I’ve written some pretty strange shit in my life.
I remember one of the first ones was a story I wrote for an English class over the course of several weeks about the X-Men, way back in 1988. I won’t lie, it was probably the greatest piece of paraphrased plagiarism I have ever composed, but hey, the teacher liked it, and didn’t read comics, so she didn’t have a clue. Personally, I still attest she didn’t even read it. I’ve read it. It sucks.
It sucks to this day. The reason I know it sucks is because I kept it. I try to keep all my writings. I like to go back after a few months, years, centuries, and see what drivel I have let flow from my fingertips. I can’t say pen here, as I’ve never really used a pen. I started on my mom’s old hunt-and-peck, keys-stick-together, no-way-to-correct-mistakes typewriter, then migrated to electric typewriters with their glorious correction fluid and tape, then progressed into word processors, and finally into the gorgeous world of personal computers.
The word processor was a thing to behold. My words flashed across a two-inch screen before typing themselves out across the paper above. Catching mistakes was always a challenge with the word processor, but as long as you noticed you typed something incorrectly in the last two lines, you could correct it without using correction tape. I guess those who type fast might have a problem, but at my then-current three to four words per minute, I was pretty safe.
Writing is fun, but it takes a lot of time out of the day. The thing about writing, is it looks so easy, but it’s actually pretty difficult to do well. Don’t get me wrong, some parts of writing are easy, like brainstorming, but other parts are downright taxing.
Take for instance my Achilles’ heels: 1) the beginning; 2) the ending; and 3) editing the crap I’ve written down.
1) The beginning is easy to write, mainly because I just start typing out the first crap that comes across my mind, but getting this crap to shine like gold so someone will pick it up and start reading is tough. Here is one of my favorite beginnings to a story:
The Russian soldier made his way nervously up the ragged side of the hill, holding his gun ready. He glanced around him, licking his dry lips, his face set. From time to time he reached up a gloved hand and wiped perspiration from his neck, pushing down his coat collar.—Second Variety, Philip K. Dick
It grabs me and pulls me in every time. I feel like I’ll never get to this point with my writing. (sigh)
2) The ending is more difficult than the beginning. Most of the time I get to the end and I don’t want to stop, but that isn’t what’s important about the ending. The ending needs to be something that sticks with the reader well after the story is put down. For example:
“You think that was true, what Whitey told about the spider?” he asked.
“Naw,” I said. “He was just tryin’ to scare us.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Eddie said. “Both Wild Bill and Whitey must be pretty dumb to think we’d believe those stories.”
“Of course they’re dumb,” I said. “Why else would they let us trade the rest of our food for their soup stone?”—Soup Stone, Patrick McManus
Sniff. Pure genius.
3) In all reality though, editing my work is the most difficult of all. I mean, this work that I’ve slaved over for years, months, weeks, days, hours, etc. is my baby. How can I go through and fix what is already perfect? I’ll tell you how, put it down for three to four weeks and come back to it. If you don’t want to slit your throat for how horrendous it is, you are truly the world’s greatest writer, or liar.
Editing, for the love of god, is the most time-consuming, nerve-wracking thing a writer ever does, and this is one of the reasons I don’t edit this crap I post to my blog. That, and it would take me so long to perfect everything that I’d average a post a month.
Allegedly, Dostoevsky never wrote more than a first draft for all his works. Don’t tell him I said this, but I think he’s full of crap. I will tell you though, Crime and Punishment is one of my favorite books.
Crap, here’s that ending part I am so terrible at.
It’s funny, I started writing this today thinking about my nephew Shea, and how I used to rub soot all over his face after cleaning my parent’s chimney. And how, as a toddler, he followed me everywhere during my last year of high school and the summer before I left for the Army. I’ve got a great story about taking him to see Hercules at Karcher Mall in Nampa.
Oh well, guess that’s a story for another day.
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