I Now Pronounce You Writer And Manuscript (Or, How Writing Is Like Marriage)
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The other day, I asked: “How do you choose your next project?”
And every one of you stepped up to the plate with some rad-ass answers. Short summary of those results: the Eddy Webb method of cut them fackers in half, then see which ones survive the dismemberment; which project makes you come alive and gives you passion?; force them to compete in March Madness; determine which one is screaming the loudest (or variations of that); the giggle-factor; which would you spend money to read?; the “do you think about it in the shower?” equation; straight-up compulsion and obsession; just write it out, see what feels right; and so on and so forth.
All good stuff.
As I was going through these solutions, it hit me again and again that, whatever project I choose was a project I’m going to have to live with for a while. I never think it’s going to be that long. I always think, “Shit, I can bang out 3k a day, and on a 90k novel that’s a book in — wham, one month, biznitches!” And then I high-five an imaginary robot and eat a Hot Pocket.
(I’m just kidding. I’d fire a .357 magnum into my gut before I ate a goddamn Hot Pocket. At least I know they’ll be able to get the bullet out. The Hot Pocket becomes part of you.)
Any longer-than-a-short-story work-in-progress (WIP) is a Herculean, or sometimes Sisyphean, task. Heck, this script we’ve got going is on its sixth draft. Looking back over the previous scripts and I see drafts dating back to September, 2008. That’s a year-and-a-half at sea with this sonofabitch. You look at the novel, Blackbirds, and I did five drafts on that, with the first showing up in…
Wait, August, 2005?
Oh, snap.
I finished the fifth draft in August, 2009, so that’s a four year journey. Now, to be fair, that’s not likely to be typical — one of those years I took to learn how to get the story straight by molesting it into screenplay form, and another of those years I just plain didn’t do a damn thing with it. Plus, those first couple of drafts are basically like that big-ass pile of floating trash out in the ocean — I just kept adding more shit to the pile, letting it wash out to sea to join its garbage-scented brethren, hoping that somehow they’d join together in a most unholy union and, I dunno, form Voltron or whatever. Basically, I didn’t know how to write a novel, even though I’d written six of ‘em before. I think, I think, I’ve fixed that. (I hope.)
Even still, it’s easy to assume that two years is a very real possibility.
Plus, with Blackbirds, it isn’t like I’m done. It’s out there. If someone were to — and I’m getting the vapors just thinking about it! — actually buy the dang thing and publish it, you can be sure I’m in for another round of edits. Basically, I’m living with this thing. It’s staple-gunned to my face. I want it done right, then I own it.
That’s when it occurred to me:
Sweet Mary McGooGoo, writing a novel is like getting married.
And suddenly — click! — a little switch just flipped in my head. I don’t know that this realization, that this paradigm shift, does anything to make the project more or less manageable, but it damn sure rearranges and tempers my expectations.
I’d say that a lot of writers fail with their manuscripts the same way that a lot of people fail in their marriages: they just can’t suck up the long haul. They love the bright and sunny days, but don’t want to weather the stormy ones. Hey, I’m only a few years married, and even now I can say with confidence that romance isn’t what gets you through the day-to-day. Romance and love (and sex and flowers and picnics and blumpies and threesomes and chocolates) form a fast-burning fuel. That might get a new relationship going. It might fuel an affair, or a one-night-stand. But a long-term relationship? A marriage? With only that fast-burning fuel you’ll burn out and find yourself on the side of the the highway, dreaming of bouncy teats and heart-shaped booties. Romance is like a high. You can always chase that dragon.
You’ll never catch it.
Commitment takes a deeper kind of love, man. It takes an, “Every day won’t be perfect” kind of love. It takes a, “Once in a while I’m going to want to bludgeon myself with a toaster oven but I won’t and I’ll smile and be nice and play fair” kind of love. It takes a, “I think I just threw a potted plant at the wall? I really ought to apologize,” kind of love.
