A Writer's Notebook, Day Seven-Hundred-And-Fifty-One

I do not have a great many readers for my work at the moment, and often it takes time for me to get direct feedback, even of a general sort.  With poetry, this has become a sort of normal thing, and I believe it has liberated me to an extent, especially since I was writing so much and could not expect all of it to be seen immediately.  In writing fiction, however, I am often less certain.  In part, this is due to my having far less experience writing fiction or studying the craft formally.  I do not have the same amount of confidence about my prose in general, and with fiction, I am often completely uncertain about a story when I finish it.  This may even be, in part, a result of process, as I often allow myself to do things in stories that are more intuitive.  To offer an example, the story I am writing now is one that, as it began, I had a sense for a bit of what was happening, of where the plot was headed, but then, as I kept going, it felt that it might be a different story than I had anticipated, so I did not worry about it and just wrote without considering whether I was writing that story or not, and now, after a bit more work, it does feel it is aiming in the direction that I had originally conceived of, it is just that the unfolding of the story is happening in a strange and subtle way that I had not anticipated.  At the same time, I can see how the choices I made at the start line up with where I am now, and how all of that connects to the specifics of the piece I was imagining, even if it is in a way I had not considered overtly.

This process is quite rewarding in and of itself, as their is always a sense of discovery and magic, a feeling that I am not creating the story, but drawing it out from some realm where it exists already.  However, as fulfilling as it is, I am aware that my experience in writing a piece does not always equate to an experience for the reader of the same kind.  While it is necessary, of course, to make the writing an act of import, to allow the story to mean something for me as I create it, it is not enough.  Those elements can exist and not be communicated to a reader, if the story is too obscure, for example, or if it just does not connect all the elements in satisfying ways.  The meaning needn't be clear, but it needs to be clear their is real meaning, and that is only one element of what makes a piece of fiction work.  Often, I am not able to see these problems as clearly, certainly not when I just wrote a piece, since I already understand it and see it from a more full perspective.  If I wait, I often can see it from a different perspective, but usually it is not a positive one, as I see the flaws of the work more than anything else.  That is no better, of course, for judging the work.  Thus, I will set a piece to the side when I finish it and wait for a chance to share it, and then I will wait again.  Tonight, I received back the first comments on my last story, and I am very pleased to see that they are positive.  I only wish that I could look at it with a clearer sense of what is or is not working for myself.