Tag: writing

IWSG, September 2021

John Winkelman

Welcome to the monthly Insecure Writer’s Support Group post. This month’s question is the following:

The question: How do you define success as a writer? Is it holding your book in your hand? Having a short story published? Making a certain amount of income from your writing?

“Success” has had many definitions over the course of my writing life, depending on a wide and constantly changing variety of circumstances, and also my experiences in life (generally) and with the literary world (specifically).

“Make a living as a writer” was probably my first goal, and likely the one most popular with beginning writers.

“Become a famous author” was the next goal, and it is not at all the same as the first definition.

“Publish a book” was next, and by now you can probably see a trend in the targets at which I have aimed.

“Complete a final draft” could have been a goal, but it must necessarily follow “complete a first draft,” which I have yet to do. And no, I don’t consider my output from NaNoWriMo to be first draft material.

Here in September 2021, well into the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic and with a significant uptick in cases thanks to the Delta variant and the nihilistic arrogance of people who think it Won’t Happen To Them, I define success as writing for at least a few minutes every day, no matter what form that writing takes.

To that end, I have been moderately, well, successful. Eight months into 2021, I have written about three dozen poems, created rough outlines for half a dozen short stories, and jotted down rudimentary notes for three novels. I write in my journals every day. I update this blog at least once a week. And yesterday I started planning out what I am going to work on during NaNoWriMo, which starts two months from today (egads!)

Success as a writer depends on prior successes, whether or not you define them as such. Effect follows cause. You can’t have a final draft without first having a first draft. And in order to do that, you need to, you know, write.

As we like to say in tai chi class, “If it was easy, everyone would do it.”

And a side note, because we are 20 months into a pandemic with no end in sight: It’s okay to be exhausted. It’s okay to be burned out and frustrated, and to not be able to focus on your writing. The world is a stressful place in the best of times, and these are far from the best of times. Be gentle with yourself.

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A Slight Uptick In Energy Levels

John Winkelman

Cicada HatchingThough I have not been in school for about thirty years (barring a brief stint as an adjunct professor in 2005-2006) I still feel an uptick in my mental/emotional energy around this time of year. The end of August meant the winding down of the terrible summer job, prepping for band camp, verifying classes and housing accommodations, and the anticipation of seeing people I had not seen since the beginning of May.

But above all the beginning of the school year meant a reset of sorts. My summer breaks tended to be less than stellar, filled mostly with terrible jobs, bad food, bad beer, and more than a little loneliness. Particularly before I moved permanently out of my parent’s house on the farm in the middle of nowhere. The new school year washed all that away. I started looking forward to returning to the campus before I actually left.

High school was of course terrible through-and-through. The dread of being stuck at home for three months was only slightly less awful than the dread of having to return to school in three months. Though there were some high points, they were good only compared to an extremely low baseline. As I told my uncle a few years ago, “making the best of a bad situation is not the same as being in a good situation.”

But my college experience stuck with me, in no small part because I spent so much time there. Fall of 1987 to spring of 1993, plus a spring semester spent studying in Russia in 1994. That is what I hold on to.

So I am continuing the tradition of refusing to let go of the past by enjoying a small resurgence of my writing energy. This past week I finished transcribing the three dozen poems I wrote during this past April, for National Poetry Month.

In the interest of clarity, I should point out that when I say “poems”, what I really mean is mostly stream-of-consciousness blocks of text which have yet to be edited or even broken into poetic lines, verses and stanzas. None of them are even remotely ready for public viewing or submitting for publication.

I also have scribbled down the outlines for a couple more short stories. At this pace I will have close to 20 by the time NaNoWriMo rolls around, which means I might be able to knock out the first drafts of a dozen or so stories during the month of November. I am feeling cautiously optimistic.

No new reading material arrived in the past week, a state of affairs which is happening more and more frequently. But it’s not like I lack for reading material here at the house.

Speaking of reading, I am about halfway through the anthology Portals, published by Zombies Need Brains as part of their 2019 Kickstarter campaign. I actually submitted my story “Occupied Space” to this anthology, and though it was rejected, it was picked up shortly thereafter by Coffin Bell.

And just to tie everything together, I wrote the original draft “Occupied Space” during NaNoWriMo 2016. Or maybe 2015.

All of which is to say, when the writing mood strikes, seize the opportunity and run with it, because it can be months or years before it happens again.

I Can Feel Autumn Approaching

John Winkelman

Books for the week of August 8, 2021

I think this is the beginning of the long tail of COVID stress in my life. Almost eighteen months in, and the new normal has let to assert itself in any permanent way. Though I have not made any plans for the autumn and winter I have let myself begin the process of becoming emotionally invested in events and plans which will now likely not come to pass. For instance, I expect ConFusion will be postponed again in 2022, which at this point seems wise, considering the spike in new cases thanks to the Delta variant and the ignorant, nihilistic, self-absorbed bumble-fucks who refuse both mask and vaccine.

