From the first book of the Baroque Cycle – “Quicksilver” (2003), by Neal Stephenson

Dedication: “To the woman upstairs”

Invocation:

State your intentions, Muse. I know you’re there.
Dead bards who pined for you have said
You’re bright as flame, but fickle as the air
My pen and I, submerged in liquid shade,
Much dark can spread, on days and over reams
But without you, no radiance can shed.
Why rustle in the dark, when fledged with fire?
Craze the night with flails of light. Reave
Your turbid shroud. Bestow what I require.
But you’re not in the dark. I do Believe
I swim, like squid, in the clouds of my own make,
To you, offensive. To us both, opaque.
What’s constituted so, only a pen
Can penetrate. I have one here, let’s go.

To be clear, as I’ve said before, I’m a better reader than a writer. Although I try.

As a reader, give me something I can chew on. I enjoy Hemmingway, but, honesty, his prose sucks. Season your prose with words I have to look up. That’s what the dictionary on the desk is for. A new word is a gift.

Neal Stephenson, one of my favorite authors, once discussed re-writing. He said his first few novels were heavily rewritten and edited. And while they are good, he no longer likes them, because they are no longer his voice. Now, he doesn’t rewrite. I’ve seen the pages he wrote for one of his novels on display in the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle. A meter tall stack of paper embossed with the ink from a fountain pen. And the empty ink cartridges.

Back in college, I took a bunch of writing classes, mostly poetry. We’d spend a lot of time critiquing and rewriting. But honestly, after doing that, I didn’t like my poems. They were not my voice anymore; they were a group’s poem.

Now that is not to say I couldn’t use an editor. Lord, I need an editor. But I do think about my words, the cadence, the flow. I just can’t spell worth shit. And my punctuation constantly triggers the software with blue lines. Fuck the software. I’m going to put a comma in where I want to.

But thanks for your insight. I admire your words.

I could relate to everything you said. Thanks for your guidance.

A lot of the construction goes on at the subconscious level. I’ve noticed that sometimes when I re-read my old stuff I pick up on neat things I didn’t even realize I was doing when I wrote it. Sometimes I feel like I’m reading someone elses writing. “Damn, did I say they THAT? I don’t remember thinking that.” Its like I have a ghost writer inside my head, helping me along, and not always telling me what he’s doing.

My biggest problem is I always write too much. Less is more, prune your prose. I also show off too much, using too many adjectives in a sentence, or too many phrases and clauses in a paragraph. Give one example, not three. I have a good vocabulary, but I tend to abuse it. Always choose the simpler of two options, little words in place of big ones, keep it simple and keep your English non-technical, non-academic, non-fancy. There are times when you may actually want to sound like a professional monograph, or legalistically, or poetically; but make sure you know exactly why you’re doing it and who you’re trying to reach. Always choose the more basic or familiar way of saying things, The writing should be clear and simple and straight-forward, not dense and complex and convoluted. When I read my old stuff that’s the flaw I see most often, I’m showing off and it sounds like I’m showing off. Its my biggest problem, I tend to run off at the mouth instead of letting the reader fill in the blanks. What you’re really communicating to your audience is “You guys are too dumb to pick up on this, I have to explain it to you.” They’ll pick up on that real quick.

Another problem I have is style, sometimes different parts of a piece will differ in tone or style. Not good or bad, just different. A little bit of this is OK, it keeps the tone from sounding boring or monotonous, but too much is distracting. These issues are hard to spot while you’re writing, but often stick out like a sore thumb during editing, or when read out loud. Try to duplicate the rhythms and cadences of spoken conversation in your writing, but don’t feel you can’t occasionally dump a real rococo rant on them. Again, don’t over do it.

But remember, there are no hard or fast rules. Most of the errors you can make can occasionally work perfectly, but don’t over-do it. Sometimes even deliberate misspellings or bad grammar can be right on target, but do it too often and it can bite you in the ass. The reader will think, “Oh, he’s being cutesy again.” If that happens, you’ve lost him.

And know your reader. If you’re delivering the same message to two different people, it SHOULD sound different. And you should either write for a specific audience (easy), or come up with a message which will appeal to different audiences (very, very hard).

I stop to study just about every word and phrase, constantly chiseling away in an effort to smooth things out. I ask myself if the reader will grok the same meaning. Simply switching the order of adjectives and adverbs with their associated targets can make a big difference in how it “sounds”. I’ve realized the way I say things doesn’t always translate well into easy-to-read sentences.

I thoroughly enjoy writing but I’m not going to quit my day job. I need to find a good “how-to” book.

So far, the longest story I have written is this one- which was written more or less in a stream of consciousness, and has many issues… the one I have in mind would require very meticulous planning and lots of dialogue- which I suck at.