Imagine my surprise when, during a discussion at one of the four writer groups I attend every week, because they’re cheaper than therapy and the food is better, someone brings up the quote “Consistency Is the Mark of Greatness.”
Oh yeah? Who says that? Because I, for one, am… well, whatever the opposite of consistent is. Sporadic? Mercurial? A creative jack-in-the-box who forgot how to close the lid? Yeah, that’s me. In fact, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, I find consistency downright counterproductive to creativity.
The only things I’m truly consistent about are my lunch order (two Portillo’s Chicago dogs) and that I always shave from the right side of my face to the left. That’s it. My writing? Forget it. In my comedy universe, I’m currently working on a historical, a satirical, a dark superhero, and a surrealist autobiography. In my sci-fi universe, I’m juggling an espionage, a buddy cop, a psychological thriller, a heist, and a humanist think-piece. I can’t even work on the same project for more than two days before I swing from “I’m a genius, and someday my stories will be in Kroger checkout shelves next to John Grisham” to “This is so bad I should just have a remainder mark tattooed on my forehead and save everyone a lot of time.” All of this usually happens before I’m done with my first cup of coffee.
This used to be a real problem, mostly because of the speed at which this particular emotional roller coaster hits the turns. One weekend, I think, “Hey, I’ll finally write that novel I’ve been talking about for years.” Fifteen minutes later, after wrestling with POV in the fourth paragraph, I decide maybe it’s time to get the old band back together and record a new album. Of course, this is no good, because of the inevitable problem of the bassist changing gurus and insisting I now address him as “Chālaak Sūryakiran” (I am totally adding this as a scene in “Pessimal Refrain,” now, BTW). So, I pivot again, and suddenly I’m thinking that making my own wine in the basement might be the way to go.
“Brilliant!” “Garbage!” “Revolutionary!” “Derivative!” “I’m unstoppable!” “I’m unpublishable!” “Yes, leave room for cream, please.”
There are hundreds of books out there on how to “ride the emotional roller coaster of the creative process.” These are written by people who clearly moonlight as con artists and have probably never tried to write fiction. They suggest techniques like writing affirmations and plastering them around your workspace until you magically start believing them, presumably by forgetting you wrote them to yourself. Or, stop comparing yourself to other authors; better still, stop reading books altogether. Another good one was to give yourself a cookie every time you finish a scene or chapter. I tried this, but upgraded to buying myself beer, which turned out to be far more efficient in achieving “flow.” Finally, my personal favorite, just accept that emotional instability is a healthy, necessary part of the creative intellect and self-doubt is merely your ego keeping your id in check, which is pretty much like telling a depressed person to “cheer up” or “get over it. “ In fact, none of these tips actually fixes the problem. They just distract you from it, which is fine. Distraction is half the reason I write anyway.
The first breakthrough many of my peers and I had was NaNoWriMo and the “it’s okay to suck” mentality of just plowing through a zeroth draft without looking back until you’re done. The much more important one, for me anyway, was discovering the joy of non-linear writing. I used to think I had to slog through my WIP in order. Then one day, I had a brilliant idea for an action scene in the sequel, which was just two paragraphs of a summary at the time. But wait, I’m stuck in a swamp of exposition in my current one. Could I just… skip ahead and write the fun part?
Turns out, there’s no law against it, your honor.
I did it. It was glorious. I banged out almost 9,000 words in twelve hours. Sure, none of it connected to what I was supposed to be writing, but who cares? It was fun. And that’s when it hit me: why am I trying to copy Stephen King’s process when I’m not running the business of being Stephen King? If I don’t even want to write the damned scene, then who do I expect is going to want to read it? Why don’t I just write the bits in my head that are ready to go and that I’m in the mindset to write at the time? The rest of the book can wait until the words and the mood (or “vibe”) strike me.
Fast-forward four years, and now I’ve got three finished second drafts floating around to alpha readers, three first drafts just waiting for a polish, and fourteen of what I would consider the literary equivalent of half-finished jigsaw puzzles. Some are just “three chapters and an outline,” some are “zeroth or .85th drafts” where some ideas I added in Act 3 necessitate a rewrite of Act 2, etc.
Some days, I outline or synopsize, or just write a wiki page to worldbuild something. Some days, I plow through a WIP. On those low-self-esteem days, when there just aren’t enough cookies to put more words into the world, I play a game: pick a random chapter from a random WIP and do something like…
a) Remove all adverbs in favor of descriptive metaphors. (A beautification Pass)
b) Replace all the dialog tags with ones you never (or rarely) use. (A technical pass)
c) Find a way to double the dramatic tension or humor. (A drama pass)
d) Add one plot twist or “cool thing,” even if it breaks the story entirely. (An expansion pass)
e) Follow one minor character in the chapter backward and forward through the novel and make sure they have a compelling arc. (A character pass)
f) Go back to the overarching theme of the novel and make sure it is sufficiently represented here. (A thematic pass)
Now, granted, any sensible writer would tell you that you should probably start at the beginning of the story and run to the end and call it a “new draft.” Remember, though, that I don’t write linearly, and I don’t really think linearly or even in the same WIP from day to day. Believe me, if I went start to finish through a completed draft, I’d probably just keep skimming over the same typo a thousand times. (Seriously, I just found “gentile breeze” in The Halferne Incubus, and I am positive that typo has hidden there in plain sight for 20 years.)
Regardless of whether my process is correct, it works for me. I always feel better after revising something I thought was bad. Usually, it wasn’t as bad as I remembered, and it has always improved with the upgrade. This usually rights the roller-coaster for a couple of hours anyway and lets me plow forward.
The point is, if you’re like me, deadlines and word count goals aren’t inspirational. They’re just judgmental little tyrants, like kids, or mirrors. Unless you’re a professional writer (in which case, what on Earth are you doing taking advice from me?), there’s no reason to shackle yourself to them. I’m more about enjoying the creative process and taking pleasure from every minute I spend writing, which I suppose encourages more frequent writing and results in better quality output overall. To that end, I say you should write what you want, when you want. It might not be consistent, or even shareable, but it will be yours, and you came by it honestly instead of forcing it.
