Writers Block #12

I write mystery novels; or at least I try.  Writing mystery novels is either hard or easy.  It all depends on the flow of the work.  For much of my career I was a “numbers” guy.  The work flowed from an endless stream of numbers that needed crunching.  Little thought was given to the creative side of numbers crunching—it’s actually frowned upon.  Now my work is controlled by something called a creative process.

This process seems to work fine on some days and others, it does not.  The writers’ block problem has been talked to death—and who cares anyway?  But still, why does the process get bogged down?  Why isn’t writing more like numbers crunching; just get to work and the output flows.

I’ve had the privilege (burden?) of working with some world-class liars.  These people had an answer to everything because it was all made up.  Ask them the meaning of life and prepare for an endless stream of bullshit.  That obviously is the same creative process as making up a mystery novel, right?  The liars never seemed to run out of bullshit.  Why do writers hit brick walls and the big mouth in the office next door can spew a novel length yarn of nonsense at the drop of a hat?

Now one possibility is that if you could get a written transcript of the bullshitters never ending gushing of nonsense you would realize it is just that: nonsense.  When you buy a mystery novel you expect it to make sense, have sone kind of meaning, follow a logical story path and of course resolve the mystery in a completely sane, in retrospect, outcome.

So as a mystery writer you cannot just pound out page after page of garbage.  If you do and someone accidentally buys your book they will never, ever buy another one.  The writer must please the reader, in some fashion, or they will soon be writing books just for themselves.  Wait a minute, I do write books for myself!  If I’m only writing for me, the flow of brilliant prose should be easy—I’m not that self-critical; just write.  But now it becomes clear, I’m writing for you—the reader.  That’s what creates the pressure and dams up the flow of words.  I’m worried that last paragraph I wrote will displease someone other than me; therefore, I can’t write the next paragraph.

Writers block is a fear of rejection.  The solution is to not give a damn what the reader thinks and just write for myself; but I must never say that out loud.  I need to keep saying that my readers are the most important people in the creative process but not actually believe that.  I’m now free to write my bullshit without fear of rejection as long as I pretend to not care about rejection.   Life is simple in complicated ways.

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Wall Street Madness

Speaking of outcomes; I have written a couple of posts about the illogic of the stock market valuations.  The stock market has become more akin to a betting site than anything to do with the underlying company’s actual financial performance.  Nothing wrong with that if you understand what it is. 

Then along comes social media entry into the cloistered world of Wall Street and guess what?  It is a betting site that can be driven up or down based only on the wiliness of “investors” to act illogically.

So, a company like GameStop, whose financial condition is not good, can go from $4 a share to $300 a share based on nothing to do with the company.  No logic at all.  Like most schemes (cons) the original “investors” usually make a fortune and the last people who jump in lose a fortune.  Maybe I’m just disgruntled that I didn’t get in at the beginning of the madness and had the good sense to get out before the reckoning.

My best bet is to stick to writing mystery books; I can always control the outcome in that world.