Another week is almost through – again I didn’t write as much as I would have liked, but I did write. That is two weeks in a row that I’ve managed to jot at least a few words down.
Sadly, I know that I haven’t done enough. Managing only a few hundred words a day won’t get much of anything finished any time soon. Still, there is something to be said for staying in practice.
It’s odd to think of writing as the sort of thing that would require practice, but it most certainly does. As much as many people, and plenty of authors, would like to think that writing is magical or comes from the muses, it really isn’t that different from any other intellectual activity. No one contests that it takes a great deal of practice and research to be good at chess – so why would writing be any different?
Even with only a few months ‘off’ I feel rusty. Sure, I haven’t forgotten the actual process of writing – periods, spelling, grammar etc (at least I don’t think so), and with my notes I haven’t fallen behind too far on the plot or characters, but I still feel something missing. The words don’t come as fast or as well. The story arrives on page a disjointed morass. Editing becomes a race against frustration.
I may have forgotten nothing, but there is a momentum to writing – the process motivates itself. My inability to work consistently forces me to ignore the urge to write when it arrives and force it when it’s lacking. At best, the product is a dreadful mess. Worse, it dampens any motivation to ever write again. A lack of routine has confused me into avoiding something that I like doing.
This week I’ve almost managed to push myself over the fulcrum. It’ll get easier if I can just stay focused. I’ve already had a few small eureka moments where the story started to piece itself together. I live for that final epiphany that solves the puzzle – the key that turns a sequence of events into a plot. Unlike most, I barely outline and I never have a completed story in mind when I start writing. I rely on inspiration to awaken the details that my planning fails to provide. It’s as exhilarating as it is nerve-wracking. (Is writing perhaps the only field that genuinely has eureka moments? Perhaps…“)
So, what am I writing?
Knowing that I’d be tired and unenthused unless I gave myself something ‘easy’ to work with, I’ve fallen back on my old standard – H.P. Lovecraft. His writing is so distinct, so easily pastiche-d, so thoroughly enjoyable, that I’ve been tempted to simply start transcribing one of his short stories and changes whenever the whim strikes. It’s really not a terrible idea for a writing exercise, but dedicated as I am to creating something both publishable and ‘good’ I’m attempting to marry the paranoia of Lovecraft with my own particular science fiction modus. Magic and technology have been linked more than a few times before – with Lovecraft + Spaceships as a prompt the stories practically write themselves.
In a perfect world I’ll have a draft finished the weekend. More realistic prediction – I’ll be bitching about my unfinished writing this time next year. Such is how it goes…
It is obvious that when running a business the amount of perform involved is actually significantly more when compared with one would expect working as a worker.