Sundog Rising!
Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog
Can You Be the Judge of Your Own Best Work?
Let’s face it. It’s all bloody wonderful when you’re in the process of writing it.
But what do you think of it reading it out loud a year after it’s finished?
Suddenly the problems with the general flow of the piece are so much more apparent, your word choice — or lack of — sticks out like a hitchhikers’ convention of sore thumbs, errors in grammar that slipped right by you the first four times you edited the story are abruptly obvious to the world, and you begin to wonder what was the point of this plot again anyway?
That’s a bit harsh, but not unreal. Things actually go two ways. I reread two years later a Jason Midnight novel I wrote at a time I desperately needed to write something, anything!, and discovered there was no suspense to speak of and the ending sequence was completely improbable. But then another time I discovered a file full of poems on the computer I had forgotten about and couldn’t believe how good they were, wondering who wrote them and why I couldn’t be bothered to put the writer’s name with such accomplished pieces. Until something finally twigged and I remembered I wrote them.
Judging anybody’s piece of writing is an extremely subjective process. Trying to evaluate your own stuff when all the surging waters of creativity are still running full in your mind obscuring the final product, can be next to impossible. Your expectations are shall we say … skewed?
As a rule, I try not to judge my own writing until enough time has passed for me to read it without remembering everything that comes next before I get to it. On the whole, I’m satisfied. The complete disasters and forgotten masterpieces are equally rare. I’m usually just pleased to discover hey, maybe it can use a little tightening or rephrasing here or there, but on the whole it tells a good story, with a little bit of style and genuine humour as well.
On the other hand, there are undeniably times when you’re still in the process of writing something and you just know it’s good. A step up from your usual efforts. Something that obsesses you so completely, it inhabits your every thought and breath until you get it down. Incredibly hard work and equally fulfilling from one end of the storytelling process to the other.
So it’s a bitch when other people read the piece finally and don’t react to it one way or the other. They’re not entirely in tune with the development of your writing process, they don’t know that you’ve magically taken a step forward. All they’re doing is deciding whether they like the story or not. At that particular moment in their lives.
This sort of experience seems to invariably occur at the same time you discover a call for a piece with a very specific theme for some anthology or other, that you do just happen to have an example of in the work you’ve done in the recent past. Except you were convinced from the first that that was one of your more mediocre pieces. Nothing to compare to this piece you’ve just finished that you know is good. But it matches what’s being asked for so well you send it off anyway. And damned if the mediocre story doesn’t get published, while your self acknowledged masterpiece dwindles away into obscurity.
Maybe it’s not the piece you’d prefer to have out there, but you are still being read, and that’s always a good thing. So you’ve got nothing to complain about. Except … damn it, that latest story really is good!
But is it your best? Can you ever tell for sure, only on your own?
Deep Purple apparently thought “Never Before” was going to be the big hit off of Machine Head. Not “Smoke on the Water”. Lou Reed thought “Walk on the Wild Side” was just another track. Thomas Hardy remained convinced until the day he died that his real talent lay in poetry, not in writing novels.
I believe there has to come a day in your development as a writer when you can step back and become an objective enough judge of your own work to know when the story is being crafted correctly, there is a style apparent, and a point is being made. And what’s more it’s your point and you have every right to stand up for it even if other people are having difficulty with it. You should be able to work with an intelligent reader to clarify your expression of what you’re meaning to say if necessary, but hold firm to what you know you mean. If you don’t satisfy yourself first, you’ll never satisfy any other reader.
Then you’ll just have to learn to live with the stuff you know is really good not finding its proper audience immediately. But never let it drop in your own good opinion in the meantime.
And if something you thought was just another piece of writing turns out to find popular acclaim with a wider audience than you ever imagined something like that reaching? Ride it for all its worth! We should all be so lucky.
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
*******
REALITY FICTION UPDATE!
And what is Reality Fiction, you may well ask?
