Writing Update

[pameladean]

Eh. Fifty words here, a hundred words there. I'm writing a lightning-fast conversation at the speed of snails. For some reason this brings to the forefront of my mind the whole structure of prestidigitation that is the writing of fiction, and I am in danger of paying that level of things too much attention and dropping all my eggs on the heads of the rabbits.

Pamela

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Wow.

I would die if I wrote that slowly. Or is it simply not having enough time. Do you have a wpm (words per minute) estimate?

B

[pameladean]

I would die if I had a wpm estimate.

I have to make it all up, you know, and sometimes there are very knotty psychological, social, historical, or cultural problems that have to be solved before the next right words can come out of anybody's mouth. No, it doesn't work (for me; it does for some people) to make that up first. It only proceeds from the characters. That's how it happens.

This kind of thing gets done in the early chapters; I'm not likely to be limping along like this into or past the middle, let alone at the end.

Pamela

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

As soon as I posted the comment, I realized that a wpm rate would be a dangerous thing to know. It's the same when people ask me how many hours I spent writing my books.

And non-fiction can have very knotty psychological, social, historical, or cultural problems to solve, too. I believe fiction is far easier, because you can simply make the stuff up. Non-fiction has to be accurate as well as everything ficiton has to be.

Of course, the grass is always greener over there. I realize that.

B

[pameladean]

Omigod, yes. Never ask what you're getting per hour. (Though your answer would be far far less distressing than the average.)

Fiction has to be plausible; truth has the defense that it just is. Whether that is easier or harder depends so completely on the particulars that one can't generalize. I'm actually sure that non-fiction would be much harder for me. It's not even that writing this slow conversation is hard. It's just slow. I am aware of a lot of outside pressure to write at a more reasonable rate, but when that is subtracted, I don't really mind. There is a kind of writing that is just wringing the words out, but it proceeds from different conditions than what I was discussing in that entry.

Pamela

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I always find fiction/non-fiction conversations different. The similarities are greater than I ever imagined possible.

In any case, I only have vague unformed desires to write fiction. I doubt I ever will. I would like to go back to narrative travel writing, which to me straddles the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction better than any other genre.

B

[pameladean]

Well, I've always loved your travel writing. I wonder if it would be easier to publish a book of essays on it now that you are famous?

Pamela