Yes, there are works which have been published—-short stories, novels, non-fiction books that when I go back and look at them, I’m less than pleased. I see them as complete, as the tale told, as perhaps as much as I could wring out of it wrung out but I don’t always like it. I can detect something missing, some element that I didn’t know how to infuse not in that particular piece/project.
In many ways your work is like children, and there are aspects of your children that you don’t like or notice that don’t work or are dysfunctional. You can’t help but notice them because you’re constantly comparing one work to another, one idea to another—-not to try and trump your last idea but to find creativity, originality in this new project. The editorial process, yes, also gives far too much insight to one’s work.
Plus there’s the weight of time—-if you’re good and aiming to be better at the Art of writing, you’ve progressed from rehashing ideas (mimicry—-generally 2000+ hours of writing) and graduated to finding your own Voice (which occurs in 5000–7500+ hours). So I have works that have occurred in each of these “epochs” of my initial 10,000+ hours of initial writing (up until I was about 21); then I have writings that happened in what I would consider my 2nd Phase (college, advanced mentors—-10,000 to 20,000 hours) and there is a marked difference because what I knew in the first Phase is drastically different then what I did in the second Phase. Which is even further different than 30,000 to 50,000 hours that included more teaching, more reading, deeper reading, being able to afford pretty much any books I wanted.
So I have about 3–4 “epochs” of writing and each is vastly different.
I recently went back to the 10–15,000 “shelf” for a 125 unfinished manuscript and was able to in about 18 months turn it into a 700 page novel (Stay With Me, available on Amazon—-shameless plug) but what I can tell you about that work is that less of those 125 pages made it into the final manuscript—-maybe 25 because my work was so much less than what it is now—-twenty years later. It was a good idea/story but the execution lacked the ability, skill, finesse I’ve developed over the years since originally shelving it.
And I didn’t engage it deeper because I didn’t “like” it enough as it was to engage. What I learned not only in characterization but plotting, pacing, dialogue was also an openness about identity, relationships, sexuality and exploring that in my writing. I hadn’t matured enough to write such a mature, complex novel so those initial pages struck me as deeply sophomoric.
Which translates yes, to some of my earliest work I’m often going through in my 12 Draft edits that I do, and if it’s from the past, enchancing it or maturing it, if it’s unfinished work or I’m smirking at it in magazines, chapbooks, even a collection of short stories.
What I’ve considered doing for a 3rd in a collection of short stories is typing up my notes/inspiration on each story to deconstruct and show the construction of the stories. I had started writing out my ideas for them when I was writing them in college, Phase 2, so I have immediate connections to those thoughts.
Writing, writing well, writing through multiple phases of thousands upon thousands of hours and pages, is often a wide, spanning rewriting, reiteration, reinvention of previous attempts at ideas, work, plots, characters. So the dislike of Iteration #2 is generally because I’m at Iteration #7 now and I can see all my clunkiness, my hesitation, my limitedness.
But here’s the horrid part—-that’s sort of the same lens I use to see novice writers too. Been there, done that, recognize it because I’ve been there and done that.
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Kyle Phoenix is a teacher, certified adult educator, sexologist, sex coach and sexuality educator with over two decades of intensive experience. He studied at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, New York University, and Columbia University. He has worked, consulted and taught individuals and focused professional developments for the CDC, Department of Education, Gay Men's Health Crisis, New York City Department of Health, non-profits, Fortune 500 companies and unions. He began his career facilitating on-campus workshops addressing a wide range of sexuality and sexual health issues and then moved on to teaching at universities, non-profits, private groups and clients, hosting The Kyle Phoenix Show on television and multiple online webinars, including YouTube and Sclipo and writing extensively through his blog, Special Reports, articles and other print and E books in the Kyle Phoenix Series on relationships, finance, education, spirituality and culture. He lives in New York with his family.
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