Marriages fail because we lose the thing that got us here. In this instant gratification culture, we don’t really want to work. We just want things to be awesome. Automatically. And damn ‘em if they aren’t. I’m not saying passion and romance aren’t necessary to keep the marriage going. They are. But you need more than that. Those things must rest on a bedrock foundation of respect and commitment — if those things are your foundation, I’d say that marriage is going to go supernova. Burn hot, then go dark.
Same thing with a novel. Or a screenplay. Or any large-scale WIP you want to tackle.
Once it stops being fun? Once we lose that sense of discovery? We let it lapse. We lose interest.
Have a bad day with the manuscript, and it goes in the drawer.
That one chapter’s not working, and suddenly your mind strays. Your passion and compulsion shift. You start to think, “I could really get behind this other project. Look at those boobs bounce, boy. And dang. Breeding hips. I could hold onto those all night. I think I’m in love!”
And then you’re all swoony and giddy and in those formative stages once more. Everything is new. The birds are singing. It’s picnics and blumpies, it’s love and romance.
You have to change that shit up. You have to bolster your expectations.
This is why, when it comes time to choose my next project, I have to do more than just consider which thing is screaming the loudest. The project that’s loudest right now isn’t the one that’ll be loudest next week. Next week, when I’m all burned out in thinking about Project A, I’ll be suddenly hot under the collar for Project C. I’ll be all touching myself and turning my nipples like radio dials and be like, “Mmm, Project C, I didn’t know you were so naughty. Here, put this ball gag in your mouth.”
Some projects you just want to fuck.
Others you want to marry.
For me — not necessarily for you, but for me – that’s it right there. That’s my qualification. Which one of these lovely ladies can I marry? Which one can I stick with through the good times and the bad? Which ones will I come back to even after we have a fight? I need a project I can’t stay mad at. I need a project whose passion forms a deeper layer than just the icing on top (because we all eat the icing first).
For me, that’s it. Choose the project like you’d choose your bride. I look at those ten projects and I ask myself, which one’s the marrying type?
And I have my answer.
Tomorrow, I’ll tell you how to stay happy in your marriage. Er, I mean, how to stay happy writing your manuscript.
Goddamn. It’s getting all Cosmopolitan up in this beast.
About The Author
ChuckWendig
Chuck Wendig is equal parts novelist, screenwriter, and game designer. He is the author of the novels DOUBLE DEAD, BLACKBIRDS, and MOCKINGBIRD. In addition, he's got a metric boatload of writing-related e-books available, including the popular 500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER. He currently lives in the wilds of Pennsyltucky with wife, dog, and newborn progeny.
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That was an awesome post and I LOVE the analogy. That puts a lot of things into perspective for me on my WIP that I want done, like, yesterday, but in reality will probably take me the rest of this year (at least) to finish the rewrites.
Actually, for my situation, I think my writing is more like a mistress (or mister…would that be the proper term for a “guy on the side”?). Because unfortunately, I already have the real marriage plus 2 kids and 1.5 jobs. So any time I’m not working, I’m trying to spend time with my family. But it’s like I’m cheating on them, because most of the time, I’m thinking of my WIP when I’m with them. And when I finally find the time to sneak away and spend some quality time with it, I’m feeling guilty that I’m giving it love and not hanging with the hubby and wee-ones. *sigh* At this rate, I’ll be 50 before this sucker’s done (which would make me an OLD adult, per my previous comment about the YA definition).
By the by…which project did you say “I do” to??? (Paranormal, paranormal, paranormal….) You left us hanging on that one. Hope you’re feeling better, Chuck.
I don’t want to commit to the WIP in public, yet. Don’t want to give away the ol’ thunder.
I assume, though, that your husband is thumbs-up double-plus-good on the subject of your writing habits and career?
– c.
P.S. Ummmm…what’s a blumpie?
P.P.S. Favorite Chuck Quote of the Day: And then I high-five an imaginary robot and eat a Hot Pocket.
