Jan 11 2009
Slogging through the drudge work
Remember last week when I mentioned that, as a general rule, I had to be inspired to write , unlike many, that sitting down and forcing myself to write pages when I was dry was a big mistake? Well (as I mentioned), there is a little exception to that and I call them bridge chapters. See, my egotistical (megalomaniacal, actually) subconscious does all the clever stuff writing. Often, early in the book, I have several clever and pivotal chapters either already written (though they’ll have to be adapted as the book progresses and are sometimes changed radically) or in my head. Not an outline, just a general idea of pitstops I want to make along the way (along with an occasional ending).
Like an animator for Disney or Warner Brothers, though, it’s like the key animator in the story. I draw the key shots, key moments, and then my subconscious leaves the dull bits that pulls it all together for a smooth story for someone else, like an inbetweener. In this case, the inbetweener is my conscious mind. Yep, only good for grunt work.
The problem with having my conscious mind doing this is not that I have to think, but that it’s not very exciting. My conscious mind never gets to do anything interesting, just fill in bits and pieces between clever and exciting, funny or emotionally important scenes. You know, like telling the plan or explaining how we set up camp. Earthshaking it isn’t, but it needs to be done so people don’t get confused, or to set up the next scene.
But it’s dull work for me to slog through. I need to, though, much like my sister had described, and, later, my subconscious will flow through during a rework and insert humor and intelligence and clever little human mannerisms that will make my dull work come to life (I hope).
But that’s all in the future
(Don’t forget, vote well and vote often. We’re neck and neck at the moment!)
Congrats fellow December Award winner!
I’m impressed that you’re able to do all you do, especially writing your books… slogging through or not. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve been talking about writing a fiction novel since I was knee-high to a flee and I haven’t done so yet. You, on the other hand, grab it by the horns and press forward.
BTW, I don’t know if you saw my comment on the Today forum last month predicting your winning a December award, but hey–I was right! Congratulations!
Davida
All I can say, sis. is “HAH! I knew it!” See, you have to write stuff you don’t want to, too, and it’s drudge work, and it isn’t always easy…but you do it anyway, because without it, you wouldn’t finish what you were doing.
That’s all I was saying… writing isn’t always a joy, and it certainly isn’t always easy. But we do it anyway because we are REAL writers!
Unfortunately for me, I’m obviously not a real blogger, since I have yet to see that you won an award. I’m not surprised, however, for your blog ROCKS and you somehow find time to visit a trillion other people’s blogs nearly every day (like mine), when I managed to visit a very small number of blogs once a week.