Chuck delivered a nice kick in the pants with his comments on my posting two days ago (he also delivered another zinger on yesterday’s posting, but they’re both in the same spirit). I wanted to thank him publicly for the kick. I know he’s been winding up that kick for the last couple of months, and it’s something I’ve needed for probably longer than that.

Honestly, and not that I'm trying to be a prick here (as you know, I don't have to try--it comes naturally), but I really think the little green guy was right. "It's the thought that counts" or "at least you tried" are among the litany of lies we tell children (having been told them as children ourselves) in order to protect that from the harsh reality of life.

One aspect of that harsh reality is that it's not the thought that counts. Yeah, our family and friends might say that because they love us and, for them, the thought might really be enough. But the rest of the world does not grade on effort, it grades on results. Like I said, reality is harsh. No sense in deluding ourselves, is there?

There you have it. There’s not much I can say to that because it’s true, every word of it. I’ve been deluding myself with my mountain speech: every word I write, regardless of its purpose, helps me reach my goal, just as the wind after many years wears down the largest mountain (I should probably use a creation analogy instead of a destruction analogy, but you get the idea). I’ve been frustrated lately and instead of fighting through the frustration, I’ve taken the easy route. You see, the thing I like about writing is the forming of words. I love these sentences, these words, the feelings and ideas they convey. What I don’t like about writing is the thinking and planning: the story arcs, the plot, the characters, the scenes, the—and this is ridiculous—the story itself. Of course, when it comes down to it, readers are not interested in words, they’re interested in stories. Taking the easy route, as I was saying, is writing words with no purpose, throwing words out there because I enjoy writing them, instead of throwing words out there because I want to show something.

There’s more to it than that, but I don’t want to turn this into another meta-writing exercise. After realizing this (and recovering from the kick—it did hurt, as kicks to the pants often do, but it’s the smarting that teaches the lesson), I tried to analyze my problems and see where I’m failing. The obvious answer is plot. To help me move along my discovery of plots, I bought more books. (Yeah, I know reading is not the same as doing, but doing without understanding is what got me here in the first place.) The book Plot, another in the Elements of Fiction Writing series that I’ve read, has started to give me the right questions to ask about my stories to get me moving.

His introduction, in particular, really hit home. Here is the description of “failure of plot” he (I think Ansen Dibell is a he) presented: “A scene, a bit of dialogue, a character sets you happily scribbling or keyboarding away. And then, too often, something happens. The story starts to slow and go sour, dead ending in frustrated scraps of revision. It’s eventually tossed with the rest of the might-have-beens—in the bottom of your sock drawer or even in the wastebasket.” There you have every experience I’ve ever had with a story fragment.

After actively reading the first few chapters, he headed in an unexpected direction. I kept thinking he would present the answer to finding plot. Instead, he presented a way of identifying whether what you have (i.e., your idea) is good plot, and, once you identify a good plot, how to present it. I’m going to continue reading and taking notes and hopefully applying some of these notes to my own thoughts.

Then there’s the video game question. Last night, with the urging and agreement of my better half, we reinstalled the video game and played for a few hours. I know this breaks NEQID, and I know I would have been better off “dropping the CDs in the blender and scattering the resulting powder on the lake in a ritual of cleansing,” but I didn’t. And lest I receive yet another comment on this, he who lives in glass houses (i.e., “Civ” playing aspiring novelists) should not throw rocks. I had hopes that Doolies would be able to help control the times we played, but I’ve realized that she’s as addicted as I am. Instead, I’ll start setting deadlines and limiting our game play. It’s something we both enjoy, and in moderation (if that is possible—and I’m not trying to sound like the alcoholic making excuses for having just one more drink, even though that’s probably exactly what I sound like), video games aren’t bad. It’s a good activity to do with Long-Distance Doolies, and something I’ll try to control better to have less of an effect on my writing.

Today was a great day in Seattle. Tomorrow, the fourth of July, will not be as nice weather-wise. But today I took many walks, thought about the issues above, and read many pages in the Plot book. I still have many more pages to read, and I still have to apply the lessons in that book to a few story ideas floating around my head, but everything in good time. I won’t waste more time with this meta-writing, but instead get back to reading and thinking, and, if I’m lucky later, writing, the real type, with characters and plots and happenings.