Chekhov Clifford Odets wrote “Any idiot can face a crisis; it’s this day-to-day living that wears you out,” but what if the crisis is the day-to-day living? And dying, of course, thanks to the previously-mentioned bumble-fucks.

The only new reading material this week is Counterpoints: A San Francisco Bay Area Atlas of Displacement & Resistance, from a Kickstarter campaign run by the always-excellent PM Press. This was a spur-of-the-moment purchase (or pledge, as it stands), inspired by our recent visits to San Francisco, as well as the ongoing news reports about the plight and treatment of the homeless population of San Francisco, and their (let’s just go ahead and call it sadistic) treatment at the hands of the powers that be. Grand Rapids is seeing an increase in the homeless population as rents rise and wages stagnate, and as more capital flows upward toward Those That Have, gentrification increases, which exacerbates the housing problem. Rinse, repeat.

In reading news, I finished both Beradri’s The Uprising and Michael J. Sullivan’s Theft of Swords. The Berardi was informative and enlightening, but seemed to lose focus in the last quarter of the book, an opinion apparently shared by others. Sullivan’s book was loads of fun from beginning to end, and I recommend it highly to anyone who likes sword-and-sorcery adventures and buddy movies, though the sorcery is minimal in this one.

In writing news, I have a small but growing stack of outlines for short stories, though no new prose to speak of. I am feeling more anxious at the though of not writing than at the thought of writing, which I suppose is an improvement. We will see how much of an improvement it is at approximately this time next week.

IWSG, August 2021

John Winkelman

Welcome to the monthly Insecure Writer’s Support Group post. This month’s question is the following:

What is your favorite writing craft book? Think of a book that every time you read it you learn something or you are inspired to write or try the new technique. And why?

I don’t know that I have a favorite writing craft book. I’ve read so many over the years that it’s hard to say which one offered which piece of advice. And advice which was useful twenty or thirty years ago is not necessarily advice which is useful now, either because I have fully internalized it, or because I decided it wasn’t right for me at that time.

Leaving aside textbooks and style guides like Strunk and White, my first advice book was Natalie Goldberg‘s Writing Down the Bones. That was probably in 1989 or 1990, so I don’t remember much of it, other than that it (along with pressure from my Russian Studies professors) encouraged me to begin keeping a journal, a practice which I have continued to this day.

The most recent advice book I have read is Chuck Wendig‘s Damn Fine Story, which broke down story structure in a way which I had not seen before. Unfortunately I haven’t done much prose writing since completing this book, so I couldn’t say if it is useful to me, though it was a lot of fun to read.

Over the years I have of course read a great many advice books. Stephen King‘s On Writing, Tobias Buckell‘s It’s All Just a Draft, Ursula K. Le Guin‘s Steering the Craft, and I am sure many others which I am not thinking of at the moment.

I think I learn more about the writing craft from exposure and imitation than from studying. “Reading well”, as Dr. Karen Lord advises, is for me the single most indispensable piece of advice for my craft. The books I love, the authors whose poetry and prose I most admire, are the best available writing inspiration.

But imitation by itself is not enough, despite Hunter S. Thompson‘s practice of typing out books by Fitzgerald and Hemingway, word by word, in order to better understand how they wrote. Reading and re-reading my favorite authors gives me the tools to parrot their style, but doing so does not necessarily allow me to understand why their words work as well as they do. That is where books of writing advice can be vital. Books on the writing craft allow us to decipher why something works and, more importantly, why other things do not.

I don’t want to be the next Roger Zelazny. I want to be the first (or at least current) John Winkelman.

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Is the Writing Mojo Returning?

John Winkelman

new books for the week of July 25, 2021

It appears that the writing energy is slowly returning! In the past week I have written outlines for a couple of short stories, and am also developing a plan to completely re-write the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2013 in order to (a) rid it of its many, many problematic elements, and (b) make of it a coherent story. This will in effect be a first draft, as most of what is produced during NaNoWriMo is, well, not quite ready to be called a first draft.

This was another week which was light on new reading material. The only arrival this week was Jacobin, which like the last dozen or so periodicals which have arrived at the house, will end up somewhere on a TBR pile, awaiting my attention.

In reading news, I finished The Road Home and Automating Inequality. I am about halfway through Berardi’s The Uprising, which is bending my brain a little, as all Semiotext(e) texts do. I just started Michael J. Sullivan’s Theft of Swords, and at around a hundred pages in am quite liking it! Sullivan spins a fine yarn.

In writing news: Soon. That is all.

