{"id":5345,"date":"2018-03-02T16:36:35","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T21:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/?p=5345"},"modified":"2018-05-08T10:42:06","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T14:42:06","slug":"bit-honesty-uncertain-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/writing\/bit-honesty-uncertain-path\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bit of Honesty about the Uncertain Path"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Let me share a little secret with you. I don\u2019t always know what I\u2019m doing. I lack reliable systems for writing a novel or growing as an artist or taking my work to the next level. A proper path, pattern or school doesn’t exist for writers like me. I’m stuck with training myself.<\/p>\n

What I do is get up each morning and keep working, and sometimes, it really doesn\u2019t get me anywhere. I recently abandoned a novel I\u2019d been working on for half a year because I simply could not get it to come together. I tried, believe me. I wrote three different versions of the first half of it, thinking I\u2019d get closer to the heart of it and figure it out as I got further in. Since I know it\u2019s normal for me to struggle with first drafts, I didn\u2019t let the first-draftness deter me. I figured hurdles were part of the process, and yet I kept encountering a certain crux that underpinned the whole story. I needed a working construct which would not materialize, and finally, I had to accept that I couldn\u2019t solve the puzzle. Much as I loved that novel, I couldn\u2019t figure it out. It would not yield.<\/p>\n

So I shelved it, and I\u2019ve started another. It\u2019s completely different. I’m trying a different process with it, and I have a fresh new set of doubts. I could say it\u2019s a response to the book I couldn\u2019t write\u2014safer, in a way, and more dangerous in another. But it\u2019s also just a new story that fascinates me, with characters I wish to understand. I want to explore and dissect this next world, and disconcertingly, I’m afraid of how it all might end.<\/p>\n

To be honest, it\u2019s a little embarrassing. I don\u2019t know any other job where a person can admit he or she just spent half a year on a project that essentially failed. Yet maybe speaking of this might help some other writer or artist realize that this happens. It\u2019s real. I don\u2019t have anything to show for all that work, but the days of writing still had meaning for me. I count that worthwhile, and it\u2019s far too soon to give up.<\/p>\n

One book beat me, it\u2019s true. But I have more stories to write.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me share a little secret with you. I don\u2019t always know what I\u2019m doing. I lack reliable systems for writing a novel or growing as an artist or taking my work to the next level. A proper path, pattern or school doesn’t exist for writers like me. I’m stuck with training myself. What I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[246,37],"class_list":["post-5345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing","tag-project-next","tag-writing-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5345"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5386,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345\/revisions\/5386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}