Ebbed
The flood has ebbed again. I’m trying not to get disheartened that it’s not coming as quickly as it had been a little while ago; it’s like anything else, I guess - it ebbs and flows, ebbs and flows. I just now have to ensure that I stick with it, working even when it’s hard, even when I don’t feel like it. It’s important that I don’t stop thinking of the story, trying and discarding new ideas and thoughts even when my fingers aren’t physically on the keyboard. I think that’s the only way that I can complete this; I have to immerse myself into this world to make any sense of it and for me, that often means late nights, insomnia, scribbled notes on the backs of envelopes and receipts.
The one positive step I’ve taken - the big, big, enormous, scary massive step - is to locate a couple of readers. It’s painful, sharing this: like masturbation in public. It’s opening myself to a level I’ve never shared before, and receiving criticism for it is just . . . ugh. But how else can I learn? I need people to help me with this. It’s all well and good me rattling out the fucking thing, but what’s the point if it’s senseless? I’m lucky that I have two people that I completely and utterly trust to tell me truth, whilst - hopefully - also not breaking my heart. And I can’t ask for more than anything else.
For the first time in a long, long time, I really think I’m going to finish this. It might not be good, it may not ever be published, but by fuck, it’s going to be complete.
Posted on 29th December, 2007 at 12:23 pm | Comment (0)
Smashed
It may not be completely disintegrated, but what I’ve done is as good as that - maybe better, circumstances considered.
I’ve made a sizeable chink in The Block.
Two weeks ago I was hovering around 25,000 words, the most of which were unlinked and untenable. I’ve spent two weeks hunched over my laptop, going through my rough drafts and notes and trying to put the puzzle back together, dumping what needed to be dumped and salvaging the scant few nuggets I could find in the shit. Today I smashed through the forty thousand word barrier. It’s not much, forty thousand words, not really, not in the grand scheme of things . . . But for someone who was ready to quit a couple of weeks ago? For someone who’s never before managed to pull her story together long enough to get it down on paper? It’s almost as good as completing the goddamn book.
Almost.
Posted on 26th November, 2007 at 10:17 pm | Comment (0)
Slow
It’s been a slow few months. It’s so hard trying to fit writing into the rest of the day-to-day - you know, crazy things like WORK and CHILDREN that so often have to take priority - but I’ve managed to add another five-odd thousand to my running total over the last few months. Not much, but from my perspective - hell, it’s better than nothing.
That said, it’s frustrating to think that many people could spew up an entire book in the time it’s taken me to shuffle together just a few thousand words.
Since submitting the first chapter to competition (results still unknown - winners are due to be contacted at the end of August. I shan’t hold my breath :P), I’ve found that I definitely know more about where the story is going, and firmed up some of the hazy, weaker areas of the story where previously, I understood little of where I was going, and less still about how I was getting there. As I write this today I understand Charlie and Will - their justifications, their backgrounds, their conflicts - considerably better, and feel far better equipped to tell their story. Only Friday, after re-reading an early chapter and noting that, still, I haven’t had the courage to commit to paper the precise moment where their relationship jumps from one of friendship to one of more, I muttered something to myself about sucking it up and just did it. Two thousand words later I have the bare bones, and whilst certainly not polished and complete, at least it’s there. Will did something I hadn’t expected him to (isn’t it fantastic when characters do that?) and I believe it all flows with a naturalness and spontaneity that I couldn’t even have hoped for three months ago.
All I need now is to suck it up some more and finish the fucking thing.
Posted on 19th August, 2007 at 9:18 am | Comment (0)