Self-definition, truth, and a busman's holiday

(I am really lazy about the labels on my blog entries, in case no one had noticed yet. If any of my half dozen readers ever really want to find a specific entry, they're going to have their work cut out for them.)

I've done quite a bit of writing the last couple of days. It's been work, but it's been a very rewarding, straightforward kind of work, unlike the frenzied flailing about in the dark that Crowmaker has often resembled. I am able to determine what a scene needs, do whatever research I need, and write the scene--and then move on with the comfortable feeling that what I've written, while imperfect, will hold up the framework I'm building for the rest of the story. It's a very different feeling for me, and I kind of like it.

The story itself is a departure from anything I've written before, to some extent. It should fall into the category of inspirational romance when it's done, I suspect, and I've never written a flat out romance before. I have written stories with a smack of inspirational theme in them, I guess.

Actually, if I nail myself down, almost everything I write has a spiritual theme involved. There's a search for truth and enlightenment in my fiction that reflects my personal search. Maybe that's related to the "write what you know" rule: Write the answers you're looking for.

In all honesty, this story does not excite me in the way Crowmaker does. It has no wow factor for me currently. But it does seem to be growing a quiet presence--you know, that feeling a story starts to have at the moment when it transitions from something you're writing to something with a life of its own. It is a VERY quiet presence, though. Maybe that's part of the reason it feels more like work (in a good sense, as in yes, work, but it feels good to accomplish something) and less like a rollercoaster of white-hot inspirational peaks and valleys of overwhelming confusion.

Maybe it also has something to do with being the first work of non-speculative fiction I've done in a long while. Unlike many spec fic writers, I am NOT a compulsive world builder. I don't feel compelled to fritter away hours thinking up every little detail of how the world of my story works. I will build those details, yes, but only on an as-needed basis. And then it's work. Hard work. Gives me a headache and makes me want to scream work. And maybe there's a lesson for me in that, somewhere.

Which is not to say I won't finish Crowmaker. I will. I have poured too much of myself into that story, and more importantly, I still believe in that story too much to let it sit fallow forever here on my desk.

But this week, in keeping with my recent decision to do less micro-managing of my writing process according to how "everyone" says it ought to be done, I am going to continue to work on this other project. Because I feel like it. And I will continue to work on it...

Until I get tired of it and feel reenergized about Crowmaker again. Which could be, y'know... Any given moment.

Which possibly sounds wishy-washy and undisciplined and like a thing someone who only talks about being a real writer would say. But I know that I am putting real effort into my writing, and I know that I have a modicum of talent and more than a modicum of determination. So I hereby give myself permission to sound however I happen to sound.

Go me!