Monday, February 20, 2012

Totally immersive experience.

Linda is driving to Portland tomorrow to visit son Todd, then flying to Oklahoma to visit son Toby, and she'll be back in 8 days.

I've decided to take those 8 days and make it a totally immersive writing experience.

Turn the T.V. off, and just do nothing but write (rewrite, edit) for 8 days.

I talk to myself a lot when I'm trying to work out a plot, which can be rather weird when other people are around. Even though Linda would understand. Plus, I know that I can flop on that couch or work at that table or whatever without infringing on her time and space.

This is a strange floating around the house, mulling things, laying on the couch, popping up and quickly scribbling when a phrase or idea comes along, staring into the fridge, walking around, laying down, slapping myself to the side of the head "Think! Oh, that's a great idea! Where did that come from?" sort of experience.

Somebody called it, living in the fictional dream. Very delicate, and any interruption, no matter how loving and mild, can derail that.

(Which is essentially the reason I didn't write for 25 years -- I couldn't work 48 - 60 hours a week keeping a business afloat and have any hope of staying in the "fictional dream" long enough to accomplish anything.)

The question that arises at this point in the book, is whether I can significantly improve the book through plain hard work. Do I lose freshness and perspective? Or am I just being lazy not making chances, trying harder?

How much can hard work substitute for talent?

Thing is, I'm lazy. I tend to think -- it's good enough.

Or hope that others can fix it.

There is also the time element. Working hard, then leaving it alone -- then coming back and working hard, I think works better than just grinding and grinding and grinding.

Also at this point in the book, I'm much less worried about squelching my creative urges. This is more mechanical -- the basic plot and characters are in place -- it doesn't matter as much if I rework a paragraph so many times that it loses freshness for me, as long as I know mechanically, that I've improved what I was trying to do.

Anyway, I am committing myself to Hard Work for the next 8 days -- and after that, I'll fall back on the "good enough" and let "others fix it" mode for awhile.

2 comments:

Leitmotiv said...

Have you read Stephen King's book "On Writing?" Pretty good read with some simple lessons to be learned. Maybe his approach to editing can be utilized by you regarding keeping a "[fresh perspective]."

H. Bruce Miller said...

"Thing is, I'm lazy. I tend to think -- it's good enough."

Sometimes it IS good enough, though, and the best thing to do is just stop fussing over it. There comes a point in the editing / rewriting process where you're not improving the piece, just moving things around. I know; I've been there.