate, my great-grandchildren don’t deserve to.

So maybe I’ll just keep procrastinating. Maybe I’ll even write some more meandering blog posts as an excuse to avoid the hard work waiting for me.

Maybe I’ll spend the time with my kids, teaching them lessens they can pass on to their children and grandchildren about how not to be mooching, greedy bastards.

Who knows what I’ll do. At any rate, I most likely won’t become famous.

That’ll teach ‘em.

One man’s muse is the same man’s bully

/ Scott Nagele / 2 Comments

We’ve all heard people talk about how they are compelled to write. Compelled to write? Compelled to roll out of bed every morning and trudge off to work—that makes sense. A job brings in money. But compelled to write? Compelled to struggle with an arrangement of words that stands a snowball’s chance in Hell of ever economically justifying the energy put into it? What twisted mental force would compel a person to do that?

Whatever the force, it is certainly mental, and completely twisted. It’s been inside my head, demanding my lunch money and making me do its homework since I was 12, maybe longer. I wasn’t bullied by kids in school, but I’ve been menaced by the specter of wasted potential all my life. I expect to labor under its threats until I die, leaving the specter forever unsatisfied. My bully’s failure should give me the last laugh, except that I’m kind of rooting for my bully to win. I told you it was twisted.

Bully with wings

Look out, Whiskers! She’s about to put you in a headlock and steal your lunch money. (“The Tenth Muse” by John White Alexander.)

Lots of people search the dark corridors of their own minds for that hidden room, bursting with the light of genius (and associated cash and prizes). We’re sure it must be there, if only we could find the door and the key to unlock it. We toil in darkness, every so often glimpsing a fleeting flash that, if not a mini-stroke, must be a reflection of the sparkling key to that door.

We rush to the spot where the flash originated. We throw ourselves down on hands and knees. We grope for that elusive key to the room flowing with the milk and honey of inspiration. When I’m feeling around the dirty floor of my mind for that special key, I am writing. I have to do it. I can’t pass up the chance to unlock the door to my full potential. It means my masterpiece. But there are acres of linoleum inside my head, and some fool installed mirrors on the walls. So the flash could have come from anywhere.

It occurs to me, as I swipe my hands across the grimy floor of my mind, that I should do some mopping. But I always have grander schemes than common housework in front of me at the time. Besides, when I find that key and strike it rich, I’ll hire a cleaning lady. Maybe I’ll even have all the burnt-out light bulbs replaced. I plan to do it up right.

I’m not looking for that shiny, magic key every time I crawl around the floor of my mind. Sometimes I am groping for the rusted key to the room holding the memory of where I left my wallet.

It would be easier to find my wallet, and my hidden potential, if my mind weren’t so cluttered. I’m forever banging my head on other stuff, like bittersweet memories and bits of music or art that once touched my soul. Sometimes I hit my head so hard I see stars, and one of the those stars is always the reflection from the key to the hidden room of light. Bittersweet memories and beautiful art will pull stunts like that. They always get me on my hands and knees again, groping for that key, writing.

The odd couple in my head

/ Scott Nagele / 8 Comments

I was working out the logic for a database project at work when it hit me that it probably wasn’t normal for a fiction writer to be engaged in such a left-brain activity. I’m not supposed to be concerned with logic, or numbers, or any of the stuff I do at work. I’m supposed to wrap myself in flowery prose and serenade the world with my cute, yet impractical, idealism.

Fiction writers are supposed to be some minor tribe of artists. We should be ruled by that beautiful, playful, cursive hemisphere on the right. We’re supposed to ignore any straight-laced, know-better-what’s-good-for-you meddling by that block-style left half. That’s how it’s supposed to be, but until my fancy-pants right brain starts kicking in his share of the rent, it seems like the left brain is determined to make old Righty keep his poetic clutter tucked away in his own room.

I don’t know how writers who really are ruled by their right brains actually function. If that were me, I would not be a writer. I wouldn’t be a writer because I wouldn’t write anything. Righty has touching sentiments, and sometimes he has hilarious gags. But none of them would make it to paper if Righty were allowed to rule himself.

Righty likes to play too much; he’ll write down those profound thoughts later. Later would never come if not for steadfast Mr. Left’s incessant pounding on Righty’s bedroom door, demanding to know when something concrete is going to come of all his lofty thoughts. Righty lacks organization. His room would be a wonderland of wasted potential if not for Mr. Left’s iron heel.

perception

Exhibit b is the Left side of my brain. The right side of my brain is illustrated also by exhibit b, except with a V-neck and a flower on his chest instead of an Iron Cross. Exhibit a is a random human male we’ve never met. (Image: Oliver Herford)

Righty is always getting ready to write something really good. When Mr. Left is not busy securing income, he tunnels his way through the stacks of old newspapers in Righty’s room and makes his flakey roommate actually start. Left pins Righty down at his desk until Left has to go off and do some math somewhere else, whereupon Righty drifts away to gambol through the hoarder’s paradise that is his side of the skull.

You might think Righty and Mr. Left would make for unhappy roommates, but this is hardly the case. Righty secretly craves Mr. Left’s structure. Once in a while, Righty will actually come over to Left’s land of right angles and ask Left to help him organize his thoughts, because Righty wants the world to see his art, and he knows he cannot make this happen by himself.

Riding Righty’s back is hard work, but Mr. Left doesn’t complain. Mr. Left is no fool; he pays the bills, but he knows Righty has great potential. If he can impose discipline on Righty, maybe, just maybe, Righty will realize his unlikely dreams. If that were ever to happen, Mr. Left wouldn’t have to work so hard every day to make sure the rent gets paid. He might even go on a little vacation with Righty and find out how it feels to have some fun.