Thursday! 3-10: Welcome to Not At All The Machine
V3, I10
Somewhere in the universe is a giant Machine.
Perhaps the Machine is the entire universe itself, great enough that it fully warrants the capitalization. Perhaps the Machine is small, yet reaches every nook and cranny of existence, feeding and being fed in return. No one truly knows for sure, even though many — countless numbers of adventurers, dreamers, and rank bureaucrats intent on cataloguing everything that exists — have searched for it. We tell stories of the Machine, though not stories as we usually reckon them. Stories of the Machine do not begin “Once upon a time…” nor do they have brave heroes, stalwart heroines, devious villains, nor great adventures. Instead, stories about the Machine begin like so:
“I had an idea…”
We creative type people love to talk about The Muse or The Source1 or whatever motive force lies behind our creative impulses as if it is a vast, mystical entity. Better yet, we talk about it like it’s our own personal Magic Fairy that waves its Wand O’Creativity and juices us up for another turn at the keyboard (or easel or sculpting block or music stand). We are helpless before its Great and Unknowable Machinations or we must make offerings and prostrate ourselves lest we displease it and it flies to us never more.
I admit, even though The Muse has come up as a Thursday! topic a couple times since I started this whole venture, I still tend to think of it as Inspiration Which Must Strike before I can get down to the act of creation. That, of course, is a giant 32-ounce Big Gulp cup full of codswallop2 from which I drink far too often. We don’t need to be struck by inspiration, a cast-iron frying pan, a thunderbolt from Zeus, or any darned thing before we get our hands dirty in our art. We just need an idea — any idea.
Let’s go even farther onto that ragged edge3: Even a scrap of an idea will work. You can take one scrap, stitch it to another scrap, stich those to another scrap and, before you know it, you’re in the middle of a beautiful project like a kite tail or a rag quilt or a coat.
[Before we go on, would you consider backing me up as a Patron? — $2, $5, or $20 — you can support my work, my art, and get the occasional exclusive bonus goodie. Thank you!]
I’m writing this because, this past weekend, I reminded myself that I am an Independent Man What Don’t Need No Muse and figured you might find such a reminder helpful as well. So here goes. Last Friday, my friend Cedar Sanderson tweeted a story submission call notice. The basic rules were these: I’d get a prompt and, from that, I’d need to submit a 50 word story in roughly two days. I knew nothing at all about the would-be publishers, the convention that prompted the call, if there’s actual money involved, nothing. What I did know was that because of my weekend schedule, I would only have about 4 hours between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon to write whatever I was going to write. Oh, I also knew one other thing.
I really wanted to submit a story.
Why? No reason, I guess. Well, no good reason. If I’m being entirely honest with you4, I take an odd bit of pride in my ability to write tasty morsels of small fiction. I may not be a great novelist or epic poet, but I think my very short stories can stand with anyone's5. Waving a flash fiction submission call in front of me is kind of like announcing a Húsafell Stone hauling contest right next to an extraordinarily muscled Icelander. I mean, the guy's going to at least put down his delicious steak and give you a listen, right?
So I decided Friday evening to write the story and got the prompt. I don’t think I can reveal that to you until I know whether it’s okay to do so or not6, but let me assure you it did not immediately suggest a story. The Muse did not alight with a scroll full of inspiring ideas. Oh, no. I went on to Friday Night Bible Study and mentally chewed on it in the background. Right away, I had a rough idea for a setting and event but not much else. Maybe it'd be dialogue. Maybe a poem. Maybe...anything else. No Muse, remember? This was all creative grunt work -- coming up with potential paths, staring down them for a bit, and deciding which looked walkable and which were full of bears and brambles.
By Saturday, I more or less knew what I wanted to do. I took out my trusty notebook and began writing. Then I stopped and scratched stuff out. Fifty words, remember? No time for much description. No sightseeing on this trip! I started again, scratched out more, write farther, scratched out all of it. This happened for about an hour before I had to go and do other things but I chewed on it in the background. Late Saturday, I thought of a better form for the story to take — leaner, a little more epic, more like a stanza of a song than a campfire story. By Sunday afternoon, after church and lunch with my loving wife7 , I knew how the story would "feel", but not how much of the whole story I could tell.
After about 90 minutes of writing, rewriting, tracking, backtracking, and counting words, I finally had something I thought worked pretty well. I typed up what I had, gave it a quick revision while I typed, titled it, and sent it off. It wasn’t quite a story. It wasn’t quite a poem. It wasn’t quite a song. It was, in fact, a bit of all of them and the very best I could do within the boundaries of the rules and the time I had. I’m quite happy with it and think the editor(s) will be happy with it as well.
If not, well, I might have a plan or two for it. See the footnotes.
What does all this have to do with that stuff about The Machine at the beginning? Simply put, there is no Magic Creativity Machine. The Universe doens’t supply ideas and inspiration. That all comes from you. Even if you don’t have ideas you think are great, you can put your skill and determination to work and come up with something very good. Remember last week’s newsletter? Of course you don’t, because I didn’t send one. I didn’t have an idea and convinced myself that I needed a good one before I could write Thursday! for you. I was wrong. I didn’t need a good idea. See, I am a writer and writers write, whether the great idea is there or not. All I needed was to remember that I can write what I need to write when I need to write it, no matter if it’s a 50-word story for a surprise submission call or this essay right here.
Remember that. You, too, are an artist. And you can make art any darned time you want.
There are a lot of capital letters in this newsletter. Be ye warned.
Or Diet Codswallop, if you’re trying to watch your sugar intake.
Ragged? SWIDT? Huh? HUH??
And what’s the point of Thursday! if I can’t be completely honest with you?
Not like there are a lot of authors out there who’ve done a ton of flash-length writing, that is, stories shorter than 1,500 words, give or take.
Though, if I can’t reveal it, and my story isn’t accepted, I might find alternate art for my story and share it with anyone who’s joined my ridiculously-affordable and wondrously-helpful Patreon.
Who did not at all mention how distracted I was during lunch because I couldn’t stop working on the story in my head. I really don’t deserve her, friends. She’s far, far too good for me!