If you really want to know what a blumpie is (you don’t), then I say to you: Google that emmereffer.
I won’t be responsible for what you find.
*hides*
– c.
Hammer, meet nail.
There’s no better way to put than you just did, but I haven’t filled your comment box with my useless prattle much lately so I am just going to reinforce what you said anyway. I have been having a bitch of a time lately getting myself writing my current project, and to be fair I have a lot going on in my life to distract me from it – but part of it is also a loss of interest and those sexy other stories I might tell.
I have this story that I started writing sometime in the late ’90s, the ultimate form of “the book” I was pretending to write over and and over again through high school and whatnot. I had that start, stop, restart thing going for years; finally I decided to knock that shit out and just write page after page (I counted progress by pages then). I still have it, handwritten through several notebooks (all condensed in a binder now) in it’s 500-page Orgy of Crap. I’ll never finish it, and I’ll never restart it – it took me years to get those pages out, not including all the world building I did with it, but it is still vitally important to me. It’s what taught me that this process is a bitch and a half. No… it’s a bitch and two halves. It’s a bitch and a whole (or bitch with a hole.. or… never mind).
So now I have major project I am working on, the manuscript sitting at a couple of thousand words, and probably around 50k worth of background information (characters, the world, magic, rules, that sort of thing). I have it all plotted out, I have little cards for scenes for my first chapter, and I’ve got how it will flow locked into place – but I also realize how much work this is going to be. I am done with the main creation orgy, now I have to do the actual work and make this random shit make sense and, more importantly, be compelling – all the while keeping in mind this other shit was just window dressing fluff. What will actually make the story is the conflict the characters have.
Or I could go and create this new story…
Marriage is a pain in the ass some times. Fuck you hot high-school chick of a new project. I want you, but you’ll not tempt me with your fuck-me lipstick and Miley Cyrus slutitude.
Good luck Chuck – I understand what you mean.
LOL – okay, maybe I’ll just leave that one alone then.
As far as the hubby support thing…ummm…sort of. It’s more like the kind of support where he says, “Hey, I hope it works out for you. I’m not going to tell you to stop and be the one that crushed your dream. Just make sure it doesn’t interfere with our normal life. By the way, when will you have this finished?”
Rick:
Yes. THE BITCH AND SEVEN HOLES.
…
Also, points for “slutitude.”
(Oh, and definitely keep your eyes peeled for tomorrow’s post, which will speak to this subject in a more practical way, I think.)
– c.
@Gina:
That’s cool, and entirely reasonable. That sort of thing shouldn’t disrupt one’s normal life — everything in moderation, after all.
– c.
I don’t know why, entirely, but this post reminds me of this joke:
Three friends from college went on to become a doctor, lawyer and a mathematicians. They met back at reunion and the discussion went to whether it was better to have a wife or a mistress.
The doctor said “a wife” because having a monogamous relationship limited the risk of disease.
The lawyer said “a mistress” to avoid all of those nasty legal obligations of marriage.
The mathematician said “Both.” “Both?” echoed the doctor and lawyer simultaneously. The mathematician responded “Of course both. That way your wife thinks you are with the mistress, the mistress thinks you are with the wife and finally you have time to do some math.”
(Grabbed the variation I found here)
So, in terms of writing advice… have three projects going at once?
Nicely put. Very nicely put. Like the barrel of a shotgun very nicely put between the big brown eyes of something big and kinda dumb.
By the way, you didn’t mention Cosmo at the end just because your master is on the cover, did you?
She’s on the cover? Huh. Got a link?
@John:
If I had three personal projects going at once, they’d all try to claw one another’s eyes out, probably.
Then again, if you know how to compartmentalize, that kind of thing can actually work.
– c.
Both this and the previous posts have been spot-on in terms of where I am in WIP vs LIP (Life in Progress) so thanks.
I gotta say, though, no Princess Bride reference to “Ma-wage?” Not an audio clip or even a quote?
