Guest Blog: "When Research Becomes Procrastination" by Rebeca Schiller
Hi,
my name is Rebeca. I am a research addict. Rick's note: The first sign to recovery--knowing who and what you are.
There
I said it. Now you all know my dirty secret. I am cursed with this nagging fear
that whatever I write that deals with history, politics, the arts, science
needs to be backed by excessive research that would shame a doctoral candidate.
So what’s the big deal? That’s a sign of being thorough, you might comment.
Well,
yeah, but sometimes spending too much time surfing the interwebs, sifting
through archives, collecting and reading too many books, and conducting endless
interviews spells out one thing … PROCRASTINATION.
I’m
going out on a limb here, but I believe that writers are the masters of
procrastination. We come up with writing prompts to motivate us; write our
daily pages so that writing becomes an ingrained habit; blog to share our
wisdom with other writers; and obsessively shower (or vacuum, or take our dogs
out on mile walks), claiming that’s where we get our best ideas. But when it
all comes down to that opus that you’re supposedly outlining, pantsing,
revising, or starting from scratch (take your pick), the
truth is that you’re not getting very far in becoming a published writer because
you’re not writing.
I
won’t venture into the whole magillah on the psychology of procrastination (I’d
have to research that first), but I will share my research
neurosis.
Years
ago, before I attempted to write fiction, I read a novel that centered on the
Spanish Civil War. The author had written something in Spanish, which was
grammatically incorrect. As a fluent Castilian speaker that put me off
immediately and then I discovered that his history was also off. This wasn’t
artistic license it was plain wrong. I vowed that if I decided to tackle
fiction and if it had any sort of historical context to it, I would make sure
that what I wrote was accurate.
Julius
was born almost six years ago during NANOWRIMO. I finished the first draft in
those 30 days. I was proud that I pulled this feat off and that I had it in me
to write daily. My arrogant ego said if I could write a novel in 30 days then I
could turn a perfectly polished manuscript in 12 months and start querying
agents. And now I can comfortably say this in hindsight: Ha!
My
first draft was bare bones in the research department and I knew that I had to
layer it more. After all, I was writing about a woman’s preoccupation with the
Spanish Civil War, The Rosenbergs, Alvah Bessie, the Blacklist mixed in with
contemporary politics.
Those
12 months that I had given myself to write, polish and find an agent became the
year that my mania for research went out of control. I had no free surface
space in my apartment. Stacks of books were next to the couch, the bed, piled
high on all tables, every space on bookshelves was crowded with either books or
files. My narrow home office was turned into a storage room filled with boxes
of books, and even the two large dog wire crates became book receptacles.
Okay,
but what about the writing? I wrote—well, I revised and after each revision I
had another question that needed more research and suddenly it’s three years
later and I’m nowhere near to typing “The End.”
Now
almost six years after the fact, Ihave admitted that I have a problem, but there
is one benefit to my excessive enthusiasm for research—I have all the necessary
information to finish the story. Like my attempt at quitting sugar
cold turkey it’s time to quit researching, use all that knowledge and finish
the damn book, but first let me clear my writing space.
Rebeca
Schiller is the online editor of HAND/EYE Magazine.
She does write daily whether it’s for the magazine, her blog or her daily pages, but what she really needs to do is
finish writing Julius.
5 comments:
Great article, Rebeca. I should heed your advice, but first I have to take my dog for a mile-long walk.
Best,
Deb
Oh, I hear you. Research is fantastic and I love doing it (I did, after all, study Art History), but it's so easy to segue from it being a supporting factor in your writing to making it the goal in itself... And that, indeed, is procrastination. Don't worry--we're all guilty of too-much-research syndrome, in one way or another :)
Despite the procrastination affect from too much research, research is important. In ONE PROMISE TOO MANY, I had two lines about a body being found after being somewhere for many months. Those two lines amounted to about forty hours of research with experts to nail down the correct science. It's real; it's gross; it's accurate. And that is the important thing with proper research. Of course, right now I'm procrastinating when I should be writing. :-) Write on!
Sending good-luck-vibes your way Rebecca! Finish that book!
Ack. I wrote a longish comment that just disappeared. Anyway, Rebeca, good post. I definitely can relate to procrastination.
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