Post mortem

So I wrote a book last month. And I think this one could really be called a book. It had a story and characters. It started at the start and ended at the end, unlike the other book-like things I worked on the last two years.

And I might have to take next year off from writing, because this year was so rough.

The best thing I got from the experience is that I feel like I now understand to some degree one of the things that has always sounded very selfish to me: that many writers say they write to write, not to sell books.

I'm a very practical person. I love this creative outlet, but a part of me has hoped in the last few years that I could make a palatable story for the public to consume, thereby getting me some cashola in the process.

I'm a very proud person. I've always played down my writing, but a part of me has hoped in the last few years that I could make a story that my peers would believe was a good piece of work, that I was a good writer to some degree.

This year changed everything. At least about the way I view what I'm doing.

I had a glimpse of it when I was trying to describe to a friend who disagreed, but I really love the process of writing. It started with the first NaNoWriMo, but this year, it really cemented for me.

I've joked to everyone that this is "an entirely fictional" -- insert eyebrow waggle here -- "story of a" -- *cough cough* -- "Korean American girl, dealing with family, immigration, and falling in love for the first time". The clear implication is that it's about me.

But it's not. That really is just a joke. It's about a girl I might have known, a girl I could relate to, a girl, who, if I met her now as a peer, would become a nigh-instant friend because we'd recognize the similarities in each other. But she's not me. Her experience are not the same. Her family is not the same. Her relationships are not the same. They are, however, very familiar. Some of the vignettes come from things similar to what I went through. Some of them come from stories from friends, relatives.

Write what you know. That's what people always say. But in 2004 and 2005, I tried so hard not to write what I know, but to write what I like to read. So I wrote romance novels set in the Regency Era.

Those stories -- rather, collections of interconnected scenes because there is no discernible story arc -- were light, poppy, and easy to read. There was no dimensionality to them. They were sitcom-y. They weren't terrible. Not good, but not bottom of the barrel either. But not good.

High praise, eh? :) But I'm not bogged down by insecurity in general. That's not insecurity talking. That's an honest self-assessment. I read a lot. I know when something is decent. It's ok, not good.

This year, I found something new. See, during writing, everything is amplified. How long does it take you to read a sentence? A paragraph? Not very long. A split-second to a couple of seconds. Imagine reading a sentence that really hit the right emotional chord. A paragraph or scene that left you with a pang.

Now imagine writing that. Imagine that it is taking you about 30 seconds to write that read-in-a-split-second sentence. That it is taking you about 5 minutes to write that read-in-10-seconds paragraph. Imagine pulling together a scene, pulling up all the related memories and stories from your friends and books that have moved you and trying -- trying, not necessarily succeeding -- to crystallize that moment on paper. Imagine polishing the memory, the shared stories by the ones you love, digging to find the moment and the pain or joy of the experience, reliving it, cherishing things you hadn't thought about in years in such clarity, and trying to put it down in coherent words.

It's like pulling out your favorite collection of photos and childhood comfort foods and music you sang while sticking your head out of your friend's car on a summer day in high school and the notes you passed your best friend, and really savoring the memories. Not just in passing. But really re-examining what made them special and what someone else might understand from it.

At least from the writing perspective.

Whether it translates to the reading perspective or not depends on the technician. I'm new to the game. So the end result for me as a reader isn't that great. But I hope to get better at it. And I think I can.

But this year, I learned something totally new about the experience, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I feel a little weirded out when friends have said they want to read it. Not because I don't want to let them. Not because I fear their judgment. But because it then becomes something else, not just something I did for me, but something I did for consumption. Which I wanted the last two years.

I am just not sure about it this year.

I think eventually, I'd like people to read it to give me honest, genuine feedback. Because I know people who read quality writing, and you can only get better by getting constructive criticism, by having people tell you what you are too myopic to see.

But that'll be after the editing process. There are extra bits of story that don't fit, people whose roles changed abruptly, narratives that detract from the overall perspectives of the book. The end needs to wrap up in a way that doesn't leave me hanging. There are extra scenes that need to be written to round out the emotional texture of the story.

After that, I would like to get feedback. So I can make it better. So I can grow.

For anyone that enjoys reading or writing at all, for anyone who wants to tackle a crazy project, for anyone who wants to contemplate relationships, memories, new ideas, I highly recommend NaNoWriMo.

Why NaNoWriMo instead of writing on your own? Because most people can't find the time to do it when they do it as an unscheduled task. Because, to paraphrase Christ Baty to started it all, writing a book is a "someday" task: something most people think of doing "someday", when they are less busy, when they are taking a break from work, when they retire, someday.

You can do it next year. In a month. Even if it's not THE book you want to try, even if it's just "Hello Novel" (which I highly recommend for the sheer flying joy of it), or maybe especially if it is, it's one more book than you'd have written otherwise.

This year's book, it might not be all great, but I wrote the crap out of some of the scenes. The good parts, I'm damn proud of. The weak parts, I'm not too ashamed of. ;)