Simple. The concept of the Reality Television Series translated to the printed page. 40 characters from my backlog of generally unpublished material are gathered together to compete in a different theme each Episode, with one or two characters being eliminated each sequence until there are only two left to fight it out in the final. The winner gets a short novel of their own as the grand prize.
But somehow, things always seem to go horribly wrong ...
What’s happening now?
There’s only one qualifying Episode left … Episode Twenty-Nine: Swashbuckler. With four Contestants still in the running, but only two will advance to the finale, fast approaching. Who will it be? Scintillisha Evans-Holyrood, the Steampunk adventuress and tea shoppe owner has got her sight back and is at the top of the pack. Shadewulf, the Green and Black Warrior is coming in off a win in Episode Twenty-Eight, and looks more fearsome than ever. The long-lasting Theda Bara is still there, the original Reality Fiction Contestant who was the first to appear way back in Episode One of Reality Fiction One. And finally, there is John T. Longhorn, the original JHB character, created when the author was in Grade Five and probably his most eternal hero. But with his mind blasted by an experience of too much Lovecraft last time out. Who will survive? Find out starting Friday, at:
http://realficone.blogspot.ca/
REALITY FICTION TOO! EPISODES TO DATE
EPISODE TWENTY-EIGHT: LOVECRAFT
“The Small Paned Window”
EPISODE TWENTY-SEVEN: GIANT INSECT
“That Was No Lady Bug! That Was My Wife!”
EPISODE TWENTY-SIX: SUPERHERO
“The Professor Evil Sessions”
EPISODE TWENTY-FIVE: JUNGLE ADVENTURE
“The Third Eye of the Many Legged Python”
EPISODE TWENTY-FOUR: PULP FICTION
“The Red Moon of Pango Pango”
EPISODE TWENTY-THREE: STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The Imp of the Reverse
EPISODE TWENTY-TWO: FAIRY TALE
Princess NoName
EPISODE TWENTY-ONE: THE WEDDING
Dearly, Beloved
EPISODE TWENTY: EXISTENTIALISM
Face the Hangman
EPISODE NINETEEN: ABDUCTION
Abduction/Apperception
EPISODE EIGHTEEN: MELODRAMA
“Terror in Tarnation! A Thrilling Narrative in Three Acts”
EPISODE SEVENTEEN: POETRY
“landescapes”
EPISODE SIXTEEN: SILLY EUROPEAN SPY SPOOF (DUBBED)
“Diet Ray of the Stars!”
EPISODE FIFTEEN: EROTIC SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE
“The Shadow of Her Passion”
EPISODE FOURTEEN: FLYING:
“Sky Calling”
EPISODE THIRTEEN: SLAPSTICK:
“The Phantom of the Werewolf”
EPISODE TWELVE: DAIRY FARMING:
“Early One Morning”
EPISODE ELEVEN: BURROUGHS:
“Chapter Nine”
EPISODE TEN: WEREWOLVES:
“The Silver Solution”
EPISODE NINE: WRESTLING:
“Suckerslam XIV”
EPISODE EIGHT: JANE AUSTEN ROMANCE:
“The Proud and the Senseless”
EPISODE SEVEN: THE JAZZ AGE:
“The Bucky-Dusky-Ruby Red Hop!”
EPISODE SIX: SUBMISSION:
“Re-Org”
EPISODE FIVE: MASQUERADE:
“The Eyes Behind the Mask”
EPISODE FOUR: SELF HELP:
“Sausage Stew for the Slightly Overweight Presents:
Some Several Suggestions Guaranteeing Success for the Mildly Neurotic”
EPISODE THREE: NUDIST:
“If You Have To Ask ...”
EPISODE TWO: FRENCH BEDROOM FARCE:
“Un Nuit a Fifi’s!”
EPISODE ONE: STEAMPUNK:
“The Chase of the Purple Squid!”
A J.H.B. Original!
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