retrospective reflections on inspiration

[marycatelli]

It can be interesting looking back in time.

Sometimes you can remember what the original seed crystal was.  Sometimes as precise as thinking I was reading this here book, and on this here page, this thing happened, or was described, and my muse went, What a waste, using that as a throw-away, or as backstory, or totally ruining it by having this happen instead of that.  And then developing onward from there.

And sometimes you maybe remember what the original idea was, but as soon as you sat to write it, it must have plopped in a supersaturated solution that was just waiting for a seed crystal, and it all formed, as if instantaneously, and you can't remember what parts came first and which after.  (Or maybe it just feels that way and it did grow.)

And sometimes you look at a complete and intact structure and no clue how it started, how it fit together, and what was needed to make it all work.

Fortunately, this is one of the mysteries of writing that needs only philosophical contemplation if you feel like it.  You don't have to understand it to make it work again. :)

Comments

[john-j-enright.livejournal.com]

Once in a while I have good notes and early drafts, and I go back to see, and sometimes I'm surprised by what I find.

[marycatelli]

The gremlins got into it and rewrote it while you weren't looking.

Sometimes that's the only explanation.

[jennygordon.livejournal.com]

I find it fascinating looking back through old notebooks and old stories, and wondering where the seeds came from. Sometimes I can track it back to the original germ of an idea, but more often than not I can't. It all makes me marvel at the wonder that is our creative imagination - that great big cauldron inside our brainpans ...

[marycatelli]

And only occasionally letting us in on the secrets.