A couple of mornings this week I struggled, sweated, toiled and slaved over revisions to Chapter Two of my YA novel. I looked at the clock and an hour had gone by. How much ground had I covered?
Two paragraphs.
Make that two short paragraphs.
Then I started revising a short story and things started moving along a little better.
Then this morning I start reading Laird Barron's "The Forest" from the anthology Inferno. Blast Laird Barron. He writes so well it (1) amazes me and (2) makes me want to crawl under concrete, preferably some of the big heavy stuff Verizon keeps digging up around town.
So I get in the car, driving to work and start listening to Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union on audio. Good gravy, the dude can write! Just look at what he does on the sentence level---heck, even the word choice level. I was so stunned I almost ran three red lights. Maybe I should read this book instead of listening to it. You don't really have time to process the genius of his (1) writing on the sentence level, (2) word choices, (3) tone, (4) rhythm, (5) pacing before the next sentence comes streaming out like melted gold.
It can really be overwhelming.
When I read over my writing, I feel like I'm using one of those packs of 8-color Crayolas and every color is a word.
But guys like Barron and Chabon had to start somewhere, didn't they?
Well? Didn't they?
Tell me they did.
You're not saying anything...
...I was afraid of that...
3 comments:
We never see where any writer actually starts. We see only their first published work. And for that, I'm thankful. It would be nice to see evidence that Michael Chabon struggled with the same sort of mildly intriguing plots and characters that I seem to generate, but only because it is proof of his humanity, not because it's a good read. And really, who has time to read stuff that isn't good?
Years ago I saw an anthology of famous writers' first works. I assume these were the first published works and not first efforts. (What writer would agree to that?)
It was interesting, however, to read several stories from the Clarion archive while at MSU. I read several stories (by authors I will not name) that were...well, not so great. You have to remember this is Clarion, where you are allowed (and sometimes encouraged) to write crap, so it's okay. But it sure made me feel better. That is until I read Kelly Link's Clarion stories, all of which were jaw-dropping good...and all got publilshed. So much for feeling good...
It was even more interesting to find stories in the Clarion archive that eventually got published, and to see how different the originals were compared to the published version. It goes to show how much adding another character into the mix, or a new middle, etc. can change an entire story.
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