The Failure Mode of Vacation is Ennui

John Winkelman

Reading Material acquired in the week of July 4, 2021

I mean, I had a vacation, technically, back in the last full week of May, but I was still recovering from 2020 at the time, so it was more like attempting to reel myself back to myself after a year of dissociating. And the five weeks of work which followed were fairly stress-free, as far as work goes.

But the first week of my two-week vacation was kind of…I can’t really call it a waste of time, but I spent most of it binge-watching TV and playing video games, and staring at all the things in my life which require my attention, and for every single one of those tasks, I considered the work carefully, then said fuck it and went back to playing Diablo II.

I’m doing my best to not kick myself for wasting a week in which I could have been reading and writing. I did manage to spend some time out of doors, which did me a world of good, but the whole point of having time off was to be productive, and that I most surely was not.

However, even in the midst of this psychological malaise, there are some bright spots; to wit: four new bundles of words arrived at the Library of Winkelman Abbey in the past week.

First up is the latest issue of Pulphouse Magazine, to which I will one day submit a story, if I ever complete a short story.

The next three are the latest publications from Zombies Need Brains, from their recently-completed Kickstarter campaign – Derelict, When Worlds Collide, and The Modern Deity’s Guide to Surviving Humanity. This is the third of ZNB’s Kickstarters I have backed, and the first to which I have not submitted a story. 2020 was kind of a lousy year in that way.

In reading news, I finished Dalva and moved on to Harrison’s follow-up novel The Road Home. I hadn’t intended to spend my vacation re-reading old favorites, but that is where my mind is right now, and my life seems to be improved thereby.

I also finished Francisco Verso’s Nexhuman (Apex Book Company), which was quite good, and one of the very few “salvagepunk” novels I have read. In fact, the only other ones I can think of at the moment are the Bas-Lag trilogy by China Mieville.

In writing news, not much has changed, though I am putting together a list of upcoming calls for submission to themed anthologies. Maybe one of these will break me out of my funk.

IWSG, July 2021

John Winkelman

Welcome to the monthly Insecure Writer’s Support Group post. This month’s question is the following:

What would make you quit writing?

Short answer: Nothing or death.

Long answer: The heat death of the universe, were it to occur within the natural span of my life. Or something like that. I may take breaks now and again, but writing is what I do.

And for any of you who are dealing with a dry spell, remember: There is no such thing as a “former” writer; only a writer who is currently (and temporarily!) inactive. Writing (or whatever your passion may be) is the best of things, but sometimes the mundane world intrudes, and sometimes you just need a break. Barring an event which compromises you in such a way that you can no longer form thoughts in your head, you can still write. Writing is not a physical exercise; it is the creation of realities using the power of your mind, and as long as that faculty exists, you are still a writer. You need never put pen to paper or pixel to screen, and you are still a writer.

And should you lose the ability to create these realities, remember: the fact that you once wrote can never be taken away. Events are the only truly permanent things in the universe. The last copy of a book may be lost, but the fact that the book was ever written is forever a part of the history of the universe. Causality only happens in one direction. Manuscripts don’t burn.

 

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Halfway Through 2021

John Winkelman

Books which arrived in the week of June 27, 2021

For the first Independence Day weekend in the last decade, our block was not blown up by the obnoxious neighbor lighting off a thousand dollars of professional-grade fireworks in the middle of the street. I realize I may be jinxing the neighborhood by writing this in the early afternoon of July 4. After all, the day ain’t over yet.

To make up for the uninterrupted and quiet night, I had a bout of serious insomnia which had me sitting at the dining room table until 04:00, blearily browsing the internet in an attempt to get my head to quiet down. I was tired but not sleepy, which is a miserable state in which to find one’s self when there are no pressing issues the next morning and sleep should be abundantly available.

Two new bundles of words arrived in the past week. On the left is the latest issue of Poetry Magazine. On the right is the new delivery from And Other Stories, Keeping the House by Tice Cin, which according to the back cover blurb offers “…a fresh and funny take on the machinery of the North London Heroin Trade…” which I can only assume will create for me a sense of deja vu which will lead back to Trainspotting.

(Yes, I know, Keeping the House is set in London, England and Trainspotting is set in Edinburgh, Scotland.)

In reading news, I finished Jim Harrison‘s Dalva, and it was every bit as beautiful as the previous half-dozen times I have read it over the past 25 years. Harrison’s follow-up novel The Road Home is now sitting next to my bed, awaiting my attention. I picked up my copy of Dalva back around 1996 and it is falling apart. I think I will need to replace it before I read it again, and I don’t think it will be so easy to find another copy with a Russell Chatham cover which is in any sort of good condition.

I have just started Francesco Verso’s long novella or short novel Nexhuman, and so far it is really good! This was published by Apex Book Company and arrived a few months ago as part of my subscription to Apex’s catalog.

