No, it’s not a dirty word. Your epidermis is showing! Still one of my favourites, but bear with me.
Homeostasis, defined as simply is possible, is the process by which things return to ‘normal’ after something happens.
For instance, when you were in high school and craved the escape of university, you thought your life – hell, you knew your life – was going to be absolutely incredible. The freedom, the parties, the living away from home. Maybe it even lived up to the dream – but not very long after you got to post-secondary, I’m sure you were just as bored, restless, and looking for the next big thing as you were back in junior high.
Likewise, that time you got in a car accident, had your license suspended, almost got kicked out of school – whatever the big life ending moment was that promised things would never be the same – was likely barely a blip on the radar a few months down the road.
This is the concept of homeostasis. Your mind is a ridiculously sophisticated thing, and in order to regulate your moods so you’re not bouncing off the walls like Speedy Gonzales on a methamphetamine bender – it brings you back to centre as quickly as it can. For you published writers, you know what I mean. That moment you got published, you felt different – and you wanted that feeling to last forever. The elation. The future was yours, and you were going to take it all.
But a few months down the road? Yeah, it was cool – but if you weren’t working on that next manuscript to take it to the next level, you’re either lying or you really didn’t care that much to begin with.
Homeostasis, simply put, is getting comfortable. People always say you have to step outside your comfort zone, and offer cliche advice like do one thing a day that scares you – but they have a point. The second you step outside your comfort zone, homeostasis kicks in – and before you know it, that scary place is like home. Not frightening in the least.
This is a good thing – it allows us to grow and constantly improve, as long as we’re always willing to challenge it.
Today, move forward, even if it terrifies you.
Within a week, twenty bucks says you won’t even know the difference.
No, I don’t mean twirling your fancy little moustache and plotting to take over the world, though that would be rad.
Plotting, to some of us writerly folk, is the first real step to writing a novel – and, believe it or not (ta-da!) the step I currently find myself in with the third book of the GREY DOGS: ZOMBIE SURVIVAL Trilogy. Tentatively titled THE WILLOW, I’m going down a lot of paths I’ve been down before – but some I haven’t visited in quite some time.
Every writer has a different strategy when it comes to how they get from the initial idea / spark of the story, to the x-number of word manuscript ready for submission and eventual publication. Most of us play around with a few until we find what works for us, and then continue to refine this process down until it’s a science. A big, difficult, booze-driven science.
As this is my website, we’re going to talk about mine. Deal with it.
When I first started writing GREY DOGS, I outlined the bloody hell out of everything. I’d have point-form notes on dialogue, reactions, scenes – right on down to subtle things I wanted to inflect at different parts of the narrative. With the early books – GREY DOGS and BARE (as of yet unpublished, hitting some more edits) – these point-form lists essentially comprised my first draft of the manuscript, starting right at Scene 1 / Act 1, right until The End in the centre of the last page.
Did it work? Sure.
The books got done (I’d consider GREY DOGS to be far more spontaneous than BARE and you can tell – but I digress), the manuscripts reached completion, and I got to query them. One became my first published novel back in 2010, the other has been alternately gathering dust and dissected time and time again until I feel it’s almost ready to take another lap. Either way, you can’t query a half finished novel – so these are considered successful, viable attempts in my mind.
But: Were they the most action-packed, page-turning thrillers? Maybe not.
After these two, WAITING JACKALS and CRIMSON LETTERS FROM KANDAHAR PROVINCE were written in much of the same manner – and I shifted gears. Why? I’m not sure. Things were working out, I was signing publishing deals – but I guess I just wanted to write something more inspired.
*cue pompous writer music*
I liked everything I had written thus far, but I felt it lacked… something. A spontaniety, maybe. A fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants quality while writing. I don’t know if it was noticable in the final drafts, but there were times I had to slog through chapters just to get onto the action-packed sequences I really wanted to write. I know, I know – we all do it, as writers. But I wanted something different.
