Do You Value the Goal or the Process?

Yesterday, I read an article called, "The Most Important Question of Your Life." According to the author, you shouldn't ask yourself what you want out of life, but rather what you choose to suffer to achieve your goals. No goal worth achieving can be reached without effort, often requiring more effort than is apparent when someone first chooses to pursue a goal. There can be physical or psychological pain experienced over and over before someone succeeds. Even then, you may be required to put in effort to maintain your goal, whether that goal is staying at a healthy weight or keeping a relationship strong. I think the author makes some valid points, but I think there's more to reaching a goal than enduring pain and suffering. The bumps are part of the journey, and while it's always important to keep a goal in mind, one has to accept the journey, even learn to enjoy it, to reach the goal.

One of my favorite all-time books is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. There's a passage in there where the author talks about trying to climb a mountain but giving up due to exhaustion. Physical strength and intellectual motivation weren't enough. To quote at length:

He didn't think he had been arrogant but thought he was undertaking the pilgrimage to broaden his experience, to gain understanding for himself. He was trying to use the mountain for his own purposes and the pilgrimage too. He regarded himself as the fixed entity, not the pilgrimage or the mountain, and thus wasn't ready for it. He speculated that the other pilgrims, the ones who reached the mountain, probably sensed the holiness of the mountain so intensely that each footstep was an act of devotion, an act of submission to this holiness. The holiness of the mountain infused into their own spirits enabled them to endure far more than anything he, with his greater physical strength, could take....[The ego-climber] rejects the here, is unhappy with it, wants to be further up the trail but when he gets there will be just as unhappy because then it will be "here." What he's looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn't want that because it is all around him. Every step's an effort, both physically and spiritually, because he imagines his goal to be external and distant.

In other words, if you want to write a book, earn a degree, or accomplish something, you have to value getting there as much as achieving the end goal. Of course, different people have different tolerances and so may therefore need to take different journeys. I don't enjoy running so would never set out to run a marathon. However, I do enjoy the process of researching stories, developing plots and characters, and putting in a day's work on a manuscript, so I can achieve my goal of writing a book. Someone else may be able to run a marathon but loathe having to sit at a computer and write all day.

  What do you think? Does success in reaching a goal depend on accepting setbacks along the way, recognizing the value of the journey, both, or something else? Do you think this could be part of the reason why so many books include a journey as part of reaching a goal? Feel free to share your thoughts below.

Facts for Fiction: The Geography of Nowhere

Since I read so much nonfiction, I'm starting a new blog feature called Facts for Fiction. It'll be about the nonfiction books I read and how they could be useful for writing. I'm not sure how frequently I'll run this feature; it'll depend on how often I read a book that's worth discussing.

The book that inspired this feature is called The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Escape. (It's by James Howard Kunstler.) I originally thought it was going to focus on suburbs and the psychological and social effects they have on their residents. Instead, this book is more about architecture, landscape design, and cars. The author's premise is that the promotion of the private car over public transport has not only encouraged the development of the suburbs but resulted in boring buildings and less space devoted to civic and public buildings. Our environment has been designed for cars, not people. Kunstler complains that big businesses build without considering local communities. Although he discusses quality in a way that reminds me of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, his ranty tone can be a bit off-putting at times. Still, I did find this book useful for its ideas on how to design cities for comfort--or lack of comfort. He recommends mixed-use communities that have residents of different classes, a unified style, and transitions from public to private areas. (Some of these things, such as mixed-use, are actually against the law in many areas, which only serves to keep us dependent on driving to the store for a gallon of milk. This may not be sustainable in the long run.) Still, most of this book focuses on the negative, so perhaps it might be more useful if you're planning to write a dystopia.

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think of it? What do you think of American cities and suburbs?

The Indie Life: Who Defines Quality?

Welcome to this month's post about The Indie Life!

Last week, I announced that one of my books had won a "stamp of approval" from the Book Readers Appreciation Group. Ironically enough, the timing of the B.R.A.G. award for Lyon's Legacy came right around the time when an article about Awesome Indies was published on The Passive Voice blog. Some indie authors think that sites that give awards to indie-published work are becoming the new gatekeepers and think they're a bad idea, even if it's a way for writers to validate their work. (Personally, I see it as marketing.)  The discussion on that post got so heated Passive Guy wound up deleting all the comments, which is a shame.

