words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do.

[chaentics]

- anne carson, autobiography of red

an introduction of sorts.

freya (chaentics is also perfectly fine, or rozzed—whatever works!). i think that's all you really need to know about me, but you can always ask if you are curious about stuff. any pronouns.

what i am reading lately: recently finished beartown by fredrik backman, as well as an absurd amount of hrpf (500k in like 5 days). this is like mcr all over again! i have purchased the dragonriders of pern by anne mcaffrey and am slowly but steadily making my way through we breed lions by rick westhead. of course, i must also read private rites by julia armfield at some point, which is sitting unopened and staring back at me...

what i am writing lately: i have decided not to beat myself over the head with revisions on any of my original fiction until i feel compelled to do so. however i would like to work my way through a novella at some point this year. the problem is i am entirely too preoccupied with the delight of heated rivalry and the mess there in order to get my head on straight. i am sure whatever i write will have the afterimage of those guys all over it. it is inevitable!

as for fic, well, of course i am trying to finish chapter 4 of at pinpoint, which is planned out, but plans are known to change. as is evident by the spike from 2 chapters to 4. and the inevitable shane pov follow-up... i am also very much excited for the aptly named wip "raw meat & retirement" in which i return to my favorite: body horror, magical realism, and then the "rookie ilya captain shane hockey and magical powers magic realism slow burn summer party vibes" wip might get written. less succinctly named. if something else strikes my fancy i will pursue that first.

what i am listening to: soulwax dj, thanks to salad

what you should tell me if you read this: writing craft things that intrigue you! craft things you want to work on! i miss lecturing and would like to discuss writing and improving writing and cool wriitng things again but somewhere outside my usual avenues (tumblr, twitter) so maybe i will make some "craft posts" here... put it in the comments, friends and strangers!!

Comments

[hawkinslocal]

Ooh what did you think of Beartown? I tried to read Anxious People a while ago but it didn't really click for me and I haven't gone back to give his work another shot.

Also you mentioned in your Tumblr prompt post that you're interested in word economy right now so I'm curious if you have any additional thoughts on the topic? Is it a focus in early drafts for you or something that gets addressed later in the editing process? Any examples you'd share of like, the platonic ideal of word economy? I love craft talk and am always so curious to hear other writers' thoughts and processes!!

[chaentics]

well i am a backman-fan, so i'm a little biased in my readings i fear. i've also had the pleasure of enjoying several of his works in swedish (though i did read beartown in english), and i think that has to do with it, sometimes. there's an undeniable nostalgia there. his books are very swedish. however, in a general sense, i think beartown is a master study in building suspense, in pov-shifting, in scene structure, and in allocation of time within a narrative. i wasn't sure when i opened if i would enjoy it, i felt i was flitting about, too much time spent in moments that maybe didn't warrant them, and was proven wrong about 20 pages in. i know the structure isn't for everyone, but it really helped me appreciate its bird-eye view of events, and the "slow unraveling" just very brilliant work to me. if you wanted to start reading backman, though, i wouldn't suggest beartown, but rather a man called ove, which is much more stylistically in line with what he tends to do. beartown is an outlier.

i would love to hear more about what didn't click for you with anxious people—it's one of his books i actually haven't read!

as for word economy yes... i think most prose writers suffer because we are ingrained in this idea that we "write long form" and have a hard time crawling out of that pit. it's why i think the best prose writers also study poetry, why the best prose writers also turn to flash fiction and short fiction in order to work on the quality of their writing on the sentence-level. i am not saying that every sentence you write in a story has to be the best version of that sentence—is there even one?—but for me the goal is always to have as many lines in a story be "as close to the ambiguous ideal line as is possible for my time and energy." it is never something that comes up in first drafts for me but something i pick away at in revision, or else i would never get anything done. i've compared the process of writing (when speaking to friends) not as building a house but carving something out of marble, which is very pretentious of me, but i truly think it is about getting the raw materials down onto the page first and then chipping away bit by bit until your story begins to resemble what you envisioned. and sometimes (always) you have to be flexible and make adjustments.

