I finally went to the library and checked out No Plot, No Problem, as Starr suggested. When I got home I read the introduction, then already felt inspired to work on Sam. I wasn't sure you guys were completely right, but. . . alas! You're right. My problem is that I'm too concerned with people's opinions. I can't just let myself go and write because it will come out rubbish and you guys are actually going to read that rubbish. Frightening thought!
Well, I decided to ignore that and just write. Or try to, anyway. After all, if it's so rubbishy I can't bear to have you read it I don't, strictly speaking, have to post. Sure Emily won't post and Charissa won't post and even sweet Rachel Ro. has threatened not to post and pretty soon the Romany Epistles will be postponed for a year, but aside from that triffling matter I don't have to post. If I absolutely must, I can spend a week editing it before I post it. Only, somehow that doesn't work. When I sit down to edit it, I realize I have no direction, no theme, and I'm wasting my time and pretty soon I'll be a little old lady wondering where the years have gone and why I wasted them all writing about some person who never existed in a world that isn't real.
So I guess I have to force myself to write the rubbish all at once and keep going and not look back and swallow my confounded pride. But what if it gets lodged in my throat and I choke and DIE!?
*Gulp*
Monday, February 12, 2007
Monday, February 05, 2007
Procrastination
Attempt #1 After eating breakfast and cleaning my room, I sit down at the computer to work on Sam like a good little girl. However, it comes to mind that I'm expecting an e-mail from someone who is answering a question for me and I need to know the answer to that question, so I should check that first. Since I'm already checking my e-mail, I might as well read all of my e-mails. And hey, it wouldn't hurt to comment on a few peoples' xangas. Then, if one of your friends just happens to be online at the same time as you, it is quite natural that you'd want to IM with them.
Attempt #2 Having completely ignored Sam the first time around, after lunch I decided to sit down and work on him some more. But by slinking bit, six sentences appeared on the screen. Then I found myself distracted trying to find the right word for something. An old woman is yelling at Sam, only yelling isn't the correct word for what she's doing. It's more like bossing, or pestering, and raging at him, only it's none of those. After vetoing all the options your thesaraus provides, you realize that lambasted is a cool word. Say it ---lambasted. Isn't that a fascinating word? Yes, but it's not what the old woman is doing to Sam. Groused is also a cool word, but all the computer thesaraus says is that it's a bird with feathers on it's legs. Can't find other words like that. Then, for whatever reason I realized it was fun looking up words, and that words like wallopped sound really cool. When I'll use it I don't know, but it's fun to say. It makes me want to wallop someone on the backside. Then I start laughing with my sister and decide that half an hour is way too long to be looking up words in a thesaraus.
Attempt #3 It's about four in the afternoon when I went into my room with the intention of working on Sam for the third time. Then I found that my sister was on the computer, and that as it so happened Charissa had posted more Aiden. So naturally when Katie got off the computer I had to read Aiden. I mean, I can't just ignore Aiden. So I read Aiden, then Katie came back enquiring why I was reading Aiden when I had specifically said I wanted to work on Sam, and since I had read Aiden she had to read Aiden, and I decided I didn't feel like being on the computer anymore anyway.
Attempt #4 After having very generously decided that my sweet little sister's needs should come before my own and that she deserved to read Aiden before I worked on Sam, I went to the backyard with a notebook in hand to sit on the swing and write. After all, writing by hand makes things flow so much easier. So, I picked up where I left off with the grousing woman and start writing. My writing flowed beautifully, like cans flow behind the car of a newly married couple, banging and clashing merrily ---and gracefully--- along. I then decide that typing is the only way to go.
Attempt #5 It's now about six, and I'm thinking I really should work on Sam, so I sit down at the computer. First I read aloud to Katie what I have already written, in a very dramatic tone. She reads it even more dramatically, it sounds absolutely ridiculous. When I finally start to type, the font I have it set at keeps reverting back to this other font, and no matter how many times I fix it it keeps changing. Then I decide I feel more like writing about the trials of writing than writing Sam, and if it were not for that decision you would not be reading the beautiful entry you are now, in which I have the feeling I changed tenses about a dozen times and only corrected a few of them. It wants to be written in one way but I started out in another and I keep going back and forth and isn't this fun?
