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Writing Past the Pain of Critique

It’s funny how fate plays a role in your writing sometimes.

Today,I woke up exhausted, my head thick with a fog that settled in after lack of sleep and a hangover.

Sleep deprivation was a result from spending two days home with a sick child. Prescribed certain medications, she becomes a toddler-on-the-move who’s stuck on fast forward and can’t even pause for bedtime. At 10:30 last night, her feet kicked up and out and down on the bed and her hands clapped and she whispered stories non stop.

The hangover came after a night of novel workshop with me and mine in the hot seat. Though the critique process worked well – the author sits quiet and listens while the readers discuss – the feedback weighed heavy against my chest when I finally fell asleep.

I’m a newbie, and I imagine first critiques always cut deep. So, I’m following Becky Levine’s advice, from her book, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide:

Most of our bad feelings don’t come from the words written on our manuscripts…or from the person who writes them. Instead they come from within ourselves. They reflect our own doubts about ourselves as writers – as skilled, creative craftspeople.

Be ready for [those feelings] to come, and, when they do, recognize and acknowledge them. Then, get to work (p. 242).

I decided to pushthose critiques to the side for the day and to tackle Wednesday’s Word.

And, funny enough, the word that rolled out from Wordsmith.org this morning was bayonet — a call to arms, an insistence to fight, a subtle reminder that this is where the rubber meets the road, missy.

Critique or no critique, get writing.

So, here goes. Read at your own risk. And, if you’re feeling feisty, put a link to your version of how the word-of-the-day’s call to action translates into your writing. Camaraderie is always a good thing.

*****

They were back, the whole lot of them.

Phi Delts, from the frat house down the block, stormed into the bar as soon as she unlocked the door that morning. They slurred on and on about another 24 hour party, chanting rugby cheers and demanding multiple rounds of Bloody Marys.

She stood behind the counter and emptied bottles into glasses like she worked on an assembly line.

They harassed her and called her a hard ass when she tried to measure the vodka and told her to “lighten up.”

The one with the U of M baseball cap and stubble leaned over the bar, grabbed her hand, kissed it, and then begged for “three more of those plump…green…olives.” She jerked her hand away.

She picked up a cocktail sword and stabbed three times into the dish with the habanero stuffed olives. She held them up close to his face and smiled.

“Here you go, Mr. Rugby.” Then, she excused herself and walked calmly to the restroom.

She barely heard him over the noise of the hand dryer as he coughed and sneezed and pleaded for water.

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Experience is an Action Word

In Christina Katz’s weekly e-zine, she continues her discussion on the 52 Qualities of Prosperous Writers.

This week’s quality is experience.

*****

Experience is an action word.

It’s a noun, yes. But, the word – and the meaning behind it – comes alive with action.

Last week, I experimented with a short story rewrite, deciding it not only needed a good trim but a rigorous reduction in extraneous verbiage.

I’ve rewritten passages before and added words here and there, but I’ve never attacked a whole story with the goal of cutting the word count in half. I needed help, so I turned to other writers. I posed a question here, and several people commented with great suggestions.

Over a course of several days, and several draft print-outs, I attempted to trim a 3500+ word story to just under 1200 words. Each time I considered a strikethrough, I leaned on the experience and words of those writers:

  • Cut the facts, keep the emotion.
  • Get rid of the passages that are better expressed elsewhere in the story.
  • Cut the beginning and introduce the conflict in the first sentence.
  • Take off the ending.
  • Follow your intuition.

The initial cuts were easy. I crossed out the ending without a problem, and I condensed the beginning two paragraphs into one concise sentence. My pen danced through unnecessary adjectives and random details. But after the third pass through the story, I still had well over 200 words left to cut.

Talk about killing your darlings…It pained me to think of losing even one more word, let alone a few hundred. Then, I read Jordan Rosenfeld’s recent post, at Make a Scene, about deep-cut revising, and trusted her when she said weeks later I wouldn’t even notice what I bumped from the story.

So, I cut whole scenes, gave one character the boot, and said farewell to descriptions that no reader would love as much as I loved them.

As I got closer to 1200 words, the skeleton of a story that remained read so choppy that I wondered if I cut too much. But, I weaved the story back together with careful precision – into a sensible plot – and ended just under the 1200 bar. I then sent the “new” story off to a few writing friends to see if it held together well. Comments were positive, and I was able to work in a few more suggested changes while staying under my word limit.

The experience I gained through this experiment was invaluable. I learned several things about my writing – I write on and on sometimes and plenty of what I say can be cut without losing the premise of a story.

This rewrite experiment also taught me that, while writing is a solitary act, I rarely do it alone. I ask around when I’m not sure how to begin a story or edit a story or end a story. And in listening to other writers’ suggestions – and their experience – I find the courage to attempt new writing challenges myself.

Then, I celebrate my success when the story I just slashed still reads like a story and not like a ticker tape.

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The Obdurate Writer

Wednesday’s word of the day, from Wordsmith.org:

obdurate. adjective. 1.Stubborn: not easily moved. 2.Hard-hearted: resistant to emotions.

That reminds me of my recent experience in rewrite mania.

*****

The body of a woman, her hands covered in what appeared to be red ink (lab results pending), was found slumped over a pile of papers and an open laptop. She was mumbling the numbers “eleven ninety-eight” repeatedly when police woke her. During questioning, the woman reported hacking scenes and chopping characters and “whittling, whittling, whittling.” She has since been taken to the Medical Center for observation, where she continues to plead for her laptop and a “juicy red pen!”

More details to follow.

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