Brother Keith’s got your back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbqv3MwwVd8
“Ma-wage, Chuck. Ma-wage is wot bwings us to gewhar today…”
Keeping ‘em coming, cheif.
K
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/celebrity/exclusive/lady-gaga-photo-gallery?click=pp
You’re welcome.
She is so fantastically strange looking, isn’t she?
What Gina said. Only I don’t have an outside job. Or more.
I ALWAYS feel guilt when writing instead of being the mom/wife. And I can’t write well when trying to do both.
@Julie & @Gina –
I imagine that guilt has to be detrimental to the process, though, right? How do you — or can you? — reconcile that? You have to, somehow, I’d expect.
– c.
Stunningly strange, I’d say.
It’s gotta be an open marriage, though. I mean the novel? She can’t get her knickers in a knot if a flash fiction challenge makes eyes at me while I’m pumping gas and I take her out back of the Stop-an-Go for a quick, up-against-the-wall wick dipping, or if That Bastard Keith Rawson make his CrimeFactory goo-goo eyes at me and I end up spending a weekend in Tijuana with a few thousand words of nastiness. The rules are, you, the writer, have to always come home, even if it is with a new disease, and you have to be willing to share the “erotic monkeyshines you learned in alien and often desperate embraces,”* with your main squeeze.
*Stolen from Saul Bellow (Herzog) and no, I did not go back and make sure I have it right, so fucking sue me, OK? I mean it’s just a blog comment. Geeze.
Suddenly the writing process feels grimy and befouled.
And it smells of lube.
– c.
I love it! Great post.
Thanks, @Jenni!
It’s the cooling off period between projects that kills me. I need to find something to work on or I’ll find myself watching Magnum P.I. for something to do.
Word to that, @John. I’m in that cooling off period right now.
I have to say I completely agree with the analogy.
I can only write in my spare time (what’s that), but I have something like three projects on the go at the moment. The one is a project I’ve been busy with for three years now (totally dedicated to the project) but have been playing with the idea for more than eight years. There’s another project which I started with the planning while in the cooling-off period between drafts for the first project. And then there is the mistress. The idea which I only recently got and am DYING to write.
I’ve written down everything I can think of for the idea and will carry on with the other projects. If the project is still so appealing by the time I get to the end of the other ideas in the queue then it’s worthwhile pursuing.
Of course, then there the idea which I’ve had from before even the first project idea but have pushed to the back burner because I think its too big for me at the moment (like Stephen King’s Under the Dome for him – although maybe I’m having delusions of grandeur there).
Michelle (my Michelle, not your Michelle… crap, now I have “My Michelle” by Guns n’ Roses in my head… anyhow, where was I?) constantly equated MET: Awakening to having a child — there were nine months where I acted weird, cried alone, and wasn’t myself, and then there was a book.
And @Eddy still has the scars to prove it.
[...] with yesterday’s metaphor (Writing = Marriage), it’s safe to assume that if I don’t believe in giving up on a marriage, you can be [...]
Just finished another chapter, so I can respond.
The other day you responded to my comment and said a novel is a marathon. I wholeheartedly disagree, and I don’t even like adverbs. I think the first draft is a sprint; the faster the draft gets done, the more likely you are to finish. However, I think re-writes are a marathon, but you at some point, you have to stop and send it out. Starting new projects are fun.
I totally agree with Saul Bellows when it comes to the marriage: it’s gotta be poly, man. I’m totally into commitment, but I’m not into passing anything up. I can give myself to an idea and a story – hell, I’ve been doing Clockwork Lullabye for four years – but I have to do other stuff in the meantime, too, or I lose interest and get all sulky and hate it so so so much.
This goes for *kinds* of creativity, too. Everytime I tried to be *just* a designer, or *just* a writer, artist, what-have-you, I was so unhappy. Now I’m trying my hand at every-damn-thing, no matter how much I such at it, and I feel so creatively fulfilled. Transmedia, here I come!
(…..I wonder what that says about my romantic habits?)