NOTE:  This is an encore presentation of Jason’s post on execution. 

jasonrodriguezI’m an idea guy.

If you’re working on a story and you write yourself into a hole, I can help you get out of it. If you have two acts down on paper but don’t know how to close it out, I can help you write a strong finale. Even if you don’t know what to do, don’t know how to start, and are questioning your place in this universe, I can help talk you through it. That’s because I’m an editor – an idea guy.

I’d like to be an execution guy.

I’d like to be the one that takes my ideas and forms them into my own books. It’s hard for an idea guy to become an execution guy, though. We just have too many ideas. I’ll sit down to start working on something, realize it’s really not what I want to work on, and start on something else instead. At the end of the year I look back on my creative output and I have a couple of projects I edited and twenty writing projects that are stuck on page one.

So I came up with a way for an idea guy to become an execution guy. I like to call it Flashing Fast.

The idea is pretty simple: Throw yourself into everything. Throw yourself into legal thrillers and wuxia and occult stories and medieval fantasy. Throw yourself into eBay listings and sex columns and hallmark cards and resignation letters. Throw yourself into the first person and the second person and third person and tap a line deep into your stream of consciousness. Throw yourself into 260 ideas in a single year, focus on a different genre or form or perspective each time, write the stories as you plot them, and commit them to the world.

I’m Flashing Fast right now. I’ve thrown myself into 25 different stories so far and I have 235 to go. I’m posting them to my blog every Monday through Friday for a full year. And, as an added challenge, every story is in someway inspired by the first one (although I have been using the term “loose interpretation” a  lot).

I started with a memoir, so that I can literally throw myself into the other 259 stories. I moved on to a space opera. I followed that up with an obituary. I rounded out the first week with a slasher and a to-do list. Week two was jidaigeki, steampunk, dieselpunk, cyberpunk, and biopunk. On week three I focused on form and restructured the original memoir as a crossword puzzle, excel spreadsheet, twitter feed, classified document, and PostSecret postcard. In week four I tried to emulate famous authors and posted a Chuck Palahniuk-inspired chapter, an (admittedly) horrible e.e.cummings-inspired poem, a David Mamet-inspired one-act, a (purposely) horrible Stephanie Meyer-inspired short story, and a Free Republic-style wingnut piece. And for week five I did western horror, disaster thriller, hardboiled detective, “atonal” prose, and libertarian science fiction pieces.

With the exception of western horror, memoir, and twitter, it was my first time working in any of those genres. None of the stories are perfect, some of them are horrible. But that’s ok because all I’m doing is planting seeds right now. I’m not committing to anything. I’m generating ideas one day at a time. I’m Flashing Fast. And, by doing this, I’m figuring out what stories I actually want to build into something bigger.

I already started building one story, in fact. Artist Marco Magallanes, read my jidaigeki and dieselpunk stories and asked if I wanted to do collaborate on a comic book with a similar feel. The idea has evolved a bit from the original (moved back 1000 years and shifted from Japan to China, for instance) but we’re already several pages into a Shaolin political thriller with a strong sci-fi component. And I love it. And I’m committed to it.

I’m executing.

And while I’m testing the waters I’m also learning a lot about storytelling. With the exception of the occasional article or editorial, most of my experience has been in comics and graphic novels. By dissecting a story and continuously rebuilding it, I’m learning how to write effective prose. I’m settling into a style and learning how to paint a picture when someone’s not actually painting a picture.

So, in other words, I’m learning how to execute.

It’s been a great experience so far, one that I encourage others to try. Just remember – you’re not trying to write you magnum opus in flash fiction form. You’re just trying to find an idea and a style you’re comfortable with. You can dedicate an hour each day to a project like this. Set the timer and go, post whatever you have when the buzzer goes off. In future posts I’ll talk about my own process some more. The researching and the time commitments and the feedback I’ve received to-date.

Until then, I’m urging you all to jump in with me. Share a link to your Flashing Fast page in the comments. Give feedback on each other’s work. Come up with 260 ideas, play with them, take the ones you like the best, and then build them into bigger stories. For one hour a day, take yourself out of your comfort zone and execute.

You’ll be surprised by what turns you on.

 

Jason Rodriguez is an Eisner and Harvey-nominated editor and writer living in Arlington, VA. He recently edited Elk’s Run and Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened (both from Villard Books, a division of Random House). Besides several new comic projects, Jason is publishing his flashes fast and in a variety of forms and genres over on his website: http://www.jasonrodriguez.com