I also just started Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubanks, and only made it about five pages in before I was overcome with an incandescent rage at the state of the world. I have often said that sadism is the national pastime of the USA, and Eubanks is showing how sadism and racism, manifested as carceral capitalism and managed democracy, are actively embedded into the national psyche at a level not much removed from that of the weather or gravity. Currently I am about fifty pages in, and my mood has not improved.

Argh.

In writing news, now that we are in July, and I have some time off, I plan to get serious about my writing practice. Then again I have planned that every week since the beginning of the year and have only been partially successful.

A few walks in the woods and a few evenings on the Lake Michigan beaches may be what I need to clear space in my head.

Rainy Days are Good Days for Reading

John Winkelman

Reading material arriving in the week of June 20,2021

We have been dealing with a drought of sorts for the past month, and in the last couple of days the weather patterns have stepped up to correct that imbalance. The cooler air has been nice, though it has brought with it some extremely humid days, which have reminded me of early spring in New Orleans. And that has brought with it a specific melancholy, as I have not been to New Orleans since May of 2009, when my father died. I have promised my girlfriend that we will take trip down south one of these days so she can experience the city before it is permanently underwater.

Humid, stormy days dampen down the motivation to do much of anything, so even simple tasks are difficult, as if undertaken after a strenuous workout. And difficult tasks are, well, more difficult. And make necessary frequent naps.

One magazine and one book arrived here last week.

On the left is the latest issues of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, the literary journal published by Small Beer Press, a company which consistently turns out some of the best writing by the best authors in the business.

On the right is Ron Hogan’s new book Our Endless and Proper Work, which I purchased on impulse after seeing it in one of John Scalzi‘s regular round-ups of the books and ARCs which arrive at his house every week. I admit I have not heard of Hogan, and that I purchased the book mostly because it was published by Belt Publishing, a company which also turns out excellent writing, centered around authors and cities in the Rust Belt region of the American Midwest. At a quick glance he appears to be quite a good writer, with good advice for writer.

In reading news, I finished both The Cybernetic Hypothesis and Son of a Liche. To clear my head, I have started re-reading Jim Harrison‘s magnificent Dalva, a book which I return to every few years when I need to reset my mind in a specific way.

Reading Harrison also helps to prime my mind for writing, and right now I need all the boosts I can find in order to get my head back into that space. Already the year is half over and I have not written any prose of substance since the first week of last November. More than six months, and though I have about three dozen new poems, that isn’t much to show for 200 days.

Time to get to work.

Restarting the Writing Habit

John Winkelman

Over the past two months my reading and writing habit has dwindled away to almost nothing. What free time I have, I tend to spend paying SimCity on my phone, instead of improving my craft. I have no specific reason for this change in behavior and routine, other than that, with my COVID shots, a certain tension released, and I think all of the stress and burnout which I had kept bottled up came to the surface and began to dissipate.

And that was exhausting.

But now we are in the beginning-to-middle of June and I have many things I wish to accomplish this year, writing-wise. I want to complete the first draft of the novel I started last year and abandoned in November. I want to start sending out poems for publication again. I want to polish up some short stories and send them out into the wild.

All of these goals take time, focus, and mental energy. And while I don’t have a lot of extra time in my days/weeks/months, I do have enough to do a fair amount of writing if I put my mind to it. I just have to put my mind to it.

There are also external factors. There always are. We are not perfectly spherical writers of uniform density in a vacuum. We are fragile and fallible. We are social animals, and those slings and arrows didn’t magically manifest out of nowhere. No matter how much we try to isolate ourselves from the world, the world still exists.

Behavior changes from higher energy expenditure to lower energy expenditure are a lot easier than going from low to high. But such changes follow the same framework. First get out of the habit of doing the old thing, then get into the habit of doing the new thing. This applies to any deliberate (-ish) change. Not doing a thing is not the same as doing something else.

So for me, in this circumstance, I am slowly getting out of the habit of not writing, and getting back into the habit of writing. To encourage this behavior I am transcribing the three dozen poems I wrote during National Poetry Month in April. I also plan to start actively taking notes on the books I am reading, as I am reading them, with the eventual goal of either posting the notes, or writing book reviews, or both. While these tasks are not the creative practice I wish to eventually return to, they are part of the craft of writing and use the same muscles.

Two months is not a lot of time as the crow lives, but it is enough time for atrophy and entropy to take their toll on unused neurons. I am 52, and almost certainly have more life behind me than I do ahead of me (although at least one close relative has lived to 99 years old…). While objective time is not moving any faster today than it did yesterday, I feel a subtle yet growing sense that time is a resource which is not to be squandered, and the sense of urgency I feel to get to work on things ironically saps my mental energy and makes it more difficult for me to get to work on things.

Thus the importance of habit and routine in this practice. I don’t need to be perfect, I just need to improve, or at least not backslide.

All of this takes work and attention.

Getting back into a habit is more work than maintaining the habit.