Why do we get so passionate about quality and who gets to define it? Perhaps because, according to Robert M. Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (one of my favorite books), Quality cannot be defined. However, when Pirsig teaches English composition to freshmen, he starts out by having them rank works by different students and found that the rankings were pretty consistent. He then had them look at various aspects of the work, such as organization. Even though this by itself is not Quality, it contributes Quality to the work. To paraphrase Pirsig (because I'm too lazy to look it up), "What started out as heresy turned into a beautiful introduction (to the class)."

Even if you don't accept Pirsig's statement that Quality cannot be defined, you can still agree that we all have different ideas about what makes a good book. Some people may focus on story craft, while other care about writing mechanics. People may disagree on how to begin a story, how much description to add, and what point of view works best. These ideas may change over time, both for the person and the overall culture. On the face of it, figuring out what makes a good book is hard.

I think in the end, each reader and writer has to decide for herself what makes a book good. As a writer, one should make one's work as good as possible given the skills and resources at hand. As a reader discussing books, it's helpful to explain what you liked and didn't like about a particular book. The more details you can provide, the more helpful your thoughts will be to others.

Pirsig quotes a line from Plato's Phaedrus: “And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good—
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?” I say both yes and no. As a writer, I do need to hear objective comments about my work because I'm too close to it to see it clearly. But as a reader, I have forty years experience reading, so I think I know by now what I love and admire, what makes me close a book prematurely, and what leaves me feeling so-so about a work. Self-publishing means any reader can make that decision about any work independently of someone letting that book slip through the system. Let's not take these readers for granted.

To find more Indie Life posts, check out the Linky List below:


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Recommended Books

I don't think I've done this for a while, if ever: what books do you recommend the most to others? They can be fiction or non-fiction.

For me, one of my favorite non-fiction books is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It's one of those books that just clicked for me when I read it. As for fiction, I love Patrica McKillip's and and Connie Willis's work. One recent fantasy trilogy I'd recommend is The Accidental Sorcerer; Witches, Inc; and Wizard Squared.

What would you add to this list?

Kindle--Highlights and Sharing

I'm not trying to become a spokesperson for the Kindle, but it does change the reading experience.

One of the Kindle's features is that it allows you to highlight text or add notes to it. You can also share your highlighted text on Facebook or Twitter. (Edited to add: the book is automatically cited.) And if you're reading a book that other people have shared highlights from, you can see those as well. (You can turn public highlights off if they distract you.) What I like about the public highlights is that they make me feel like part of a community reading a book.

(I don't interact with a lot of SF readers in my daily life, and I don't belong to any SF book clubs. There are probably forums out there where I could discuss my reading, but as a writer, I'm not comfortable posting about other writers' books. If I say anything negative, it could come back to haunt me.)

I also like sharing my highlights on Facebook. I'm currently rereading my beloved Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig on Kindle, so if you're friends with me on Facebook, expect to see a lot of passages from that book popping up on my profile over the next few days.

Do you mark up your paper books? I generally don't, but ZMM is the exception for me. Do you like the idea of sharing your favorite passages with others? If so, would you do it for fun or publicity?

Back on the Blog Chain: Don't Dream It's Over

The Blog Chain came around so fast to me this time I nearly missed it. ;) I'm second in line this time, the first to address Amanda's question:

What do you do to keep yourself motivated when you feel like you're not making any progress in your writing career?

For a theme song for this post, let's use Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over."



I've been writing fiction since graduate school, though I wasn't really committed to it until about 1996. I've completed five novels (though only one of them I queried extensively) started and abandoned a couple more, and worked on various short stories (including some about the Beatles), some finished, some not. I've invested countless hours in reading, writing, editing/revising, and critiquing. To make time to write, I've cut out most TV and seldom go to movies, so I'm way out of touch with popular culture. After all this, I still haven't sold a novel, my main goal. So what keeps me going?

By this point in my life, writing is as much a part of me as one of my limbs. To give it up would be to lose a precious part of myself, something that keeps me going when the rest of my life is frustrating. While I want to connect to other people through my writing, it's still important for me to do it for me. One thing that I do get encouragement from is the feeling that I'm still learning and trying new techniques. I mentioned before that I only queried one of the five novels I finished. The first novel I ever wrote is no longer accessible, two of the other novels were sequels (so they couldn't stand alone), and the final one is my current project, which is getting very close to becoming query-worthy. I've learned a lot from the many writing blogs out there, and I think it shows in this draft. While working on sequels and Beatles fan fiction has delayed my writing career, I learned a lot from them. Besides, the Beatles stories evolved into my current project, so they were a roundabout way of getting there.

