Monday, April 5, 2010
Where not to start
I am writing at a crawl now. It seems like I've been on the same page for the last two weeks. Still haven't broken 150 pages yet. This current chapter is killing me. A couple of pages alone took days to write and I finally found a work-around and deleted them. I'm still cutting up the scene and working back and forth, unable to get through it to the next scene. Every two steps forward is one step back. Not sure where all the resistance is coming from, but I'll get through it eventually. What's adding to the frustration is in spite of having just completed the vast majority of freelance work that will now free up my evenings, I'm on a new production at work, which between increased work demands and moving to a new office space, is going to greatly reduce any writing opportunities at lunch. The upside, is I have three months of evenings and weekends to finish out this first draft. I've gotten this far in two months, so in theory I'm still in decent shape to knock out the second half in three. After that, I am taking at least three months off from work, finances abiding, to punch up a second draft and actually send it out into the world. By August, this manuscript has to be in the inbox of an agent or editor someone where out in the world. Then I'll be able to sleep at night, as it were. This is the real goal. Get the work out and move on. After that I can swing back to my other novel for a while. Getting back tot he present, in spite of my current setbacks I feel great about my new process and I am fully confident I'll get this done. The most remarkable thing to me is that for the first time in my life I am not judging myself or the work. I accept it for whatever it is, while feeling the mobility and empowerment to make whatever changes it needs, to make it as good as I can make it. Unlike my last experience, I am not looking at this book to be the end-all magnum opus that defines me as a writer, a person and a human being. This is just a story I want to tell. It might say something about where I am as a writer and a person right now, but it does not define me. It's actually surprising to me how liberating it is to write without that little burden. Fear and judgement are not the places you want to come as a writer. Sure, we all end up there sooner or later. But you don't want to start there.
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Hmmm…I wonder if you are subconsciously not reaching 150 on purpose. Sometimes a cigar is not a cigar. Ya?
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