Monday, June 21, 2010

Keep Pushing

With constant interruptions to the writing process, sometimes its hard to keep motivated.  The day job is rearing its ugly head once again (well, something has to pay the bills!) so it trumps writing time.  It doesn't eliminate it, but it does reduce it.  That being said, I promised myself I'd make up the difference over the weekend - which I did.

(Saturday) But sitting down, staring at a half finished chapter, trying to figure out where you're going next - sometimes that can be daunting.  Especially when your train of thought has been derailed repeatedly.  So I started at the beginning, knowing I had some edits to make earlier on.  I'm only 6 chapters in, so this isn't so bad as it may sound.  Then something magical happens.  I get excited about the story all over again, and the words begin to flow.

(Sunday)  Then there is the detail aspect.  How do they do that, how do they get there, what does it look like.  Once again, I have to take time away, although this is important time away, to research pieces of the story.  At some point during the day, I realized I needed to put some words down, so I abandoned my search to be productive.  I have the major questions answered, and the detail, while interesting to look up, may not be important to the story.  I can fill in the blanks later, if they need to be filled in.

The moral of the story is to keep writing.  Even if it's drivel.  Even if it's incomplete.  Words on the page are valuable.  No words on the page are useless.  I actually started one chapter with what I wanted that chapter to entail.  One short paragraph saying "this is what they're doing and where they're going."  It works.  Its pushes you through to the next section. 

Just keep pushing. 

2 comments:

  1. Good advice. Writers write. I need to apply myself to the WIP more diligently. Too many other things going on that 'count' as writing but don't get more words on the page of the WIP.

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  2. You have a lot going on right now, too, Terry!

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