Two quick things - one, I love the idea of an "intermediate work." Sometimes, as an early/zygote/ industry favorite term "emerging" writer, I worry over whether I will have enough ideas. That if I "spend" my One Good Idea on a short story, that it will have lost whatever life force it has, and can never be explore again. So I'd better get it right, because I get one shot at this! As you can imagine it is fairly limiting and unhelpful. It's great to think of writers I admire trying their hand and exploring themes long before the work they eventually became known for.
Second - Donette recommended We're Not So Different, You and I a few weeks back and I totally loved it!
Thanks for reading! The "intermediate work" has really taken on a life of its own in my writing. On the one hand, just as an avid reader who enjoys reading pretty deep into different writers' ouvres, I'm convinced that more than a few writers are approaching at least certain creative works in this conscious, "trying it on" way. Like a runner running a "tune-up" race a few weeks or a month before a more important race.
On the other hand, I'm conscious that convincing myself that "intermediate" work is normal also just makes writing a bit easier each day for me. So, even if it's a fiction, it's a helpful fiction (and I believe plenty of unhelpful fictions about my writing and talent, so adopting one or two helpful ones doesn't seem so bad to me...)
Because writing can be/is intimidating. It's helpful to my particular psychology to know when I sit down that I don't have to get it exactly right. To know that even if I have/or am writing a story about Subject X or Situation Y now, I don't have to feel, later, or even tomorrow, like, "Oh, I can't write this story about Subject X because I've already got a story about that." Instead, I feel free to allow both (or many!) stories to exist and proceed on their own terms. Neither has to be the "Best Version" of the "Subject X" story I can write, which is a great relief to me. Instead, all I have to do is try to limp through a draft and do the best I can for the particular version of "Subject X Story" that that story is.
I will say that I've never consciously sat down and said, "Let me write a ghost story" to prepare myself to write an even longer ghost story later" - which is sort of what I'm suggesting Chabon or Eugenides have done. It may be more likely that they, like the rest of us mortals, get hung up on certain ideas, write and write and write at them fruitlessly, then dash out a short story that miraculously works, and publish it because there's no guarantee that the other thing (Yiddish Policemen's Union, Middlesex) will ever be finished or go anywhere. Every thing we manage to publish feels miraculous.
Stories should have stakes, but I don't think the writing day needs to... No more than it already feels like it has!
Hi Evan!
Two quick things - one, I love the idea of an "intermediate work." Sometimes, as an early/zygote/ industry favorite term "emerging" writer, I worry over whether I will have enough ideas. That if I "spend" my One Good Idea on a short story, that it will have lost whatever life force it has, and can never be explore again. So I'd better get it right, because I get one shot at this! As you can imagine it is fairly limiting and unhelpful. It's great to think of writers I admire trying their hand and exploring themes long before the work they eventually became known for.
Second - Donette recommended We're Not So Different, You and I a few weeks back and I totally loved it!
Lu
Hi Lu -
Thanks for reading! The "intermediate work" has really taken on a life of its own in my writing. On the one hand, just as an avid reader who enjoys reading pretty deep into different writers' ouvres, I'm convinced that more than a few writers are approaching at least certain creative works in this conscious, "trying it on" way. Like a runner running a "tune-up" race a few weeks or a month before a more important race.
On the other hand, I'm conscious that convincing myself that "intermediate" work is normal also just makes writing a bit easier each day for me. So, even if it's a fiction, it's a helpful fiction (and I believe plenty of unhelpful fictions about my writing and talent, so adopting one or two helpful ones doesn't seem so bad to me...)
Because writing can be/is intimidating. It's helpful to my particular psychology to know when I sit down that I don't have to get it exactly right. To know that even if I have/or am writing a story about Subject X or Situation Y now, I don't have to feel, later, or even tomorrow, like, "Oh, I can't write this story about Subject X because I've already got a story about that." Instead, I feel free to allow both (or many!) stories to exist and proceed on their own terms. Neither has to be the "Best Version" of the "Subject X" story I can write, which is a great relief to me. Instead, all I have to do is try to limp through a draft and do the best I can for the particular version of "Subject X Story" that that story is.
I will say that I've never consciously sat down and said, "Let me write a ghost story" to prepare myself to write an even longer ghost story later" - which is sort of what I'm suggesting Chabon or Eugenides have done. It may be more likely that they, like the rest of us mortals, get hung up on certain ideas, write and write and write at them fruitlessly, then dash out a short story that miraculously works, and publish it because there's no guarantee that the other thing (Yiddish Policemen's Union, Middlesex) will ever be finished or go anywhere. Every thing we manage to publish feels miraculous.
Stories should have stakes, but I don't think the writing day needs to... No more than it already feels like it has!