Enter FIVE WORDS IN BLACK. A sci-fi, dystopian before dystopian was cool again, action-packed thrill ride. At least, that’s what I was gunning for when I started. I hobbled together three or four seemingly-disconnected concepts I was playing with at the time, and decided to give it a whirl. A short outline for the first chapter to get me started, a few notes as I thought of them jotted into my phone – that was it. It was going to be four (! What was I thinking!) alternating points of view, all eventually converging (or in once case, not) on the main goal… which I hadn’t decided upon, yet.
And off I went.
I can say to this day, writing FIVE WORDS IN BLACK was simotenously the most pleasurable, exciting, yet daunting writing experience I’ve ever had. I didn’t know where it was going, I didn’t know what I was doing – I just knew I wanted it to happen. I had lots of time at this point in my life to get writing done, and actively made even more time available in order to pour everything I had into the manuscript.
And though it hasn’t been picked up or signed by an agent yet, to me? It worked.
I loved it. Still do. Consider it one of the best, most action-crammed pieces of literature I’ve been able to sign my name to. No deep psychological examinations like I usually enjoy, no character studies, no lit-fic mashups. Pedal to the floor, page one til page fin.
*end pretentious writer music*
Except I couldn’t do it twice.
I finished FIVE WORDS somewhere around last July. Since then, I’ve edited it, started about three other projects, had three or four short stories published, and have been shopping it around to good response from agents to date. Nothing in stone, but things are looking good for it.
But, and there’s always a but.
Look at what I said there – started about three other projects. My whole writing career, I’ve been a staunch advocate of finish what you start, and work on one main project at a time. I think I must have gotten so excited with my opinion of FIVE WORDS that I forgot I still did a degree of outlining along the way. The other manuscripts I’ve started on have been firey and rip-roaring for 20,000 or so words… then die. Quietly. No screaming, no anguish. The story runs out, I lose track of where I’m going – and the interest disappears.
Not so good.
Which brings me to now: plotting.
Plotting is your friend as a writer. While everyone has what works for them, I have since realized that while I can make shit up as I go along to a degree – I need structure in order to have confidence in the narrative I’m writing. If I get too confused as to what I’m trying to reach – I apparently have a habit of getting a bad case of the fuck-it’s and writing it off completely.
To get back to finishing what I start (and heeding my own advice, dammit) I’ve now plotted six chapters of THE WILLOW. Fun fact: GREY DOGS: ZOMBIE SURVIVAL was originally titled GREY DOGS & THE WILLOW. It was changed on the final draft at the suggestion of my editor, and I agreed – if I had to go back, I’d keep THE WILLOW off of it. However, now may be the time to bring it back – who knows.
Getting back to plotting: One thing I’ve neglected (willfully or otherwise) to do throughout the GREY DOGS Series is plot out, from Book I to Book III, what exactly happens, and where it all ends up. This leaves me at a strange place: I have raised many, many questions throughout the previous books – and I’ve said since day one that this is a trilogy. Hence, I have this book, and this book only, to wrap up anything the reader may want answered. As well, I have to think of a thrilling, yet logical conclusion for the series that doesn’t leave the reader feeling cheated – something that’s much more difficult when you have three books of build-up behind it, instead of a stand-alone novel.
I’d expect GREY DOGS III: THE WILLOW to be finished by the end of the summer – that’s the goal.
In the meantime, hit the books tab above and check out the first two. Do it. Do it.
This is a topic that’s been extremely near and dear to me over the past six months or so.
While whether writer’s block actually exists in the true sense is hotly debated by far greater minds than mine – I can say I’ve suffered from it badly in the past, and still fight with it now from time to time.
The kind of block I experience isn’t so much a “I don’t know where to go with this plot,” so much as it is “I have absolutely nothing to write about.” When I first started writing novels, I had ideas flying about my skull so violently I must have looked like I was headbanging pretty much twenty-four seven. Every manuscript I’d get down to business on, I’d almost end up abandoning in favour of chasing down something newer and fresher. While I’m glad I stuck with what I was doing at the time – half-finished works don’t get published, no matter who you are (or shouldn’t be, *cough* *cough* Dean Koontz *cough*) – I wish I had that kind of creativity again, even if it was highly distracting at times.
