Process, Not Outcome
January 2021
For me the first five or ten thousand words of a new idea or potential book don’t really count as first draft. I think of it more as a test swatch of fabric or a bit of paint in a corner of a room to see how it looks.
Those exploratory nudges are easy, they’re like play, they don’t demand a sustained effort. What’s the most striking to me after doing this for so long and having written so many books is how hard writing a first draft is.
I had originally started a short essay on “writing the first draft” for the January 2021 issue of this newsletter. When it stretched past 1000 words I put it onto my Patreon instead, as a public (free) post in the Craft sequence I’m building out as a free monthly feature there. Those posts will generally show up on the third week of each month, together with a first week public feature on Nuts & Bolts that, this month, featured a deep dive into how I use my bullet journal.
You can find the essay on writing first drafts here.
February will feature a Craft post about “building the trilogy.”
This newsletter will continue as before with some brief comments or a short essay at the outset followed by news.
It is a new year, with all the promise an artificial calendrical date brings to the idea of a fresh start of some kind and in some terms. Goals appeal to me because they give me a chance to reflect and re-set.
In the broadest writing terms my goals are fairly simple.
1. Focus on writing as a process and not as an outcome. I can control the former but not the latter.
2. Dig into the places where I feel stalled both plot-wise on specific projects and process-wise overall. When under stress I tend to default to a form of survival mode where, to use a game analogy, I play on Easy Mode. But there’s enough breathing room now with the new year that I think it is worth pushing into the less comfortable places.
3. More than anything I would like to more often find myself in the spaces of the writing process that I truly enjoy, making things up, writing out notes, drafting a long dialogue exchange that I know I’ll tidy up later, writing to discover new vistas and the cool writing details that I can’t find except through the physical act of writing as I go.
Obviously my main goal is to finish Furious Heaven. I also want to finish a second novella for tordotcom (fantasy novella Lamplighter will be published in early 2022) but the second Sun book has priority.
Meanwhile my file drawers are filled with “test swatches” as well as the occasional longer partials and unfinished project waiting for me to return.
This is just one drawer, containing things I am currently poking at, letting stew on the middle burner, or awaiting some other resolution. I have two more drawers and several plastic storage bins with hanging files of more notes, ideas, partials, outlines, and proto-worlds.
The moral to this story is: test swatches are easy; complete first drafts are hard.
Audiobook news!
The Burning Stone is now available in audiobook from Tantor Media, narrated by the fabulous Shiromi Arserio.
Friends, readers, and peeps, if you like audiobooks, please pick up the first three and recommend to your audiobook loving friends, especially if you want to see the rest of the series recorded as it is not yet under contract for an audio version.
I continue my 2021 watch of all of Akira Kurosawa’s films, in chronological order.
This week I offer thoughts on his second film, released in 1944. The Most Beautiful is a fascinating war propaganda film about a group of women factory workers. It’s especially interesting because of its focus on women.
My thoughts on his first film, Sanshiro Sugata, are also available on my blog.
I’ll note these are just my thoughts and reactions on viewing. They include no research or historical examination beyond the occasional scrap of information that caught my interest.
In late April I’ll be teaching a 90 minute online seminar for Clarion West’s online Writers Workshop on world building using material culture and social space. You have to sign up, and there is a fee.
Narrative Worlds continues with recent episodes on world building with N. K. Jemisin on power and Aliette de Bodard on how details build worlds. These two sessions are now available on SFWA’s You Tube challen. They make a good pair because both Jemisin and Bodard talk a lot about how world building manifests in social relations. One of the reasons I had wanted to do this series is because I can talk about world building until the cows come home, in the ways I will talk about it, so I wanted to engage with how other writers focus on world building, which means that every session so far has been a delightful excursion for me, and I hope for the people I’ve conversed with, and also I hope for those of you who decide to listen in.
with N. K. Jemisin:
with Aliette de Bodard:
Finally, I want to give a shout out to Malinda Lo’s new book, Last Night at the Telegraph Club, a YA historical set in 1950s San Francisco and centered around 17 year old science- and math-minded Lily Hu. It is, as they say, meticulously researched and the story deals with the racism, homophobia, and Red Scare of the era, as well as so many of the small details of daily life. The novel is a lovely exploration of what it means to figure out who are you as you reach the cusp of your adult life in a world that surrounds you with constraints. Highly recommended.
By the way, while you’re at Malinda’s site you can check out her other books and sign up for her excellent newsletter with great essays on writing, research, and whatever topics she puts her hand to.
Oh Finn. Photo bombed at camp by an enthusiastic pup named Levi.
As always, thank you. I could not do this without you.
Kate Elliott