All Things Serve the Beam (or Where The Hell I've Been All This Time)

Tue, 08 May 2012 03:38:50 -0400

If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.
Stephen King, On Writing

You know how some people (and by some people I mean me) will get so far in a diet, and then just let it go to Hell because “I’m allowed to cheat” or “this has something in it that’s good for me” or “(name of healthy person) said it was okay to do this every now and then” but really you’re just using actual facts to divert judgment from the fact that you’ve fallen off the wagon? I sometimes use this quote for that.

It’s a true statement. If you can’t find the time to read - especially now a days with so many different media formats to use - then you’re not going to be very successful at your writing. The reason being that reading is the best way to learn. It’s how you recognize writing techniques, how you expand your vocabulary, and how you ultimately structure your own writer’s voice. Reading exercises the imagination and teaches us what works, what doesn’t, and what could work if crafted by the right hands. Reading helps you write, so you should try to make as much time for it as possible.

I tend to get into trouble when I make too much time for reading. As a writer there IS such a thing as too much time for reading. The line is faint and thin and I often don’t even register its existence until I’ve blown right by it. I always justify it with that quote, but it’s not really fair to do so. King meant a lot of things by that quote, but not one of them would have been “blow off all your writing so you can read someone else’s work and wish you had some of your own”.

But that’s what I do! And these past few months, that’s what I’ve done. King’s Dark Tower series was the reason; I started The Gunslinger thinking I’d take my time through the series and 4 months later I’m finally finished with the whole thing and want more. It was a great series. I’m working on Wind Through the Keyhole now, but it’s going more slowly… I don’t want to leave mid-world (or Eddie Dean for that matter) behind just yet.

I didn’t completely turn my back on writing these past few months, but what I’ve produced is rather pathetic. I know my abilities and I know how I normally write and this isn’t quite up to par with what I’m used to. I produced about 800 words at a time with Imaginarium (by hand, but still) and barely even glanced at The 11th Hour. It’s horrible. I’ve been lucky in that Imaginarium is pretty easy to write; the characters are pretty vocal about who they are and what they do, and the world is quite flexible due to the genre of the story… though I do not recommend writing without a solid setting. Right now, Kay and Catherine live in a MarySue town and I hate it. Oh well. Rewrites.

Anyway, that’s what’s up. I thought I’d get real with you all for a second, so you could stop wondering why I haven’t been updating. Now you know. I’m lazy. But I’m in the process of transcribing Imaginarium (it’s gotten to the point where hand-writing it just won’t cut it anymore; I love writing by hand but at some point it starts to get in the way of the story), and hope to have a little more about that soon, as well as a couple other projects that I’m still hoping to work on.

So… yeah. Proceed.

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All Things Serve the Beam (or Where The Hell I've Been All This Time)