Periodic Behind the Scenes Peek (Attn: Writers, Current or Aspiring)

I have now written enough that I have a feel for when something I write is "wrong." "Wrong" in this context doesn't necessarily mean badly written, but it does mean it's bad storycrafting. It doesn't match the tone, doesn't serve a structural purpose, slows the pacing for no reason, or just plain takes a charicter in a wrong direction. However, my writing discipline is to get down two thousand words a day absent some compelling reason otherwise. So even if something feels off, I get it on the page and revisit later.

This is not a strategy without consequences, or waste. I have written entire chapters that have been culled, sometimes several chapters in a single volume. Such dramatic culling happens less and less often as I get better at writing serials, but sometimes dramatic surgery is called for.

Case in point- tomorrow's chapter is half again longer than the standard two thousand words. This is because I chopped off half of one chapter, and heavily edited down a second chapter to make it all fit as a single cohesive piece. It's better this way- much better. What was good and useful was kept, the rest?

So why mention all this to you? Well, I'm really writing this for the aspiring writers reading this note. In my immodest opinion, writers need two things if they want to take writing from a hobby to a career. You need discipline. Every day the words need to go down, even if it's not perfect, or you feel uninspired. And you need be ruthless. Did you spend hours on something that doesn't work? Why should you feel sorry for yourself? Just kill it, and learn from your mistake.

This, incidentally, is also why I try to write at least twenty chapters ahead of the Patreon. By the time a chapter is queued up for posting, it's been around a month since I wrote it. I have seen where the story goes, grasped the tone and timing, understood the themes better. Now when I look at it, I'm not caught up in trying to get to the next big plot point, or the next big charicter moment. I'm not mentally exhausted by grinding through a day of uninspired writing. I am ready to kill.

Does that sound a bit bleak? Let me let you in on a secret. It is incredibly liberating. I don't even copy the deleted text onto a seperate document anymore, it's straight into the digital shredder with it. I'm not tied to it. I'm not bound by it. Nobody has read it but me. If it doesn't work, so what? I spent the time honing my craft, and learning, and if I made something not fit for purpose, that's fine.

Wouldn't be the first time. Won't be the last time. So if you want to write, just write. Keep at it every day until it is done, even if it's bad. Then put it down for a while. Come back with a heart to cut away all the dead matter, and see that you did actually write something good. It was just a little smaller than you thought.