The Passion

(the commitment)

I have no doubts that I want to write a fantasy story.

I finished Chapter 5 of TFOR - finished finished, including page-level editing work. Nothing was rushed, nothing was forced just to put a last period to a piece of paper; it was complete and worked. It's easy to tell when writing is going well; you look up at your desk and suddenly realize three hours have gone by, and it felt like twenty minutes. That happened with the last pages of Chapter 5.
Now, in olden days, I would print out the story and give the Mar's - Margaret, Martin, and Marla - a separate copy each. Those were great days. I could get three people's different viewpoints on the chapter or section I had given them, and each person offered a different expertise - Margaret's innate sense of character, Martin's view on plot, mood, and excitement, and Marla's technical and sentence structure skills. Unfortunately, now I only have Martin nearby (I'll have to send it out to Margaret), so we headed out to Eat N' Park and we read over Chapter 5.

He didn't like it.

That's not actually true, of course. Martin was pumped to read the chapter, and afterwards still liked the movement of what was happening, liked some of the things in the plot and character. But the manner in which I went about describing one of my main characters, Ru, didn't ring right, and he didn't enjoy it as much as he usually enjoyed my chapters, and told me so.
When that happens, it's not easy for anyone. It's hard to tell someone that you don't like something they've written; it's even harder to hear it. But truthful reading requires it, at least if you really want to get better and write something so good that an editor or house has to publish it. That's a true statement, of course, but it doesn't always make it easy to do.
I remember one time Martin and I were working over a portion of my story - I think Chapter 2 - and he made at least two pages of verb choice and intra-sentence corrections when I just wanted to hear his opinions on the overall feel of the plot and characterization, as if those were missing there was no point in going down to the individual word level. It was quite a heated meeting for a bit until he and I realized that we were on totally different thought processes of analysis. Afterwards we agreed that we would not take offense to each other's comments, that we would meet many times (we hoped) in the future and that we had to be able to give criticism (lightly) and take criticism (liberally). Writing is a personal art, after all, and it can be difficult to receive critiques on something you have mentally sweated and strained towards, something that reflects your creativity, your hard work, and your passion. In writing in particular, critiques of your work often feel as critiques of yourself as a person.
This is why I am happy with the way this meeting worked out. Martin listed his critiques of the chapter, chiefly revolving around the Ru-Valavar connection (as the story is currently written, they're both extremely similar characters), and I concentrated on taking things constructively. And while some comments were hard to hear, I succeeded in taking value out of the comments, and started asking proactive questions. We ended up talking until 2 AM, and I ended up taking three pages of notes and ideas coming from the scene, which ultimately should improve the final product. Perhaps not as great as a comeback from the days of "Why don't they just break the Holocron? 'Whoops! Ok, story's over.' " ...But not bad nonetheless.
Writing goes on.

Today is Barbara's birthday. The thought makes me smile. Happy Birthday, Barb. I miss hearing from her.

So much to talk about - owning a car, riding a bike to work, re-doing my room. The last one is actually the most important, the most meaningful. Another post.

"Without the water, the wisdom of past
slips through your fingers, forgotten so fast."