7
“You need to stop
outlining,” John said, between bites of his panini.
“I don’t
outline.” Eric sipped his water. He’d taken two bites of his flatbread sandwich
and had hated it. Seven dollars and thirty-six cents right down the drain. Or,
said another way, he’d just wasted between three and four sales.
John
finished his panini. He was a big guy, tall and broad, and looked like he could
have gone for two more sandwiches.
“Okay, then
you need to start again,” John said.
“But you
just told me not to outline.”
“Exactly,”
John said.
Eric was
reminded of the many reasons why he’d stopped attending the local monthly
writer’s workshop. He’d met John at the workshop (was it really five years
ago?), and they’d developed a friendship over a shared love of books, movies
and TV.
But this
was just the kind of thing that drove Eric nuts. John had spent…Eric had no idea
how long…writing his first book and wasn’t even halfway finished apparently.
Most of the other people attending the workshops fell into the same boat.
The result?
Three hour “working” sessions that always devolved into pity parties about why
nobody could get any writing done, or, just as bad, the whole bunch of
so-called authors who’d never finished anything gave each other advice and
constantly bickered when one so-called rule conflicted with another.
Stephen King never outlines.
Ken Follett outlines for six months
before writing a single word.
And on and
on.
Eric had
figured out years ago that you just had to figure out what worked best for you
and do it your own way. And, most importantly, you had to finish the fucking book. If there were any rules about writing,
that was one of them.
”How about
the snowflake method?” John said. “Have you tried it?”
“Long time
ago.”
“How
about…”
John asked
a million questions about his process, drilling down to the unimportant details
like where he worked, what he ate before he started, what he wore, if he
listened to music…
Eric was
exhausted by the end of the lunch. And not full. “Thanks, John, definitely gave
me some food for thought.”
It had been
good to see John and he appreciated the guy’s eagerness to help, but in truth
Eric hadn’t gotten much out of their discussion. What had he expected? He’d put
the time in over the years and released five books, while John had been
half-assing it on his semi-autobiographical literary, experimental novel
forever.
He really
just needed to get his ass back in the chair and write. Just write and write
and keep writing until something good finally appeared on the page, then write
and write and write until that something good was finished.
John said,
“Oh, did you hear?”
“What?”
“Three of
the authors doing the Allentown Conference this weekend bailed last minute.”
“Oh yeah?”
Eric couldn’t be any less interested. Writers’ conferences were even worse than
writers’ workshops. They usually ended up being one big circle jerk. Aspiring
writers flocked to them and fawned over the published authors.
John said,
“Yeah, we’re looking for replacements. Especially on our thriller…”
His voice
trailed off. Eric used that pause in the conversation to make his move to leave.
“Well,
thanks for your time, John. Let’s catch a movie this weekend.”
“Can’t,
I’ll be at the conference. But I was thinking, you could fill in.”
“Fill in
what?” Eric had stood already and picked up his tray.
“We need to
fill the holes on our thriller panel the first day, and the plotting panel the
next day. You could do that, right?”
“John, I’m
flattered but…”
He couldn’t
take a whole weekend off from writing when he was this far behind to attend a
conference.
“The panels
are only two hours apiece and we’ll pick up your hotel stay. It would be good
for you to be around other writers and get out of your environment and be
somewhere else. It’ll spark something. You can bounce ideas off other
writers…other published writers, I
mean.”
Eric hoped
John hadn’t picked up on what he was thinking. “John, you’ve been a big help.”
John shook
his head. “No, I haven’t. I know that. I came out here hoping to learn more
about the way you do things to be honest. Because I just can’t finish my book.”
“How long
have you been working on it?” Eric asked.
John ran
his hands through his thinning blonde hair. “Five years now, ever since I
finished grad school.”
Five years!
“John,
maybe you should put it aside and try something else, something completely
different.”
“Yeah,
maybe.” He looked at his watch. “Shit, I’ve gotta get back to the office. Some
of us do have to work still, you know.”
Eric
smiled. But comments like this always pissed him off. Non-writers always just
assumed writing was easy, that it wasn’t work. That all it took was sitting
down for a few hours and cranking out a book on the first try.
But John
should have known better. Especially considering he’d been working on the same
book for five years and wasn’t close to finished yet.
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