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Thursday, January 8th
Jan. 8th, 2015 12:39 pmThe Daily Report
Okay, so, today's decision for 2015 is a big one, and not one I made lightly. It's something I was thinking about all through the holiday break, and I've gone back and forth on it a few times because it's kind of scary, but it's something I feel strongly about.
Starting this year, I am not ever posting a chapter on Tales of MU the same day it is written. I will put the publication schedule on hold to avoid this, as I have already done this week.
It's a matter of quality control. The benefits of being able to literally walk away from a chapter, literally sleep on it (the sleep being literal, not the "on it" part), are just too great. The difference between the best "same day" chapter and the worst "was allowed to marinate" chapter is just too great.
Some people might get the impression I'm just talking about polish in the sense of catching typos, missing words, et cetera, but really, it goes so much more than this. It takes a little distance from the subject to see what's really happening in the story, to find the nascent themes and the dangling threads and weave it all together, to see the opportunities that I'm missing (for something to happen, or even just for a really great line), to recognize mistakes before they're committed to the narrative, et cetera.
And the thing is, while this policy might result in some missed updates, my experience in 2014 has shown me that the story will still move along faster. Because when I hold myself to the "publish or perish" approach, everyone gets to see me trying to build up creative momentum chapter by chapter. If I'm publishing when both the draft folder is empty and the creative well is dry, then you get a week's worth of chapters ("only" two or three, but still a week) of words chasing each other in circle's. Some of that's just Mackenzie's/The TOMU style, but too much of it is too much.
The specifics of how this policy will be implemented are something I'm not going to try to predict, as I have no idea how often I'll need to invoke it. The good news is that each time I do invoke it, I'll wind up with some padding, which makes it less likely that I'll need to use it again in the near future. The alternative of just pushing on and continually writing day-to-day is that I tend to keep writing day-to-day, which means I never build up any padding.
Now, accountability is going to be a big part of this. One problem I have with keeping up any kind of padding is that my brain has been wired for writing as performance art. I need the feeling of working without a net. I need the feeling of an audience. Tomorrow I'm going to be giving my patrons a viewing link for my drafts folder, so you can follow my progress on a couple of different levels. That is, you could just check it to make sure I'm being honest with myself ("Yep, there are totally chapter drafts in there."), or you could read along/read ahead. Your call.
Even if nobody ever actually looks at the draft folder, I'll *know* it's there and people could be looking.
This is something I've meant to do on a larger scale for a long time. It's just the sense of "Oh, must have the house tidied up before company comes over!" that's stopped me. But with no timetable for the company actually arriving, it becomes a reason not to have company rather than a reason to clean.
The State of the Me
Three days of decent sleep, though today has been a very slooooooow wake-up day in ways that are hard to articulate. Edit To Add: Whoops, just noticed this has been sitting open and unposted since 11 this morning.
Plans For Today
My decision to resume MU next week hinges on starting the week with three drafts in my folder, which means priority number 1 this afternoon is going to be to write a second draft to join the one I wrote yesterday. I'll probably noodle about with poetry or flash fiction as a warm-up exercise.
Okay, so, today's decision for 2015 is a big one, and not one I made lightly. It's something I was thinking about all through the holiday break, and I've gone back and forth on it a few times because it's kind of scary, but it's something I feel strongly about.
Starting this year, I am not ever posting a chapter on Tales of MU the same day it is written. I will put the publication schedule on hold to avoid this, as I have already done this week.
It's a matter of quality control. The benefits of being able to literally walk away from a chapter, literally sleep on it (the sleep being literal, not the "on it" part), are just too great. The difference between the best "same day" chapter and the worst "was allowed to marinate" chapter is just too great.
Some people might get the impression I'm just talking about polish in the sense of catching typos, missing words, et cetera, but really, it goes so much more than this. It takes a little distance from the subject to see what's really happening in the story, to find the nascent themes and the dangling threads and weave it all together, to see the opportunities that I'm missing (for something to happen, or even just for a really great line), to recognize mistakes before they're committed to the narrative, et cetera.
And the thing is, while this policy might result in some missed updates, my experience in 2014 has shown me that the story will still move along faster. Because when I hold myself to the "publish or perish" approach, everyone gets to see me trying to build up creative momentum chapter by chapter. If I'm publishing when both the draft folder is empty and the creative well is dry, then you get a week's worth of chapters ("only" two or three, but still a week) of words chasing each other in circle's. Some of that's just Mackenzie's/The TOMU style, but too much of it is too much.
The specifics of how this policy will be implemented are something I'm not going to try to predict, as I have no idea how often I'll need to invoke it. The good news is that each time I do invoke it, I'll wind up with some padding, which makes it less likely that I'll need to use it again in the near future. The alternative of just pushing on and continually writing day-to-day is that I tend to keep writing day-to-day, which means I never build up any padding.
Now, accountability is going to be a big part of this. One problem I have with keeping up any kind of padding is that my brain has been wired for writing as performance art. I need the feeling of working without a net. I need the feeling of an audience. Tomorrow I'm going to be giving my patrons a viewing link for my drafts folder, so you can follow my progress on a couple of different levels. That is, you could just check it to make sure I'm being honest with myself ("Yep, there are totally chapter drafts in there."), or you could read along/read ahead. Your call.
Even if nobody ever actually looks at the draft folder, I'll *know* it's there and people could be looking.
This is something I've meant to do on a larger scale for a long time. It's just the sense of "Oh, must have the house tidied up before company comes over!" that's stopped me. But with no timetable for the company actually arriving, it becomes a reason not to have company rather than a reason to clean.
The State of the Me
Three days of decent sleep, though today has been a very slooooooow wake-up day in ways that are hard to articulate. Edit To Add: Whoops, just noticed this has been sitting open and unposted since 11 this morning.
Plans For Today
My decision to resume MU next week hinges on starting the week with three drafts in my folder, which means priority number 1 this afternoon is going to be to write a second draft to join the one I wrote yesterday. I'll probably noodle about with poetry or flash fiction as a warm-up exercise.