words are hard
The more appropriate title for this entry would be "blah blah blah I DON'T WANT TO WRITE blah blah blah."
I'm realizing (again? still?) how difficult it is to write, and to re-write. I'm working my way slowly through The Printer's Tale (formerly The Printer's Daughter, NaNo 2007), and although I have a complete knowledge of what "happens" in the story -- the A to Z of the plot -- this does not make writing easy! I have a finished first draft of this novel to guide me, and I still feel like I'm floundering.
Sometimes, I appreciate the distance between what I intend to write and what I actually produce -- sometimes, the best interchanges between characters are those I did not plan. But other times I'm just frustrated because I feel like the outline is missing something, but I'm not sure what. Or I feel like I'm doing a write-by-numbers sort of thing, so even though I know that I NEED a particular scene in a particular place, I don't want to have to write it.
Part of the problem likely also lies in the fact that re-writing contains a lot less of the "fun stuff" -- the let's-just-write-this-down-and-see-how-it-goes bit that draws me to writing in the first place -- and a lot more attention to micro-level issues. How does scene A relate to scene B? What things do I need to set up for the reader in Chapter 1 vs. what can I leave for Chapter 2? What is this "pacing" thing of which you speak? What do you mean this fabulous conversation is not actually necessary to either plot OR exposition?
Of course, there is only one solution -- keep writing! -- but sometimes this is not comforting, and so I take a small break and complain.
I'm realizing (again? still?) how difficult it is to write, and to re-write. I'm working my way slowly through The Printer's Tale (formerly The Printer's Daughter, NaNo 2007), and although I have a complete knowledge of what "happens" in the story -- the A to Z of the plot -- this does not make writing easy! I have a finished first draft of this novel to guide me, and I still feel like I'm floundering.
Sometimes, I appreciate the distance between what I intend to write and what I actually produce -- sometimes, the best interchanges between characters are those I did not plan. But other times I'm just frustrated because I feel like the outline is missing something, but I'm not sure what. Or I feel like I'm doing a write-by-numbers sort of thing, so even though I know that I NEED a particular scene in a particular place, I don't want to have to write it.
Part of the problem likely also lies in the fact that re-writing contains a lot less of the "fun stuff" -- the let's-just-write-this-down-and-see-how-it-goes bit that draws me to writing in the first place -- and a lot more attention to micro-level issues. How does scene A relate to scene B? What things do I need to set up for the reader in Chapter 1 vs. what can I leave for Chapter 2? What is this "pacing" thing of which you speak? What do you mean this fabulous conversation is not actually necessary to either plot OR exposition?
Of course, there is only one solution -- keep writing! -- but sometimes this is not comforting, and so I take a small break and complain.