Playing God, or something from nothing

Now and again I forget lessons I learned decades ago.

I've been taking myself seriously as a writer for half a century. In that time, I'm accumulated a large archive, in which are a number of works I am proud to have written, I've received awards but could have received more. I've received grants but could have received more. I've made money but could have received more. I've had and flirted with various levels of success (Harold Prince was interested in a play for a short time), but could have received more. I had a great regional run in the 1980s, which surprisingly, if appropriately, ended with a formal "retrospective" of my work, after which I was dead meat here. About the same time, I became obsessed with a special form of storytelling, hyperdrama, that damn few others were interested in and most of them in Europe, culminating in my hyperdrama version of Chekhov's The Seagull. With a solid if obscure reputation in this form, I was invited to make a presentation at last year's Hypertext Conference, which became a series of videos called Changing Key. I'm even credited with coining the term "hyperdrama," which may or may not be true. In the spring, I begin teaching an online hyperdrama class (by invitation from a college ahead of the curve in hypermedia), though it remains to be seen if anyone actually signs up for it.

In other words, I've been around the block a few times in the writing game. I've stuck with writing because every project is different -- or at least is different in the "creative writing" arena the way I've practiced it. When I wrote for Oregon Business Magazine, my last "day job" oh so many years ago, all writing became the same -- so I quit as soon as finances permitted and have an Oregon Arts Commission fellowship to thank for my escape. Every project is different.

I also do little planning of a new project. I'm a "sink or swim" kind of writer, a "forest person" in the terminology I use in my classes (as opposed to "a tree person," a planner). Consequently rough drafts can be very messy. This is the lesson I've forgotten in my stress over the novel in progress, And especially with this story, in which the method of storytelling is so unusual (though I'm sure it's been done before, I just don't know where), it's tempting to be overwhelmed by the chaos of it all. I think I let this bog me down and should have known better. There's really only one goal at this stage, to get it down. I can mess with it later -- but I have to have something to mess with. It doesn't matter how terrible the draft is as long as it exists. I am playing God now, creating the clay. I shape the clay later.

So, at this stage, a mindless full-speed-ahead and let the consequences be damned kind of attitude works best. Just get the damn thing down in whatever way I can. Just get it down.