I think writing really has to be considered a journey, not just a means to an end. As Robert M. Pirsig said in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, "When you try to climb a mountain to prove how big you are, you almost never make it. And even if you do, it's a hollow victory." Writing can't be just about stoking your ego, because your ego will definitely get bruised along the way. If you want to be a writer, you have to do it because you enjoy the process, and you have to be willing to keep going even when you want to stop. It's a lot easier to walk away from writing than it is an unfulfilling job or a marriage gone sour; perhaps that's why we writers spend so much time encouraging each other.

With that, I'll send you over to Eric for his take on this question.

Back on the Blog Chain: Writing Funk

As promised, I'm back once again for another Blog Chain Pooooost! Michelle posted right before me, and Abi will finish off this round. Elana picked the topic for this round; it consists of two parts:


1. When you're in a pool of writing funk, how do you get out?
2. I want your favorite funny and/or thing that makes you happy.

Elana is very specific about what makes up the pool of funk: Not sure what the Pool of Writing Funk is? Maybe you've heard of the Lake of Self-Doubt. No? The Ocean of What-the-heck-am-I-doing? Or maybe each rain drop in your life seems to whisper, "You're not good enough." These all contribute to the pool.

After re-reading these words last night, it struck me that this topic was similar in some ways to the one we did in October on confidence. In the last few years, I've encountered other people, mostly women, who lack confidence in themselves. I wonder if this is a gender thing. After all, not only are we women juggling more roles than ever before, we're constantly assaulted by ads saying we're worthless if we don't have long enough eyelashes or don't wear a size zero or fail in any way to live up to impossible standards. (I'm so glad I don't see those kinds of ads in Scientific American.) It's in the beauty industry's interest to make us feel insecure so we buy their products. But perhaps this would be a better topic for a WisCon panel than for our current blog chain.

Anyway, like Mary, I try to avoid swimming in the pool of writing funk/lack of self-confidence. I mentioned in my post in October that I regard myself as a student of writing, always improving my skills. So yesterday, when I was editing a long paragraph from Across Two Universes, I was happy when I saw how I could cut out some unnecessary information and speed up the pace. I didn't cuss myself out for writing a slow scene in the first place, because I've learned more about pacing and what's really necessary to include in a scene since then.

But what do you do if you are swimming in the funky pool? You need to rebuild your gumption. Gumption, as Robert M. Pirsig says in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, "is the psychic gasoline that keeps the whole thing going." (If you haven't read this book, I recommend it whole-heartily. On one level, it's the story of a man and his son on a cross-country motorcycle trip, but at the same time, the man is trying to reconnect with his past as a failed-scientist-turned-English-composition-teacher-turned-philosopher-turned-madman. Along the way, he discusses philosophy, especially as it applies to science and Quality. It's not a simple read, but the concepts are explained clearly.) Pirsig discusses gumption in the context of fixing a motorcycle, but it can be applied to anything you do. Like confidence, gumption is not fixed but can fluctuate during the process. Things that drain gumption are called gumption traps. One trap that might pertain to writers is value rigidity, or being so committed to what you think you know that you disregard what's actually in front of you. When this happens, it's time to sit back and re-evaluate what's in front of you. Both too much ego or too much anxiety can become gumption traps:


I was going to say that the machine doesn't respond to your personality, but it does respond to your personality. It's just that the personality that it responds to is your real personality, the one that genuinely feels and reasons and acts, rather than any false, blown-up personality images your ego may conjure up. These false images are deflated so rapidly and completely you're bound to be very discouraged very soon if you've derived your gumption from ego rather than Quality.

If modesty doesn't come easily or naturally to you, one way out of this trap is to fake the attitude of modesty anyway. If you just deliberately assume you're not much good, the your gumption gets a boost when the facts prove this assumption is correct. This way you can keep going until the time comes when the facts prove this assumption is incorrect. (Pirsig, 1974, p. 283-284)

Pirsig goes on to say that if you're anxious, afraid you'll do everything wrong, the way out of that trap is to learn and realize everyone messes up once in a while. When it happens to you, you can learn from the experience. "You should remember that it's peace of mind you're after and not just a fixed machine" (or story, for us writers).

There are other gumption traps discussed in the book, but those seem to be the most relevant for this topic. So I'm going to move on to the second part of Elana's topic: something funny or something that makes me happy. Well, my family makes me happy. Even when my son wakes up from his nap crying (as he did about an hour ago), he never fails to entertain, especially when he puts his boots on all by himself:























But for Elana, I'm going to recommend that she listen to some blues. Specifically, the legendary black Scottish bluesman Wet Biscuit McGlee:




That's enough for one post. Head on over to Abi's blog to see how she deals with writing funk!