for me, word economy is about how much you can do with the least amount of words available to you. not in terms of diction but space. how can a poem say in two stanzas what some people need a novel to do? it's not that one is better than the other, but there's a directness in good poetry (where we move away from hesitance and similes and onward) that prose can benefit from. good word economy is about being willing to do away with some of the conventions of a word's definition in order to get as close to the meaning of a sentence as you can, about experimentation. about not wasting your reader's time by droning on and on when you could say something more evocative in a sentence. about being willing, so to say, to kill your darlings, a more familiar expression that i think comes back into play when discussing word economy... it's also why i don't think the "show don't tell" advice is very helpful past the beginner stages of writing. sometimes a scene is best told. sometimes a very brief moment is best shown. this is about balance, and i think balance is also relevant to word economy. but, essentially: if i can cut something, it will be cut. i try not to save the writing i cut, either. i don't want to be too attached to words or ideas and write myself in circles hoping they will come back around. i will write them again and i will write them better, if they're meant to exist.

[hawkinslocal]

Honestly I think the main reason I had to put down Anxious People was because I had just started grad school and my brain stopped letting me read fiction for a couple of years, a true tragedy. And then I got rid of a bunch of books when I was moving cross-country and it did not make the cut, RIP. I will add A Man Called Ove to my list, thank you for the rec!!

And thank you so much for sharing your insights, I really love the marble carving metaphor. I feel like when I'm in peak editing form it is similar but I always think of Jenga blocks, how many can I pull out before the whole thing comes crashing down. And yes reading/writing poetry is so helpful, it is almost like a puzzle too where it's like, what's the most load-bearing word you can use to replace these two or five or seven words. So much to think about!!

[kostas]

thank you for letting me know that there is another julia armfield book i have to read. it is being added to my very long tbr (that i just added to yesterday by buying two lászló krasznahorkai books). what do you think of we breed lions? i've been waiting for it to be available at my library but i thin i'm just using it as an excuse not to read it cause i know it will probably upset me.

as for craft things, i am leaning back into experimental fiction (at least reading it to study it) like i did in my pretentious youth, hence the krasznahorkai books. i'm not under any delusions that i could emulate that style but i feel drawn to it consistently over the years and i love a novel or work that doesn't feel bound by any particular devices or guidelines. it makes me feel a bit more assured in taking risks, no matter how small, in my own works. i think having reading like a writer open alongside my reading has helped cause i'm trying to make the effort to understand what about their narrative structure or word choice that intrigues me or makes me want to understand more. i don't always enjoy the books - sometimes i feel like i'm truly too dumb to get the point but, still, i picked it up for a reason!

[chaentics]

the joys of a tbr list... i think i have 200 books at home unfinished. this has not stopped me from purchasing more on apple books, obviously. so i can get away with reading on the clock. i'm not terribly far into we breed lions but i can say it is dense and it is visceral. but should be a required read, honestly, especially for anyone veering into the Real Hockey of it all.

and well, you're speaking to the experimental lit enthusiast. as much as i joke about pretentiousness i think experimental fiction is one of the most genuine strands of fiction—it does exactly what it means to do. try new things! some of which fail and some which do not. it is a brave genre. in a way, it veers away from the trends that frequently plague publishing, digital and traditional alike. reading like a writer is a wonderful addition to any writer's library. and i don't think anyone can ever be too dumb to "get the point" of a book. a book is not a test. a book is an experience. you get out of a book something unique to you. sometimes that is a word you like or a quote you remember, sometimes it is a metaphor. not much more complicated or simple than that.

[kostas]

i think my physical tbr is around 150. my e-book.... i am scared to look, actually. i might have to just order myself a copy of we breed lions - it's weeks upon weeks of waiting at my local library. which is good, i guess, that so many people are reading it!

no, you're right, sometimes there isn't a point but maybe it's a sticking point leftover from my university days where i had to glean some deeper meaning in every text for an assignment or essay so my mind instantly turns to that analytical side that has a clear and defined purpose. and sometimes i really do just read a piece of work because i love the syntax or the prose. sometimes it's just the joy of words aside from any underlying purpose.

and i use the word pretentious but i don't hate the word. i don't really use it to be self-deprecating. i love being a bit pretentious. i love taking myself a bit too seriously. i love taking pride in my creative endeavours, i love being a bit ostentatious with it all.

[chaentics]

i think anything worth doing is worth doing with some seriousness. writing fanfiction included.