Musings

Weekly Musing: Fear and Loathing in Washington State

DH Hanni

I decided to take a break from writing this week to use the time to recalibrate myself. I attended an excellent and informative workshop last Saturday presented by J.A. Pitts and Ken Scholes where the main topic was about short story writing. In addition to getting a very simple way and effective way to brainstorm a short story, the biggest thing that stuck with me was goal-setting and what I really want out of writing and why I write.

Lately I’ve been feeling very confused, lacking a clear path about what works for me. I feel like I’ve been trying to shoehorn all the advice I’ve read and heard into my writing. I’ve been hearing the evil old me regurgitating such classics as ‘Well, this is what I SHOULD be doing’, ‘This is how I SHOULD be this’, ‘That’s not the RIGHT way’, and ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

The impact has been unfortunate because I have struggled mightily in new pieces. It’s not so much the writing gremlins as my personal gremlins. The ideas are there for the stories but as soon as I sit down to write, it becomes too much. That fear aggravates my writer’s ADD so I get distracted by the junk food on the Internet.

After I get overly full on that, I try to set the ship back on the right course by reading writing websites. Instead of soothing me, it makes my anxiety worse. And annoys me. I’m noticing the same advice over and over and over. I think I’m on advice overload and just need to step away.

Just get back to the writing!

By taking this week off from active writing, I aimed to rest my brain and soul. The quiet from not being concerned with anything in particular other than this blog post, has been beneficial. I need to limit the amount of professional reading I do and absorb. Just pick up the bits that I think I need. I need to work more on telling myself to just go out and write whatever comes to mind regardless of word length or any due date (an advantage of not being a writer with a contract, any deadlines I have are either self-imposed or due to an anthology or submission to a magazine.)

Oh, and did I mention, just get back to writing!

No way can I even begin to make a dent in the pages and pages of ideas, thumbnail sketches of stories, bits of dialogue, and bits of plot I have if I don’t actually write!

I came up with an analogy that I hope makes sense. I started learning how to cook when I maybe in 5th or 6th grade. This was when the Food Network first came out and was available on our cable system in the town I grew up in. Back then they had a lot of great just basic cooking shows. I watched those for several weeks before pawing through my mother’s cookbooks. I looked at the recipes, realized I understood the terms, and ventured into the arena of putting what I learned into practice. For several years, I followed the directions to the letter, carefully measuring everything, using only the ingredients listed. I made good food. I enjoyed making it, parents enjoyed it (maybe not the gazpacho I made one time), all is well.

But I got bored. I was following the rules and that began to feel very, very confining. I don’t like being confined. Plus as the Food Network expanded their programming, I saw more and more chefs who didn’t measure everything out. They urged getting creative and playing around with spices and flavors. Once I got permission, in essence, to play with spices, it opened up a whole new food world to me. The older I got, the more my palette expanded and I began venturing out to other cultures and plucking flavors from those. Now I just use a recipe as a guide, a mere suggestion, before just going off on my own or make up my own stuff without writing it down.

I realized this is an approach I should take with my writing. I think I’ve got the basics down. I’ve got a good start on my writing ‘cookbooks’ and resources, all easily accessible. If I need to get more as my tastes change or I find deficiencies, I can. Now I need to transition into going beyond the set recipe. If I want my writing to develop its own flavor like my cooking does, then I need to start playing with the spices and the amounts used. But I can only do that by ‘cooking’ every day.

Different types of writing should be viewed as different meals served throughout the day or like an extensive dinner packed with several courses. And the freeing notion of equating writing with cooking will, I think, help calm lingering doubts as to the value of what I write. Some recipes work, some don’t. Sometimes you accidentally set your toaster oven on fire because you think it’d be a great way to toast coconut until you go to the bathroom and forget.

Published Works

Secrets and Lies appearing in Hidden Animals publication

DH Hanni

UPDATE: I have recently found out that Hidden Animals, the magazine which first published Secrets and Lies has since ceased publication. The website is no longer available and thus the link for it no longer works. Below is the text of it as it appeared in July 2013.

SecretsAndLies001

Musings

Weekly Musing: Don’t Pants Me!

DH Hanni

Before I became a fiction writer, or an attempt at one, I never realized there were the terms outliner and pantser. The first term, outliner, makes sense to me. Someone who outlines before writing. I come from a background of writing research papers and essays so I have always used an outline. The other term, though, pantser, I didn’t even know what that could possibly be. It refers to a writer that flies by the seat of his pants when writing. In other words, doesn’t plan things out too heavily before throwing down words. And there are books and articles about the pros and cons of both and is a question that a lot of writers get about.

Needless to say reading there is a debate on which one is more beneficial for a writer was an eye opener. When I got more serious and interested in writing, I combed articles and websites about the writing process itself. For decades I had it in my mind that writers had to be some of the most organized people to produce stories that follow some kind of structure. I believed writers were one of the smartest groups of people on the planet not only to come up with the characters and stories but to add in symbolism, subtext, metaphors, similes, etc. It’s why I never seriously considered taking a stab at fiction writing before. Years of analysis in English classes instilled awe in me. I’m smart but there’s no way I’m that smart. Granted, we were reading good books, the classics, which by far don’t represent most fiction. Nothing could be further from these assessments. In fact, the more I read and learn, the more I realize the reality is the complete opposite.

At first I thought it would be better and easier for me to have a story mapped out before I ever put pen to paper. However I quickly realized this caused a great deal of doubt and anxiety in me. I have a very organized mind and in order to think, I need to be able to compartmentalize ideas. But outlining felt so forced and a less than organic way to produce a creative work. Outlining works great for me for papers and essays because of the inherent logical nature these types of works require. Creative works, perhaps not so much. A thought floats into your mind, better grab the closest piece of paper and a writing tool. Don’t be afraid to stop what you are doing if dialogue, a line, or an idea pops into your mind. Write it down before it flies away.

I also realized that if the biggest draw of fiction writing for me is to tap into a creative side that had long been suppressed, outlining and thinking too much about a piece before composing the rough draft is counterproductive. So for short stories, which are primarily what I’ve been writing, I pants it. I sometimes brainstorm ideas for a story before I start writing, mostly if I’m composing something that is supposed to follow a theme. For the most part, I usually just have a small idea of what the story is going to be and get to it.

A funny thing I’ve noticed, though, is I seem to be a bit of a hybrid of outliner and pantser. When I get to a good stopping point for the day, my brain has already thought several steps ahead. That’s where the world’s greatest invention comes in: The Post-it Note . (Not my actual handwriting. Those are way too legible to be mine.) I scribble what I see happening next because I won’t remember 5 minutes later. I slap the notes on the page. This isn’t the say I actually follow the notes. I do sometimes but as I begin a new day of writing, I try to be open to what the characters want to do. Yes, while to a certain degree I may be ‘God’ of a story, it really is the characters that drive and I’m just the schmuck that jots it down.

While I think pantsing is good for me, I can’t see myself giving up outlining ever. I’m just so organized and used to that nice sense of order. It’s my comfort zone and because I want to ultimately write novels, in particular historical fiction novels, an outline approach makes sense. Too many characters, places, and plots to just wing it. I need that focus of ideas and research at least for a rough draft. But I need to be open to the directions the characters take me so I can’t see myself holding steadfast to that outline.

What I’ve learned about the outlining vs. pantser debate is that it is all about what works best for you as a writer. Yet it is a great idea to try outlining if you are a pantser or pantsing it if you are a staunch outliner. I’ve also learned that for me, it just depends upon the project and my mood. There is no right or wrong way to approach creativity.