Showing posts with label making words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label making words. Show all posts

Monday, November 3, 2008

Making Words

I’m back again. I’ve had my head down, working on my manuscript and there hasn’t been time for much else. Now that the ms has stopped sulking good progress has been possible and I’ve made many words. The end is in sight.

There was no miraculous change, and the words haven't come easily. But I knew it was time to push on and I made a little pact with myself that I wasn't allowed to stop just because it was hard. Writing isn't always fun or easy but I think that's fair; the times when it's a bit of a grind balance those where it's more fun than a bunch of kittens and a ball of yarn.

So the words have been piling up and we should be back to our normal programming from now on. Well, at least what passes for normal around here.

Monday, October 13, 2008

I'm just not that into it

So I’m back writing again, sort of (a story too boring to share) but I’m just not into my current manuscript right now.

This makes me feel bad. Really bad. I love this story, but I’m no longer feeling it.

However, a friend emailed this morning to confess she’s having the same issue with her work in progress, and it’s making her feel bad. Guilty. Really, I think I should start a self-flagellation club for writers. Hair shirt, anyone?

As usual, though, I digress. Ahem.

Anyway it made me realise there are always times when we lose the love for what we’re working on. We have all these real-life demands and distractions and we also have a heap of new ideas dancing around on the edge of our awareness; nice, shiny, ideas. Mmm, fresh.

Ideas are easy. Fun. Stringing enough of them together, mulling over how to polish their raw potential so they really sparkle, that’s harder. It’s work. Sometimes it’s fun—so much fun it’s a wonder it isn’t illegal—but at other times it’s just work. Making words.

But making words eventually makes a story, and it’s funny how the tarnish slowly rubs off as you get closer to that magic combination of words, “The End.”

So I’m making words and hanging on to my faith that the shine will return. I’m resisting the deceptive siren song of those flirty new ideas throwing off gaudy blue and purple sparks in my peripheral vision.

I’m not taking ideas right now. I’m making words.