meditations on vacuuming the cat
Aug. 22nd, 2010 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliI've got a full list of things that really have to be done before I get writing. I suppose most writers do.
And some of them are writing.
Not just the flip-between-works technique that makes my progress on any given work so -- erratic. Though that can happen, too, whenever I don't want to face the next scene whether writing or revising, I can also scurry off and research the names I can give the moons of the planets. (That was indeed tricky, since I want to fit the pattern I had already assigned with the planet names -- but it was still vacuuming the cat.) Or running the hero through a Mary Sue test, which is fun but not writing.
Once upon a time, I discovered the wonderful technique of sitting down and re-reading everything I had dropped writing. I learned that I was losing interest in a story whenever it required a technique I had yet to master.
But the writing life never gets any easier. Having mastered techniques enough that I can finish stories -- at least to get to "The End" and ready to mail out, occasionally even to sell -- when I am stymied, it is likely to something that this story uniquely, or at least unusually, needs.
And what is worse, taking a deep breath before plunging into something difficult can indeed help. There's been many a time when I looked at the next scene, knew it needed some hack-and-slash revision, quailed, closed the word processor, and the next day opened it up to hack and slash with abandon.
Such are the conundrums of the writing life.
And some of them are writing.
Not just the flip-between-works technique that makes my progress on any given work so -- erratic. Though that can happen, too, whenever I don't want to face the next scene whether writing or revising, I can also scurry off and research the names I can give the moons of the planets. (That was indeed tricky, since I want to fit the pattern I had already assigned with the planet names -- but it was still vacuuming the cat.) Or running the hero through a Mary Sue test, which is fun but not writing.
Once upon a time, I discovered the wonderful technique of sitting down and re-reading everything I had dropped writing. I learned that I was losing interest in a story whenever it required a technique I had yet to master.
But the writing life never gets any easier. Having mastered techniques enough that I can finish stories -- at least to get to "The End" and ready to mail out, occasionally even to sell -- when I am stymied, it is likely to something that this story uniquely, or at least unusually, needs.
And what is worse, taking a deep breath before plunging into something difficult can indeed help. There's been many a time when I looked at the next scene, knew it needed some hack-and-slash revision, quailed, closed the word processor, and the next day opened it up to hack and slash with abandon.
Such are the conundrums of the writing life.