Wrimo 2k6: 52,683 (9,500 under goal(Woo!))- It could be worse.
December has been difficult for writing, mostly because I’m not doing it. I took some time off, I got 1,900 words or so, and then took some more time off. Writers are lazyhearted and much more averse to writing than anyone could ever suspect. The ideas, the thinking about how great the story will be - is the fun part. Finding out about things alongside you characters, the sense of discovery… that’s the great part. Feeling the heft of the completed manuscript is amazing. The writing, though? Difficult. Time consuming. Tedious. Frustrating.
For the most part. If you manage to catch the right kind of vibe, you can write all day… hell, it’s almost as if you can’t type fast enough to chronicle your ideas. But those moments of typographical ecstasy are separated by the long road of going word by word, making it to the end of a chapter.
So I have 2,500 words now, all new stuff that I’m trying to write to get back to the mood of last year’s novel. It’s difficult to pick up a cold trail, but it’s happening. I’m going to finish it, god damn it.
Of course, there’s always a hateful little idea for a new story that creeps in while you’re working on something. A concept that doesn’t fit anywhere in anything you’re working on, but it tugs at your synapses and won’t be quiet. For me, right now, it’s the image of someone under surveillance in a near future society, and it’s called a Stage 3 Lifetap. Like a wiretap, Stage three because three surveillance specialists (8 hour shifts) are dedicated to watching this person. What did he do? No Idea. How do they manage to track his every movement? I got nothing… but it’s still tugging. So I need to tuck that back into a corner, maybe flesh it out as a short story sometime…
And maybe I just need to buckle down, stop writing LJ posts, and get to what I got to get to. My other problem is that I haven’t reread last year’s manuscript like I had meant to. So tonight, I’m going to sit and read. With a stack of note cards. And we’re gonna turn this bitch out.