While I can’t speak to writer’s block early on in the author game, I feel this issue for myself ties in tightly with my previous post on writing junk. At the beginning, I didn’t give a shit. Pump out whatever came to mind and run with it, because I had absolutely nothing to compare it to. But after a few published works… well, I guess I have high expectations for myself. I can’t just run off half-cocked anymore with a hackjob idea and hope it works out – or at least I don’t allow myself to as much anymore.
After canvassing some fellow writers on various forums and doing some reading-up on the subject, I still don’t have any surefire answers. I suppose if the answer was easy, I (among hundreds of other authors) wouldn’t be writing posts on writer’s block instead of actually writing.
Possible suggestions:
1. Engage in a new hobby, like sobbing uncontrollably every time you stare at your blank page.
2. Meet interesting people, and talk their ears off about how badly you suck at your life’s work right now.
3. Drink heavily. Scrawl garbage on the blank page. Wake up in the morning, and repeat Step 1.
4. Ask your household pets rhetorical questions of the nature of God, and why he could be so cruel at present.
5. Write short-stories. Hate them. Burn them. Repeat Step 1.
At least this is what I’ve been up to. Solutions anyone?
The Great American Novel. A thirteen-part epic space opera. A romance to last through the ages.
Very few, if any, writers set out to write junk. But they should.
When I first sat down to write my first novel (GREY DOGS: ZOMBIE SURVIVAL), I didn’t realize quite how lucky I was. There were no expectations, no high standards, and certainly nothing to compare it to. Believe me, if you saw my essays from first year university – you’d understand. The words flew onto the page – some of it alright, a lot of it garbage. Regardless, they made it there – and the manuscript got completed. I believe it topped out somewhere over 75,000 words, before edits. Took me less than six weeks too – and I still haven’t beaten that kind of production to date.
That was almost two years ago to the day. You’d think my speed and quality is up, right? Ha.
Something happened after the first couple of novels. Well, a few things happened: reviews, agents, publishers, a readership, a (albeit slight) following. In short, I wasn’t just writing for myself anymore – or for my imaginary audience of the magical future in my head. It wasn’t just some pie-in-the-sky fantasy that people would someday be paying to read my work – it was happening, and that fantasy had become real.
Awesome? Yeah. Intimidating as hell? Oh yeah.
I’m still trying to get myself up to former levels, and mainly by using one strategy and one strategy only: writing complete garbage.
Seriously. That’s it. When I sit down to hammer out the 2000 or so words I try to get done in a session, my new focus is completely and utterly failing to give a shit about whether I like it – or anyone else is going to like it – or not. Thinking of what the reaction is going to be before you’ve even gotten it down is paralyzing. Nothing’s good enough for your imaginary perfect reader, and your brain is your own worst enemy. Hell, some of my most vicious reviews were never actually written by anyone – they were ones I created in my head by imaginary critics before the damn manuscript was even done.
My advice to you today? Write shit. Just write.
Let it work itself out later. You can’t sub a half-finished work.
Oh, the favourite topic for the avid writer – published or unpublished.
One place where I am extremely organized – and likely the only place in my life where I am organized – is my email inbox. I’ve got everything sorted with colour-coded labels, folders – y’know, pretty-like.
Just for fun today, after receiving a rejection and filing it away, I decided to check the count of my rejections folder.
To date, I have received three hundred rejection letters. 300. Three-zero-zero. Most of them complete form-letters, devoid of any actual feedback, or even human touch for that matter. That’s exactly one-hundred rejections for each novel I’ve had published to date, not including short stories which were in there as well. If you count magazine and anthology submissions / rejections out of the equation, it’s probably around eighty rejections per novel.
Eighty.
How long did it take me to write those queries? Maybe an hour to do it the first time, and however long it takes to hit copy/paste for the rest.
I know we all like to bitch and moan about how hard it is to get published – and it is a struggle, I get it – but eighty-to-one odds?
I think you can do it.
You have the skill, you have the time, and you’ve got the drive – so put pen to paper, get the letters out there, and get your manuscript working for you. Even if it’s a rejection, it means your manuscript / query has passed across someone’s desk, and someone else has learned your name.
Remember – bad reviews / rejections aren’t the enemy. Obscurity, and only obscurity, is the enemy.
I leave you with this, my absolute favourite motivational video ever.