Now that you have been sufficiently entertained---- hey, wake up!!! Huh, I never knew you snored. . .
Attempt #1 After eating breakfast and cleaning my room, I sit down at the computer to work on Sam like a good little girl. However, it comes to mind that I'm expecting an e-mail from someone who is answering a question for me and I need to know the answer to that question, so I should check that first. Since I'm already checking my e-mail, I might as well read all of my e-mails. And hey, it wouldn't hurt to comment on a few peoples' xangas. Then, if one of your friends just happens to be online at the same time as you, it is quite natural that you'd want to IM with them.
Attempt #2 Having completely ignored Sam the first time around, after lunch I decided to sit down and work on him some more. But by slinking bit, six sentences appeared on the screen. Then I found myself distracted trying to find the right word for something. An old woman is yelling at Sam, only yelling isn't the correct word for what she's doing. It's more like bossing, or pestering, and raging at him, only it's none of those. After vetoing all the options your thesaraus provides, you realize that lambasted is a cool word. Say it ---lambasted. Isn't that a fascinating word? Yes, but it's not what the old woman is doing to Sam. Groused is also a cool word, but all the computer thesaraus says is that it's a bird with feathers on it's legs. Can't find other words like that. Then, for whatever reason I realized it was fun looking up words, and that words like wallopped sound really cool. When I'll use it I don't know, but it's fun to say. It makes me want to wallop someone on the backside. Then I start laughing with my sister and decide that half an hour is way too long to be looking up words in a thesaraus.
Attempt #3 It's about four in the afternoon when I went into my room with the intention of working on Sam for the third time. Then I found that my sister was on the computer, and that as it so happened Charissa had posted more Aiden. So naturally when Katie got off the computer I had to read Aiden. I mean, I can't just ignore Aiden. So I read Aiden, then Katie came back enquiring why I was reading Aiden when I had specifically said I wanted to work on Sam, and since I had read Aiden she had to read Aiden, and I decided I didn't feel like being on the computer anymore anyway.
Attempt #4 After having very generously decided that my sweet little sister's needs should come before my own and that she deserved to read Aiden before I worked on Sam, I went to the backyard with a notebook in hand to sit on the swing and write. After all, writing by hand makes things flow so much easier. So, I picked up where I left off with the grousing woman and start writing. My writing flowed beautifully, like cans flow behind the car of a newly married couple, banging and clashing merrily ---and gracefully--- along. I then decide that typing is the only way to go.
Attempt #5 It's now about six, and I'm thinking I really should work on Sam, so I sit down at the computer. First I read aloud to Katie what I have already written, in a very dramatic tone. She reads it even more dramatically, it sounds absolutely ridiculous. When I finally start to type, the font I have it set at keeps reverting back to this other font, and no matter how many times I fix it it keeps changing. Then I decide I feel more like writing about the trials of writing than writing Sam, and if it were not for that decision you would not be reading the beautiful entry you are now, in which I have the feeling I changed tenses about a dozen times and only corrected a few of them. It wants to be written in one way but I started out in another and I keep going back and forth and isn't this fun?
Now that you have been sufficiently entertained---- hey, wake up!!! Huh, I never knew you snored. . .
Friday, February 02, 2007
I found these quotes by Ann Lamott here: http://victoriagaines.com/page/6/. Some timing. ;-)
“Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled….we all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid.”
“Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go—but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.”
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper.”
“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident.”
“Everyone I know flails around, kvetching and growing despondent, on the way to finding a plot and structure that work. You are welcome to join the club.”
Join it? I'm the president!
“Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled….we all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid.”
“Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go—but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.”
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper.”
“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident.”
“Everyone I know flails around, kvetching and growing despondent, on the way to finding a plot and structure that work. You are welcome to join the club.”
Join it? I'm the president!
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