Reading Your Own Work for Entertainment

Lots of things inspire and encourage me and, I'm sure, most of the rest of you who are interested in writing. Praise is good, of course. So is being paid/published.

Even so, being open to that sort of thing has a down side. NOT getting paid or published (no matter how little work you've actually devoted to marketing) is NOT encouraging. And even the most devoted friend/fan can't stoke your ego constantly. For one thing, writing is time consuming so they either have to gush constantly over the same small tract of writing (which hardly makes it sound sincere) or their compliments are likely interspersed with long patches of not much.

If you want to write and need something to keep you from getting to disheartened to write, reading both good and bad literature can help. The good because being swept away reminds you why you wanted to write in the first place. The bad to remind yourself that it can't be hopeless for your own work or this book would never have made the light of day.

And both good and bad literature are great learning tools. The bad can be a smorgasbord of what you don't want to do yourself; the good a feast of what you do want to do. In my case, my reaction when I read a book tells me instantly if it's a good book, great book or garbage. Garbage I don't want to read and won't read past the point when I feel I've either never stood at risk of writing that poorly or that I've already picked up all their bad habits and can move on. Good stuff I still pick apart but find myself driven to read more because (probably) there's a character in there I just want to know what happens to. Or it has a thought-provoking premise or it grew on me, even while I was picking it to pieces.

The great stuff, the stuff I put in my bedroom books shelves (I have five, floor to ceiling) are the books I completely forgot to pick apart because I was too caught up in the story and people and stuff. Stuff I love to read over and over and over again. So far, at least to date, I eventually get to the point where I can pick it apart and figure out why it worked so well for me. But these books, even after I've "figured 'em out," are still a joy to read over and over again and, with no effort, I can lose myself again.

Frequently, it's books like that that get me writing again.

So, anyway, I haven't been writing. I tried to edit one of my (I thought) better novels and had to stop because I decided it was all garbage. Can't edit that way because, a) if it's true, there's no sense writing anyway and b) if it's not, you don't have the perspective to make it better if you're thinking that way.

Well, this past weekend, instead, I read a novel I really enjoyed writing and I read it for fun, just read it without editing, except for a few word choices or typos, and let myself get immersed, let myself laugh and get emotionally torn up and all the things I want my book to do to someone else. You know what? I loved it! Man, I rock!

So, now I'm ready to edit the book that came before it, not because it has no flaws but because now I know those flaws can be handled and that it's worth it. Because the world I'm building is worth it.

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Noncredible vs. Unlikely

In my line of work (day job), a great deal of time is spent separating potential scenarios from "non-credible" scenarios, scenarios that are either considered so far fetch as to be "impossible" or physically impossible. Now I could go on and on about those folks who confuse "non-credible" with unlikely, impossible with implausible. In real life, when you do that, it can become easy to convince yourself a risk, for instant, isn't really a risk. But space history's full of catastrophic and near-catastrophic accidents that were, every one, scenarios no one expected could or would really happen.

But in fiction, it happens, too. People frequently dismiss a notion or a concept or a character: someone's too old or young to do "X", magic or science couldn't do what they call out, human nature, individual or in groups, would never do "Y."

But there's a world of difference between "impossible" and "implausible." When you talk about youthful or elderly expertise, there are plenty of examples in history. In the most sexist or racist societies in the world, there are stories that have come through the ages of superlative women and oppressed peoples who have done what should have been impossible.

For all the stories of people banding together to do evil things, there are groups of people doing good things: smuggling/hiding Jews in Nazi-held land, smuggling slaves away from the south, standing up to oppressor without using violence. Check out the Mother's blog, for instance, for some of the extremes in craziness in our far (and not so far) past, particularly on Friday's when she has her posts on the nefarious history of motherhood. Fascinating stuff.

Science can't do something, you insist? Ha! Who can say what we'll be able to do in 500 years. Do you think they could imagine what we can do today in 1510? Computers with whole libraries on them, communication with the world instantaneously, cure disease as we do, fly in the sky? Just in the past hundred years, look at what's changed. Why are we so sure we can predict what we'll have to work with in 100 years?

If something's happened, it's not non-credible (by definition). If it's not readily disproved, not demonstrably impossible, I don't think we can say it is impossible or will be in the future, or even in the past. Rare events are even better than the mundane (at least it makes it more interesting for me).

So write, tweak, play, dabble, and take what-if as far as you want.

But, remember, it's not enough to just dream . . . you have to sell that dream to a reader as well. And that takes more than coming up with a "cool" concept. More on that next time.

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